Politics

Readers of Spectator’s USA’s mothership, the venerable yet sprightly London Spectator, will know that one of the secrets of the Spectator’s endurance and popularity is the promiscuity—ideological, of course—of its columnists.Turn the page from Matthew Parris to Rod Liddle, and you undergo a whiplash of the most bracing kind. Parris is an ex-Conservative MP who, if not one of the ‘wets’ that Margaret Thatcher dismissed for ideological ploppiness, is certainly well irrigated with metropolitan manners. Rod Liddle, having worked at the BBC and being a member of the Labour Party, is on a Genghis Khan-like rampage against political correctness, Islamism and the decline of pop music.

The Trump administration may be heading into an infinity war. Europe is gearing up to retaliate against American on the trade front. China is indicating that it will refuse to negotiate on several key Trump trade demands. The Iran deal may be ripped up on May 12. And national security adviser John Bolton seems intent on sabotaging any negotiations with North Korea, something he did in the George W. Bush administration when he helped to terminate the 1994 nuclear deal that the Clinton administration had negotiated with the North.This past weekend, Bolton proclaimed that North Korea should follow the precedent of Libya when it comes to denuclearization.

You have to give it to Donald Trump. Not for pushing North Korea towards negotiations, or for holding China to account over dumping low-grade steel onto the American market, or even for healing the diplomatic breach between France and the United States—but for missing the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on Saturday night. People accuse Trump of being capricious and having a poor sense of judgement, but he’s consistent when it comes to the Correspondents' Dinner. The crassness of Michelle Wolf’s jokes makes you wonder whether it’s the press, not the president, whose judgement is askew. Trump dodged the dinner last year too, and is presumably already filling his calendar for the next two years. This year, Trump addressed a rally in Michigan.

Like all stereotypes, the “sneaky Jesuit” is truer than not. And as a practicing Catholic, I’m grateful to the Society of Jesus for its work refining the art of equivocation. It’s gotten me out of several difficult conversations with housemates without outright lying, such as: “Who drank the last of the Maker’s Mark?” Not me! (It wasn’t the last, after all. There are thousands more bottles all over the world.) So, defenders of the Jesuit priest Patrick Conroy aren’t wrong when they condemn Speaker Paul Ryan, who recently dismissed the Congressional chaplain for being “too political”.

For France and Germany, the contrast could scarcely be starker. For three days Emmanuel Macron was wooed and fêted by Donald Trump, treated to marching bands and banquets. Today, Angela Merkel made a brief two-and-a-half hour stop-off at the White House, then flew away again. So does this mean President Macron is Trump’s New Best Friend and Chancellor Merkel is just his sideman (or should that be sidewoman?)? As always, in international diplomacy, this is a question to which the answer is: well, yes and no.Sure, the dramatic difference between these tête-à-têtes was no coincidence. Yes, Macron’s was a full state visit, Merkel’s was merely a working meeting, but the disparity is deeply symbolic, and the timing makes it even more so.

Absorbing the handholding—we were not party to anything so standoffish as handshakes here—the kisses, and the hugs, I thought of Paradise Lost: “They hand in hand with wand'ring steps and slow,/ Through DC took their solitary way.” I quote from memory. Macron and Trump, Donald and Emmanuel: the state visit was nothing if not a bromance, at least in its pas de deux. I think it was in Ars amatoria that Ovid recommends that suitors take every opportunity to touch the objects of their interest. If you are sitting at the games with your date and a speck of dust—or dandruff—falls on her dress, flick it off with your hand. If no speck of dust falls, flick it off anyway. Then she’ll be perfect.

Debbie Lesko, a former Arizona state lawmaker, was jubilant over her victory for a seat in Congress last night against Hiral Tipirneni, a physician who was never given much of a chance to win. But Lesko’s narrow tally—52.9 per cent to 47.1 per cent—in a staunchly conservative district is why Republican strategists are not. Donald Trump won the district by 21 percentage points in 2016, but his widespread unpopularity now looms large over congressional races. Republican candidates are between the devil and the deep blue sea. Distance themselves from Trump and the base revolts. Tie themselves closely to the old boy and independent voters find them revolting. How to propitiate angry voters? A more popular Trump would have a tonic effect on the party.

Call it the audacity of hope. Emmanuel Macron wants to become the savior of the West. Like Sartre, he wants to tell Trump that there is no exit, at least when it comes to the Iran deal.He gave Donald Trump an air kiss on the cheek yesterday before he headed off to Mount Vernon for a dinner with the Trumps. Next comes a state dinner, the first Trump has held. Planned by Melania herself, it promises to be a fulsome occasion, filled with pious asseverations of brotherly love between two revolutionary nations. By contrast, when German chancellor Angela Merkel visits later this week, she will likely be banished to the scullery. Trump has turned his back on Germany. He has grudges to settle. Trump’s grandfather Friedrich was booted out of Bavaria in 1905.

Celebrity apologies are all the rage. Such is the power of Twitter, that stars without round-the-clock PR surveillance and teams of media advisors will often find themselves in hot water. This week, it’s pop-country singer Shania Twain who has fallen foul of the perpetually offended. Why? Twain had the audacity to talk about supporting Trump in an interview with the Guardian. “I would have voted for him because, even though he was offensive, he seemed honest”, she said. “Do you want straight or polite? Not that you shouldn’t be able to have both. If I were voting, I just don’t want bullshit. I would have voted for a feeling that it was transparent. And politics has a reputation of not being that, right?”, she continued.