The beginning of a disturbing new world
ABC draws a drastic conclusion:
“Donald Trump’s second term in the White House marks the end of the entire modern era. And the beginning of a disturbing new world in which giant leaps are being made in perfecting artificial intelligence, the planet is overheating, global fertility rates are decreasing, the truth is more relative than ever, oligarchs are amassing more and more power, autocracies are claiming the future and democracies are behaving like endangered species.”
Shock and awe
Jutarnji list wonders what the world will face when Trump starts enforcing decisions by decree:
“One unknown facing most of the US and the world is the executive orders the 47th president will sign after being sworn in and moving into the Oval Office. According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump announced at a meeting with Republicans in the Senate that he would not wait, he had prepared around one hundred such orders and would in some cases go to the limits of his presidential powers in order to implement them alone, i.e. without Congress. Reuters reports that in the inner circle of the new administration, the executive orders are called ‘Shock and Awe’ – a term from military jargon used when one side is overwhelmingly superior.”
Many delighted guests this time
Sydsvenskan sees major differences to Trump’s first inauguration in 2017:
“Among the invited VIP guests is a long list of celebrities, tech billionaires such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, as well as foreign right-wing populist politicians – from Argentine President Javier Milei to the British populist leader Nigel Farage and representatives of the German AfD, the Spanish Vox and the Belgian Vlaams Belang. But perhaps most astonishing are the artists who are joyfully welcoming Trump to the White House this time. Like the Village People, a group with deep roots in the LGBTI movement. That says something about normalisation.”
MAGA vs tech billionaires
Diena sees a split among Trump’s supporters over the immigration issue:
“The original core of the disagreement is simple: MAGA [Make America Great Again], in other words national conservatives, call for the elimination of illegal immigration as well as a radical reduction in legal immigration, while techno-billionaires argue that the United States needs to continue to attract talent from around the world. … What’s also interesting about the situation is that almost all of the tech billionaires who are Trump supporters (often referred to as the PayPal Mafia) were not born in the United States. … This is a sign that a longer-term conflict is brewing between these two camps.”
Another bully in the global playground
The Tages-Anzeiger equates Trump’s US with Russia and China:
“Trump is a bully entering the global school playground. He is the third to appear, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are already standing there, straddle-legged. Bully is the English word for a someone who intimidates weaker classmates. Trump, although democratically elected, is such a bully. … Despite their rivalry, the other two bullies are probably looking forward to being in Trump’s company. Because from now on they will no longer be the only rulers who want to shift national borders. … On 20 January a third revisionist superpower will join them, Donald Trump’s US.”
Turbulent times ahead
Kristi Raik, director of the International Center for Defence and Security, analyses the global security situation in ERR Online:
“The old, liberal, rules-based world order is broken and Trump seems uninterested in fixing it. Instead we’re facing a turbulent period of power struggles between major powers in which might, not right, counts. Old concepts such as spheres of influence are back in fashion. Confrontations will take place over who controls strategically important areas, natural resources and connections. Trump’s main opponent in this fight is China, and it is difficult to see that conflict as anything other than a continuation of the confrontation with Russia.”
Tough but not crazy
Interest-driven power is the defining feature of Trump’s approach, writes wPolityce.pl:
“Much can be said about Trump’s policy: it is certainly brutal, it aims to create new realities, it relies on raw power. It’s also risky because it won’t necessarily achieve the desired result. All this is true, but you can’t say it’s ‘crazy’, chaotic or ill-conceived. Those who say this are misjudging the new reality. We are witnessing a return of state politics in the classical sense, which is primarily about interests and power rather than values.”
Rethink Europe’s stance
The US is returning to its tradition of exceptionalism, historian Ludovic Tournès observes in Le Monde:
“The interests of the US are now very different from those of Europe, geopolitically, economically – just think of the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act – as well as environmentally. The US economic and cultural model, which Donald Trump refuses to question, is based on the promise of eternal prosperity fuelled by unlimited natural resources. The Europeans, who are used to seeing the US as an ally, should perhaps reconsider their stance. This is a dizzying proposal, I agree. But the new president is forcing us to face it.”
The rule of the rich
Elon Musk and his crowd will be the real power brokers in Trump’s second term, The Guardian fears:
“Rarely has the marriage of politics and riches been as naked or unashamed as with Mr Trump. The man who rages against elites has assembled a cabinet with 13 billionaires. … Wealth allows its owners to shape reality. The railroads that enriched 19th-century tycoons literally set the time to which the nation ran. Now the ‘tech industrial complex’ highlighted by Mr Biden and run by Mr Trump’s new friends works at an even more intimate level, determining what voters see. At stake may ultimately be the question of who shall rule: the people or America’s new aristocrats.”
A precedent for impunity
Tvnet comments on the recent report by special investigator Jack Smith according to which Trump would have been convicted of attempting to illegally interfere in the 2020 US presidential election had he not won the November election:
“How long will the US democratic system tolerate a framework in which the president is effectively shielded from any legal accountability for his actions, even if they undermine the country’s electoral process? … Could this impunity set a dangerous precedent for other leaders in the future? Ultimately, this case is not just about Trump – it is about the US’s ability to defend its democracy and its belief that no one is above the law.”
Defend our threatened values
From next week on our moral values will be in grave danger, warns De Standaard:
“In Europe, too, enthusiasm among the far right and business leaders about the Trumpian turnaround is growing, and they are stressing that it’s time for realpolitik. Resisting this trend, they say, is nothing but obsolete moral superiority that weakens us and which Europe can no longer afford. But the opposite is the case. The values that Trump will sweep away next Monday are the basis of our greatest strength. It’s time to resist.”