Czech president Petr Pavel warned that Donald Trump’s recent comments questioning the role of Nato have damaged the alliance’s credibility more than the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has done in several years.
Pavel, a retired Nato general and former chair of the Nato military committee, also said that Trump’s criticism of the alliance over the Iran war was “to put it mildly, unfair”.
“The moment we begin to question the alliance as a single, united entity, ready to act together and very decisively then, of course, its role is lost,” he warned.
He said that Trump ‘s criticism appeared to miss the fact that Nato is a defence alliance, and “not an alliance that will automatically help in wars waged outside its territory”.
What a complete bullshit statement.
Yes having 5-10% of the European vote is doing well, because it used to be less, but compared to USA where Trump got the majority vote!! And Trump is more extreme than even the AfD.
In USA the extreme right is actually in power, extreme as in literally fascist destroying democracy and talking about genocide far right. Europe is nowhere near where USA and Russia are. But of course we are paying attention.
Looking randomly at France, it’s 40-50% right now, and other parties have been adopting far-right stances across the continent to compete. But yes, the US is much worse. Although that broad cross-class appeal worries me. With any luck it ends in Japanese-style democracy not Hungarian-style autocracy.
Anyway, OP came in only mentioning the US, and said imperialism, not fascism or autocracy or the far-right. Those are not the same thing.
Even in France there’s a huge difference between the extreme right there and in USA. Le Penn is of course a traitor that support Russia, but she is not for instance advocating against healthcare for all. She is also not trying to undermine ordinary workers. But she hates foreigners and think Russia should be allowed to take Ukraine. But she is also not a war monger like Trump, and as far as we know she is not a pedophile.
Yes she is bad, and I have no idea why she is popular in France? But she is not nearly as dangerous to our democracy even just in France, as Trump is in USA. Also they do not have 40-50% support, she only got 23% of the vote, only because France has the stupid system that ends op pitting 2 candidates did she get 41% of the vote, when there was only one other candidate to compete against.
So you are wildly exaggerating the popularity of the far right in France and in Europe. Only the undemocratic presidential system in France makes her and “Rassemblement National” a danger of getting actual power.
Oh, you’re French yourself. Didn’t mean to make this personal, for what it’s worth.
Ditto for the US. Each party gets 50% every election, with the margin swinging predictably based on, like, who’s incumbent and how the economy is. And electoral districts are basically designed to have a set outcome at this point. Trump came to power because he’s popular with the radicals that vote in Republican primaries.
FWIW their system is so much worse than the French one, even if the French one is worse than, like, Norway.
No I’m not French, I’m from Denmark.
Yes in USA it’s worse, because the president of USA has even more extensive powers, and congress isn’t entirely democratic either.
On this we are 100% in agreement.