Only Europe can stop the slide back to the rule of Trumpian tyrants

If you are an observer of Washington events, you may have noticed that every White House press briefing and pronouncement by a member of the Trump team is preceded by an effusion of adulation for the President himself. Whatever action has been taken, decision made, or objective (supposedly) achieved, it is directly attributed to the Great Leader whose personal will is apparently the only force that determines the fate of the nation. 

This North Korean level of idolatry for the magnificence of the presidential persona is not normal. It is, indeed, out of character with the spirit of the nation’s historical conception of itself as an egalitarian democracy in which anyone – the child of any family – may rise to the highest office in the land while still remaining, at heart, an ordinary American. Being elected president does not make you a god – or even the bearer of a sacred truth. 

According to the Constitution, it does not even give you the power to do what you like. You are simply the head of the Executive branch of the federal government whose intentions may (indeed, should) be held in check by Congress and the courts. 

I reiterate this point, which I realise that I have made before on these pages, because I still find myself endlessly shocked by the flouting of the basic assumptions of American nationhood which were once ingrained in the consciousness of every schoolchild. Many presidents have been admired, lauded and even idolised – Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan. But they were not given this bizarre superhuman status which implies that any criticism or doubt about presidential policy is a form of sacrilege or subversion. Such treatment would have seemed, to put it bluntly, un-American: a betrayal of the ideals on which the country was founded. 

The White House press spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, who can switch from gushing sycophancy to sinister threats in the blink of an eye, is now banishing established media organisations (like the Associated Press) whose questioning of the Glorious Ruler has proved too persistent. In their place, she is inviting supportive outliers from the wilder shores of social media to White House press conferences. 

She makes it clear, in quite unambiguous terms, that any expressed doubt about the logic or efficacy of a Trump policy – such as occurred recently when the Associated Press representative tried to make clear to her the sense in which tariffs become taxes – is a form of disrespect which will not be tolerated.

All of this is completely consistent with what appears to be a larger plan which the Trump White House openly endorses: that power in the world should now be shared by two or three emperor figures who will carve up global territory and resources between them, stepping over (or on) any annoying smaller states whose populations are too inconsequential to matter. The Trump army of sycophants is a mirror image of those thuggish Kremlin spokesmen who retail Putin’s outrageous lies about the “neo-Nazi” regime in Ukraine, in broadcast interviews with the Western media. 

World peace is to be enforced by a tiny group of monopolistic super rulers who will seize whatever lands or facilities they require. In return for this annexation and extortion, they will offer security from each other’s predations. 

The United States and Russia (and maybe China eventually too?) will run a kind of protection racket in which independent states have to agree to give up ownership of their assets to secure them from marauding attacks by the other side. This was precisely the “deal” that Trump offered to Zelensky last week when he proposed an American takeover of Ukraine’s energy production. Presumably the White House will now take some satisfaction from the knowledge that the Ukrainian president will have to accept responsibility for the consequences of his refusal.

So here is the question of the day which must be answered: will the world unlearn everything it has taught itself in the modern age? Can the populations of nation states which had endorsed a belief in natural, inalienable human rights ever accept rule by egomaniacal mythology? 

Will politics become, as it was for many centuries, all about personal power rather than ideas and principles? Is the world to be carved up between narcissistic tyrants spouting delusional myths about their country’s history, and gangster bosses who seize the property of other nations with blatant threats?

No, surely this cannot happen. Western Europe, which learned the lessons of this kind of politics in such terrible, unforgettable ways during the last century, will have to step up. There is much dismissive sniggering about the Anglo-French “coalition of the willing”. It is toothless at best, meaningless at worst, blah-blah. 

Except that it isn’t. The resolve of the Old European countries may be impractical and – for the moment – unaffordable. But it is absolutely morally imperative, and in its way, magnificent, precisely because it is going to be so hard and cost so much in both financial and political terms. Some of its more startling developments are very concrete indeed: Germany is about to re-arm, which requires the dismantling of its historic resistance to both building up arms and acquiring more debt. That is a big deal and it suggests that something very considerable is shifting in the European consciousness. 

The Kremlin press secretary, Dmitri Peskov, put it quite succinctly last week: “The signals from Brussels and European capitals now mainly concern plans to militarise Europe, which is clearly at odds with the attitude of the presidents of Russia and the United States to seek ways to enter a peaceful settlement…Europe has turned itself into a party of war.” 

In other words, Europe (or at least some of it) is determined to resist a carve up of nations and their resources by a murderous autocrat and an unscrupulous magnate who believes in nothing except the power of money. Please God, let that be true.

Meanwhile, we can hope that this diabolical partnership will implode. Putin needs to stay at war to save his economy and Trump needs to bring peace to save his credibility. This wicked alliance cannot go on much longer.