French President Emmanuel Macron took the opportunity of the ceremonies commemorating the end of World War I to speak to the problem of nationalism.
Macron: Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism. By putting our own interests first, with no regard for others, we erase the very thing that a nation holds dearest, and the thing that keeps it alive: its moral values.
That “old-fashioned nationalism,” a raging sense of both innate superiority, cut through with a deep seated fear of inferiority, was a driving force for both World Wars. It’s also been the banner waved by Donald Trump and forces of xenophobia and racism around the world. But apparently it took more than just a translator to make it clear to Trump that Macron was kicking his pet cause in the teeth. It took coming home and listening to his Fox friends walk him through the steps before he could generate the proper levels of dander upage.
Trump might have explained that by nationalism he doesn’t mean an amoral, aggressive white nationalist agenda based on old-fashioned hate. Except, of course, that is what he means. So instead he decided to do what he does most often: threaten like a dime store mafioso. Hey, France! Pay up, or the next time German invades, don’t look for the US to come bail you out. Hmmph. It’s clear that Macron isn’t afraid of Germans. Instead, he’s concerned about the philosophy that drove people who thought black uniforms and skull pins were keen. People like Trump.
But just threatening to turn over France to The Hun wasn’t enough to satisfy Trump. Because clearly asking people not to be Nazis has brought Trump’s temper to a Freedom Fries level of boil. An hour after posting about how he’d happily watch France be overrun, Trump was back to threaten to slap tariffs on French wine. And that wasn’t the end of it. Trump is still ranting.
Lafayette, we are ... profoundly embarrassed.
Trump offers to make everyone’s New Years Day a little less sparkling by slapping a tax on champagne.
In case you’re wondering, the Wine Institute says wine imported from France pays a tariff of $0.11 per bottle, while wine exported from the US to France can pay as much as … $0.29. Sacrebleu! Yes, that twenty-nine cents is surely what stops everyone in France from drinking Mogen David from a box.
Oh, but Trump is not done with the cheese-eating-surrender-monkey-screed.
And of course, Trump couldn’t help but attempt to drop a red hat on the Eiffel Tower.
But while Devin Nunes rearranges his schedule to make renaming items in the Congressional dining room a top priority, it’s worth taking a quick look at what Macron wrote over the weekend.
Ancient demons resurface. New ideologies manipulate religions, and history threatens to resume its tragic course. Let us make a new oath among nations to place peace above all, for we know the cost!”
After all, Macron did go out in the rain to see the battlefields of the two great wars. Battlefields that are scattered across his country.
Trump’s entire trip to Europe, from skipping out on visiting the American cemetery, to refusing to walk with the other world leaders, to spending the day camped out in his PJs tweeting was just profoundly awful. Trump surrendered … to a little drizzle.
