Us politics

Sunday

Paul Wood

Will Donald Trump be assassinated, ousted in a coup or just impeached?

From our UK edition

We’re closing 2017 by republishing our twelve most-read articles of the year. Here’s No. 1: Paul Wood on whether Trump could follow in Nixon's footsteps and be forced from office: The ‘most deadly adversaries of republican government,’ wrote Alexander Hamilton, arise ‘chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union?’ Hamilton’s warning against ‘intrigue, and corruption’, published in 1788, speaks eerily to the Washington of today, where Donald Trump’s enemies imagine he is a Russian ‘agent of influence,’ bought or blackmailed by the Kremlin.

Wednesday

Jacob Heilbrunn

Is Donald Trump a new Winston Churchill?

From our UK edition

Is Donald Trump a new Winston Churchill? Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, whose daughter Sarah serves as Trump’s press secretary, suggested as much in a tweet yesterday. After watching the new biopic Their Darkest Hour, a tribute to Churchill’s fearlessness in 1940, Huckabee announced that he had been reminded of 'what real leadership looks like'. He added in a second tweet that for eight years America had a Neville Chamberlain in the form of Barack Obama; now such pusillanimity has been replaced by resolute courage: ‘in @realdonaldtrump we have a Churchill.’ A new battle over Britain has now erupted.

Tuesday

James Bartholomew

What explains the idiocy of the liberal elite? It’s their education

From our UK edition

We’re closing 2017 by republishing our twelve most-read articles of the year. Here’s No. 6: James Bartholomew on the liberal elite's reaction to Brexit and Trump: Enough! Enough! For months, the so-called liberal elite has been writing articles, having radio and TV discussions, giving sermons (literally) and making speeches in which it has struggled to understand those strange creatures: ordinary people. The elite is bemused by what drives these people to make perverse decisions about Brexit and Trump. Are they racist, narrow-minded or just stupid? Whatever the reason, ordinary people have frankly been a disappointment. Time, ladies and gentlemen, please! Instead, let’s do the opposite. Let’s try to explain to ordinary people what drives the liberal elite.

Friday

Seth J. Frantzman

Christmas in the Holy Land is once again overshadowed by politics

From our UK edition

Christmas in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth has, once again, been overshadowed by politics. The latest controversy surrounds Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The mayors of Bethlehem and Nazareth responded to Trump by toning down Christmas celebrations in a show of solidarity. Outside Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, the lights on the giant municipal Christmas tree were briefly dimmed in the run-up to Christmas in protest. In Nazareth, a traditional Christmas singing and dancing event was called off as a result of Trump's remarks. In Jerusalem, the celebrations are also muted. There is little sign of Christmas events in the historic Old City, where Christ once walked the streets.

Stephen Daisley

America has sometimes stood proudest at the UN when it has stood alone

From our UK edition

Outvoted on a resolution on Israel, on the wrong side of international opinion, the United States ambassador responded with an intemperate address to the UN General Assembly. America’s diplomat told the countries assembled: 'The United States rises to declare before the General Assembly of the United Nations, and before the world, that it does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act… A great evil has been loosed upon the world. The abomination of anti-Semitism… has been given the appearance of international sanction. The General Assembly today grants symbolic amnesty — and more — to the murderers of the six million European Jews.

Jacob Heilbrunn

The desperate struggle of the NeverTrump movement

From our UK edition

'We ex-communists are the only people on your side who know what it’s all about', Arthur Koestler declared in The God That Failed, the volume of essays by lapsed communists that appeared in 1949, the year that the Soviet Union exploded an atomic bomb and China went communist. There’s a certain loftiness to Koestler’s statement that can be rather grating, as though the formal badge of entry to opposing the dark side requires having submitted to darkness in the first place. Indeed, at the outset of the cold war, the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, who never flirted with the left (unlike many of his British contemporaries) expressed his qualms that more than a few of the ex-communists had retained their commissar-like qualities in opposing their former credo.

Thursday

Jacob Heilbrunn

Donald Trump desperately needs some outside help to save his presidency

From our UK edition

Donald Trump made a big deal about his new National Security Strategy (NSS), touting a new era of stalwart vigilance when he delivered a speech earlier this week. His predecessors, he said, had frittered away American dominance. He, and he alone, as Trump likes to say, would restore it. Except, as his national security council spokesman Michael Anton, explained on Monday, when it came to the actual document: 'I can't say that he’s read every line and every word. He certainly had the document ...and has been briefed on it.' Hmmm. Give points to Anton for trying to put the best spin on matters without purveying any falsehoods.

Wednesday

Jacob Heilbrunn

Donald Trump’s presidency now looks in danger of capsizing completely

From our UK edition

It’s starting to look as though the historic mission of Donald Trump, who was a registered member of the Democratic party as late as 2009, is to revive American liberalism. On Tuesday night, Trump, who earlier in the day had tweeted 'Roy Moore will always vote with us', accomplished his most improbable feat since winning the presidency. He helped hand over a Senate seat in Alabama, sweet home Alabama, the reddest of red states, to the Democratic candidate Doug Jones, a supporter of abortion rights and stricter gun controls. And so there was no sweetness for Trump last night. Instead, he had to eat bitterness, as the Chinese saying has it. A presidency that was already lurching unsteadily is now in danger of capsizing completely.

Freddy Gray

The Democrat victory in Alabama is a huge blow for Trump

These really are wild times in American politics. A Democrat, Doug Jones, just won the Senate Race in Alabama. A Democrat hasn’t won a Senate seat in the Heart of Dixie since 1992 – and that was Richard Shelby, who was so conservative he then became a Republican, and still is the senior GOP Senator for Alabama. The victory gives the Democrats a clean sweep in statewide elections in 2017. The party won the special elections in Virginia and New Jersey in November, and success in Alabama now gives them great momentum going into the mid-term elections of 2018. Trump can keep pointing at the economy and saying he is making America great again. The Democrats can keep pointing to what’s happened at the ballot since his inauguration and say he’s losing.

Tuesday

Douglas Murray

Sadiq Khan should tell Trump the truth about multicultural London

From our UK edition

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, likes to make a stand. Specifically he likes to present himself (and the city in which he has been elected Mayor) as an antidote to global concerns about immigration, human unpleasantness in general and Donald Trump in particular. For instance, on the BBC on Sunday morning he explained his opposition to President Trump receiving a state visit to the UK. Though he added: ‘If [Trump] wants to meet with the Mayor of London, of course I’d be happy to meet with him and show him parts of London where Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Sikhs, members of organised faiths and those that aren’t, don’t just tolerate each other but respect, celebrate and embrace each other.

Thursday

Stephen Daisley

Donald Trump is right: Jerusalem is the capital of Israel

From our UK edition

The Israelis are doing it again. That thing they do when someone, anyone, even a total nishtgutnick like Donald Trump, comes along and tosses them a few warm words. Their little hearts leap to be told that, on balance, all things being equal, they have a right to exist, perhaps even to defend themselves, and that calls for their destruction are jolly well not on. Recognition is a miser’s feast but Israel gorges on it like a banquet.   They are dining out on Donald Trump’s proclamation 'that the United States recognises Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel and that the United States Embassy to Israel will be relocated to Jerusalem as soon as practicable’. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared it ‘a historic day’.

Wednesday

Jacob Heilbrunn

Donald Trump’s presidency lurches from embarrassment to disaster

From our UK edition

Here we go again. Donald Trump decertified the Iran nuclear deal in October. Now, in another audacious foray into Middle East diplomacy, Trump is waving goodbye to the waiver about moving the American embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It appears that the former real estate mogul will embark upon one last construction project. If he couldn’t build in Moscow, why not give Jerusalem a go? Overnight, an international Nimby crowd has formed to decry the move. The Palestinians are announcing that it’s the 'kiss of death' to any negotiations about a two-state solution. The Saudis have voiced their firm opposition. Theresa May thinks that 'The status of Jerusalem should be determined in a negotiated settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Sylvia Rothschild

Trump’s Jerusalem decision may extinguish hope in the Middle East

From our UK edition

Let’s face it, Jerusalem is politically, diplomatically and religiously special. It is important to the faith traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. And it is important to the political aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians.  Generations of diplomats have kicked the issue of the status of Jerusalem into the long grass, deciding it to be so intractable it could only be dealt with at the very end of the peace process when all other problems were resolved. In November 1947, the United Nations agreed to divide Palestine into two states, one Arab, one Jewish, and designated Jerusalem as 'corpus separatum', an internationally administered separate territory. That plan did not last long.

Freddy Gray

Donald Trump gives Israel a Hanukkah present to remember

From our UK edition

It’s Hanukkah next week, and President Donald J Trump has decided to give the state of Israel a big present. He will today recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and it is understood that America will shortly move its embassy from Tel Aviv to the Holy City.  This is something that Israeli diplomats have long hoped for but did not think possible before President Trump entered the White House this year. His kindness will go down very well with most Israelis and supporters of Israel. However, the Arab world sees it as a deep affront.  Jared Kushner, the president’s 36 year old son-in-law, himself an Orthodox Jew, has been handling Middle Eastern talks for his wife’s father’s administration.

Saturday

Freddy Gray

Donald Trump’s tax cut has united the Republicans

From our UK edition

President Donald J Trump likes nothing better than winning, and he has just had the first major legislative win of his presidency. An enormous $1.4 trillion tax cut has now been passed by the Senate. No Democrat voted for the bill, yet still it passed by 51 to 49 votes. This avoided the anticipated legislative deadlock that would have meant Vice President Mike Pence having to break a 50-50 tie. The bill will now be voted on in the House of Representatives on Monday, where the Republicans have a much larger majority. By getting his tax cut through Congress, Trump answers one of the most stinging critiques of his presidency so far — that he hasn’t actually achieved anything. Now it appears that he has.

Robert Hardman

Should Donald Trump be invited to the Royal Wedding?

From our UK edition

Two golden rules of royal weddings. First, it’s always wonderful on the day. Second, there is always an almighty official spat beforehand which no one saw coming. When Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer, there was a Spanish boycott because the honeymoon included Gibraltar. In 2011, Prince William’s marriage plans had a crisis moment when it turned out the guest list had included the Syrian ambassador but not ex-PMs Blair and Brown. We can already spot one sensitive issue. Should Donald Trump be invited? For: the bride is American. Against: she backed Hillary. In fact, Mr Trump is unlikely to be invited because he is not a friend and this is not a state occasion.

Friday

Jacob Heilbrunn

Now that Mueller has flipped Flynn, will he target Kushner next?

From our UK edition

As I rode the metro to work this morning, an elderly gentleman holding a sign that read, `Manafort-Flynn. Who’s Next?’ boarded my car at the Judiciary Square stop. It’s a question the Trump administration may be pondering as well. Now that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has flipped former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty today to lying to the FBI, speculation is rife about whom he target next, with much of it centring on Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of the president. Thus Bloomberg’s Eli Lake reports that Kushner is being fingered as the person who ordered Flynn to create a backchannel to Russia. For now the administration is trying to depict the day’s events as a rather humdrum affair.

Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Should Trump’s state visit go ahead?

From our UK edition

Donald Trump’s January visit to Britain now looks to be in doubt following the furore over his tweets. Diplomats in the United States are said to have put the plans on ice, according to the Daily Telegraph. Good, says the Guardian in its editorial this morning: it’s time to ditch the state visit. Tump’s decision to retweet anti-Muslim videos shows ‘again that he panders to bigots and is no friend of this country’, the paper argues. Brexit already makes this a ‘dangerous’ moment for Britain, says the paper, which goes on to suggest that further allying ourselves to a ‘thuggish narcissist’ will hardly help matters.

Wednesday

Freddy Gray

By sharing jihadi porn, Donald Trump plays into the Islamists’ hands

From our UK edition

Britain First hasn’t really taken off as a political movement in Britain, but it has caught the attention of the most powerful man on the planet. Today President Donald J Trump decided to brighten his and everyone else’s morning by retweeting three videos, posted by Jayda Fransen, the deputy leader of Britain First, purporting to show Muslims doing horrible things. One is a video that shows a young thug – ‘a Muslim migrant', according to Jayda – beating up a boy on crutches, the other shows a Muslim cleric smashing a statue of the Virgin Mary and saying Takbir, and another shows Isis-types throwing a boy from a roof and then beating him to death. Everybody is horrified. Jayda is delighted, of course.

Friday

Jacob Heilbrunn

Is the net closing in on Jared Kushner?

From our UK edition

Is the net closing in on Jared Kushner? It is now being reported that Trump's son-in-law received a 'Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite', which he also reportedly forwarded on. Both Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley and Dianne Feinstein are alleging that Kushner did not turn over several important documents to investigators despite numerous requests. If Kushner is engaging in these kind of shenanigans with special counsel Robert Mueller he will be in truly hot water. Kushner's lawyer has said he was 'open to responding to any additional requests'.