SAM MAGAZINE 4/24 | 23 stitutions and even of his own advisors. All evidence suggests that he prefers to trust his own somewhat mercurial instincts, to prefer his own flexible interpretation of “facts” over those which might cast him or his actions in a poorer light, to be influenced by whomever has spoken to him most recently, and to sometimes speak or act without much reflection – as when he famously suggested drinking bleach to cure covid. His knowledge of American history (much less of world history) is, at best, limited, and his interpretation of the bits of history he does know is, most scholars would agree, somewhat idiosyncratic. He lacks the intellectual grounding – either sophisticated or intuitive – in American political theory (classical republicanism, Enlightenment liberalism, and New World views on democracy) which virtually all prior presidents have possessed: He is simultaneously both supremely self-confident and deeply insecure, aware that liberal elites at home and abroad have always regarded him as a nouveau riche buffoon. GIVEN ALL THIS, perhaps the only thing that can be said with certainty is that the next four years will be an eternity in either hell or purgatory for American and European diplomats. The precise character of that this hell/purgatory will take, however, is indeterminate. We will get a little better picture over the coming months when we get a better reading on the rate at which Mr. Trump’s physical and cognitive health is in fact declining, as we learn who will be on his starting team, and as we get announcements about which of his promised initiatives – inter alia, mass deportations, dramatically higher tariffs, elimination of large parts of the governmental bureaucracy, ending the war in Ukraine, and bringing peace to the Middle East – are given primacy. PESSIMISTS ON BOTH SIDES of the Atlantic are predicting the worst -- or, if not predicting the absolute worst outcomes that the human mind could imagine, nonetheless predicting things that are very, very bad indeed. The pessimists may very well be right. They usually are. THREE POINTS are worth noting, however. The first is that we really don’t know what Mr. Trump will end up attempting to do. For trans-Atlanticists, this may not grounds for much optimism, but it is certainly grounds for being cautious in making predictions. The second is that even with a reasonably clear vote of confidence like the one Mr. Trump has received, presidents often find themselves frustrated. Only in his own imagination, and that of fevered conspiracy-theorists, does a U.S. president have unlimited power. And the third is that, while the United States may indeed be the elephant in the world’s living room, European states do possess agency of their own. THE SECOND QUESTION – what the elections told us about America in 2024 – is far clearer. Here there is not only no need for a crystal ball, there is not even a need for prescription reading lenses. Most American elections are hard to parse or are open to multiple plausible interpretations. This one was not. A SOLID MAJORITY of Americans are angry and unhappy. They are angry and unhappy about two things. First, they are unhappy about a The next four years will be an eternity in either hell or purgatory for American and European diplomats.
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