Donald trump

Europe should be wary of Biden’s cuddly capitalism

Judging by the European press’ reaction to his address to Congress this week, US president Joe Biden’s domestic agenda is popular outside of the United States as well.  ‘In the choice between going big and going bipartisan, big is winning, remaking America with government at the centre,’ the Guardian writes approvingly. Biden embarks on ‘a historic battle against inequality,’ a Le Monde headline announces. ‘America’s democracy can no longer endure the growing gap in income and education, so Biden has to fight for the middle,’ the Süddeutsche Zeitung piles on. Notwithstanding the president’s unassuming demeanour, there can be no question about the his ambitions. After the sizeable Covid-19 relief package, worth

Is Joe Biden trying to make America poor again?

John Maynard Keynes is alleged to have said ‘When the facts change, I change my mind — what do you do, sir?’ I am no fan of Keynes generally, but there is something to be said for that pithy ‘second-thoughts’ comment. It pains me to admit it, but the president’s address to the joint session of Congress put me in mind of Keynes’s observation. After all, was it not a rousing address? Even long-time critics acknowledged it. One described it as ‘a perfect blend of strength and empathy’. I have to agree. That same commentator wrote that ‘Tonight, I was moved and inspired. Tonight, I have hope and faith in

My French lesson has taken a most unexpected turn

‘Alas, David can’t be here this afternoon,’ I told the French teacher as she let me into her light and spacious home. ‘He has an appointment to see a specialist about his ears.’ I tried to say this in French. Conversational exchanges that take place between her front door and the lesson table are usually conducted under a flag of truce and she restricted her expressions of gaping horror to a minimum. ‘His ears?’ she said. ‘Poor David! What is wrong with his ears?’ ‘I think he was blown up by a shell,’ I said. ‘And his eardrums were damaged in the explosion.’ Our French teacher lives a quiet and

Is Macron the new Trump?

For the last three months journalists across the world have been missing the curious mix of bombast, arrogance, untruths and showmanship that was President Donald Trump. But is a new unlikely figure now filling that void? As an embattled, insecure incumbent staring down the barrel of defeat in an upcoming presidential contest dominated by Covid, Emmanuel Macron must be hoping his fate doesn’t play out like the Donald’s. But as France’s third wave of Covid gets underway, the country’s president appears to be taking tips from his one time counterpart on pandemic leadership. The French newspaper Le Monde today reports a series of fawning quotes from Macron’s aides who now call him ‘the president epidemologist.’ One

Walls went up after the Berlin Wall came down

In her 2017 travelogue Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe, the writer and poet Kapka Kassabova meets Emel, a loquacious Turkish civil servant who tells her that ‘the only good thing about a border is that you can cross it’. These words speak to an inherent contradiction. Borders stand as overt manifestations of national power. They represent what seems most fixed and immutable about the state. But in reality, what they do more than anything else is invite transgression. This idea that borders are not quite what we perceive them to be is the thematic ballast for Klaus Dodds’s impressive and timely Border Wars. And it is a

Donald Trump tightens his grip on the Republican party

‘Do you miss me yet,’ Donald Trump asked the crowd in his opening remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference this afternoon: the most important annual conference for the Republican party. The former president was given the keynote address at CPAC, with anticipation that he might have a big announcement to make about his future plans, including the possibility of another run for the White House. In a speech that ran for roughly 90 minutes, Trump never committed himself to a 2024 bid, but he teased it several times. ‘I may even decide to beat them for a third time,’ he said at the start of the speech: the first

What Trump’s acquittal means for the future of American politics

Former President Donald Trump was acquitted by the Senate today, in what has turned out to be the shortest impeachment trial in American history, after the House of Representatives voted to impeach him last month after the riot at the Capitol building. Despite being the first president impeached twice during his time in office – this time charged with inciting insurrection – the Senate once again failed to secure two-thirds majority to convict him. When Trump was first impeached in 2019, the Senate voted along near-partisan lines – only Utah senator and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney broke party lines. This time, seven Republicans broke rank to vote with the Democrats

Trump is being defended by Foghorn Leghorn

We weren’t long into Bruce Castor’s opening speech defending Donald Trump in his impeachment trial before we knew it was going to be special. ‘I don’t want to steal the thunder from the other lawyers’ thunder,’ Castor intoned to a mildly befuddled Senate. ‘But Nebraska, you’re going to hear, is quite a judicial thinking place.’ We never got around to the payoff for that one, but there were plenty of other amusements. We learned about the ‘Greek Republic’, which apparently awaits salvation from the United States Senate. We had a tech update: ‘We all know what records are, right: the thing you put the needle down on it and then

The Trump Show enters its final season

There is no point denying it — The Trump Show, the craziest comedy the God of TV has ever produced, has been fizzling out. Yes, the ‘Storming of the Capitol’ episode was a dramatic denouement. The absurd sight of ridiculously dressed QAnoners stumbling into an accidental attempt at a government coup was shockingly hilarious. But the violent scenes left people depressed. The divine scriptwriters appeared to have lost the plot, gone off the deep end, ‘jumped the shark’, as they say. The networks tried to move forward by putting The Biden Show, a geriatric version of The West Wing, on prime time. But audiences so far aren’t sure how seriously they

Letters: Don’t overlook the Trumpisms

Canterbury tales Sir: Having opened my copy of The Spectator upon arrival in the post, I read your article ‘Welby’s gatekeeper’ with interest (23 January). I was surprised and humbled to discover how much power and influence I have over the political engagement of the Archbishop. Let there be no doubt that the Archbishop sets his own agenda. More fundamentally and crucially, I was disappointed to see victims of abuse and wider issues relating to safeguarding being brought in to play in a politically focused piece about the workings of Lambeth Palace. It is a matter of public record that the Archbishop and his team are ready to meet with

Lionel Shriver

For Democrats, the Capitol assault was the gift that keeps on giving

As events recede, they change. When Donald Trump’s unhinged endgame culminated in a popular assault on the Capitol, most Americans of all political persuasions watched the improbable broadcast with genuine horror. Hell, yes, I was horrified myself. But as this month has advanced, and fears about my country disintegrating into anarchy have so far proved mercifully misplaced, lefty American commentators have progressed from anguish to glee. The New York Times banners that assault on its pages pretty much every day. The still of scruffs in red hats climbing the facade of the Capitol is now a standard backdrop on CNN. It must be thrilling to have your opponents do so

Rod Liddle

The big tech bullies

I was in the kitchen preparing the family’s dinner when the inauguration of Joe Biden was on TV, so I caught only mysterious fragments of his speech, over the noise of the blender and stuff. ‘I want an hour — an hour — with my own teen wolf,’ Joe seemed to say at one point. And then: ‘America, America, I give to you my vest.’ I raced through to the living room when someone announced that Garth Crooks was going to sing ‘Amazing Grace’ — good choice, Joe, I thought. Garth seems to have lost a little weight and indeed colour, but he did a decent job. It all went

No, Spike Lee: Donald Trump is not like Hitler

I wish people would stop comparing Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler. Not because I’m worried about Trump’s feelings — he’s big enough to look after himself — but because of the extraordinary damage these comparisons are doing to historical memory. All the loose, opportunistic, cheap-thrill talk about Trump being the new Hitler is trivialising the Nazi regime and the grotesque crimes of the 1930s. The latest celeb to jump on the Trump-Hitler bandwagon is film director Spike Lee. During an acceptance speech for a special prize from the New York Film Critics Circle, Lee said Trump would ‘go down in history with the likes of Hitler’. Trump and all ‘his

Biden’s trans rights agenda is bad news for women and girls

Joe Biden has wasted little time grabbing rights from women and girls across America. On day one, he signed an Executive Order on ‘Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation’. This is being hailed as a pivotal moment for transgender rights. But it’s nothing of the sort.  The mention of ‘Gender Identity’ alone is enough to raise the alarm about the consequences of this proposal. Gender identity might be a popular concept right now, but it isn’t even clear what it means. Put simply, it’s a concept which refers to a person’s individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex assigned at birth. All too

Kate Andrews

Can Joe Biden stop America’s ‘uncivil war’?

Having won more votes than any presidential candidate in American history, Joe Biden might have hoped for a triumphant entry into Washington. Instead, he travelled to the inauguration in a private plane to deliver his speech to more members of the National Guard than guests. A combination of the pandemic and security fears ruined normal proceedings: the event had become a target, crowds too great a risk. The emptiness embodies the problem Biden needs to overcome: not just the spats between left- and right-wing politicians, but the unravelling of trust in American politics. His challenge goes beyond governing. It is the question of how to unite the country — or,

Where will the American right turn now?

Here’s a trick question: who said the following, and when? ‘Serious questions have arisen about the accuracy and reliability of new electronic voting machines, including concerns that they can be susceptible to fraud and computer hacking.’ A box of Roses chocolates for anyone who guessed correctly. That was Dianne Feinstein, Democrat senator for California, speaking aeons back in 2006. One decade later and another Democrat declared that she had lost the presidential election that year because Vladimir Putin had hacked the US voting system. A month after losing the 2016 race, a still-sore Hillary Clinton told party donors: ‘This is not just an attack on me and my campaign. This

Mary Wakefield

How cults crumble

There’s something creepy about the way we call Donald Trump fans a cult, then watch them hungrily, hoping they’ll do something colourful, though not actually threatening — like self-immolate, perhaps. Lockdown is boring and we’ve watched everything on Netflix. So, MSNBC and chill. But not all MAGA fans are cultish, and not all political cults are on the right. 2020 acted like a cult accelerator, and now there are half-brainwashed people everywhere, on every part of the political spectrum, in your family, among your friends. How can you tell? It’s all in the eyes. It’s famously hard to define a cult. However obviously nutty a group may seem — aliens,

Freddy Gray

At last, America has a gaffe-prone president again

‘Folks, I can tell you, I’ve known eight presidents, three of them intimately.’ So said then vice-president Joe Biden in 2012. A month earlier, he had assured a crowd in New York that President Barack Obama could, in Teddy Roosevelt’s famous words, ‘speak softly but carry a big stick’ when it came to international relations. ‘I promise you,’ he said. ‘The president has a big stick.’ The crowd started laughing at the double-entendre. Joe wasn’t joking. ‘I promise you,’ he repeated, gravely. That is just Joe being Joe. The 46th president is someone who quite often has no idea what he is saying. Curiously, everybody seems relieved about that. We’re

A Trump comeback? Don’t bet on it

He did it. Donald Trump made it through four years, not an accomplishment many of his detractors thought he would achieve, or even wanted him to. ‘See you soon,’ Trump said. A promise or a threat? The truth is that Trump has been badly diminished by his antics in the past few weeks, starting but not ending with the melee on 6 January. His enemies didn’t torpedo his presidency. He torpedoed himself. Trump’s valedictory remarks on Tuesday gave the game away. He couldn’t bring himself to breath the name of Joe Biden. He assumed zero responsibility for the pandemic, barely restraining himself from referring to the ‘Kung Flu’. And he