Duas coisas são infinitas: o universo e a estupidez humana. Mas, em relação ao universo, ainda não tenho a certeza absoluta.
(Einstein)
But the tune ends too soon for us all (Ian Anderson)
On Wednesday evening, a man threw a fragmentation grenade into a café in Grenoble, leaving 15 people injured.
The following day, an Afghan shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ drove his car into a crowd in Munich and injured more than two dozen.
The previous week in Brussels, two men strolled through a metro station firing bursts from Kalashnikovs – one of several shootings that day in the Belgian capital, which wounded three people.
It is believed that Wednesday’s attack in Grenoble was the latest in the drugs war being fought across the country by rival cartels from North Africa. Last year, I described Grenoble as ‘one of the most dangerous places in France’, although there are other contenders.
Marseille, for example, where in the past two years scores of people have been killed by the cartels. Or Paris, where last month a 14-year-old boy was murdered for his phone.
Initially, some media reported that Elias had been stabbed with a knife after refusing to hand over his telephone to a 17-year-old. This week, his family issued a statement accusing the press agency that broke the story of misinformation. Their ‘terrified’ son had handed over his phone, but the mugger killed him anyway – not with a knife, but with a machete. ‘The real difficulty is to understand the society in which we now live,’ said the parents. ‘It is totally beyond our grasp.’
The steady disintegration of European society this century is beyond the grasp of most people. A minority remain in a state of denial, jabbering ad nauseam that diversity is Europe’s great strength.
Really? Tell that to the four people who were stabbed by an Egyptian in the Italian city of Rimini on New Year’s Eve, or the young women who were assaulted in Milan’s Piazza del Duomo on the same day. One of the women told reporters that the 40-strong mob of non-European men shouted ‘vaffanculo Italia’ (‘fuck off, Italy’) as they encircled their victims.
It is not just Italy that these people hate – it is the West in general. They are westernophobes.
Axel Rudakubana murdered three little girls in Southport last year and boasted to the police who arrested him that he was ‘so glad those kids are dead … it makes me happy.’
We are told that Rudakubana wasn’t an Islamist, and nor was Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, the Saudi who drove his car into a throng of Christmas shoppers in Magdeburg last December, killing six and injuring 300. In a message posted online prior to the attack, al-Abdulmohsen declared: ‘If Germany wants a war, we will fight it… If Germany wants to kill us, we will slaughter them, die, or go to prison with pride.’
It appears that he killed because he hated Germany, its people and their way of life.
The ISIS terror cell that massacred 130 Parisians in 2015 did so because they lived – in the words of the statement released by ISIS after the atrocity – in ‘the capital of abominations and perversion’. They targeted bars and a rock concert because they regarded them as emblems of Western decadence.
A month after the Paris attack, in Cologne, scores of women celebrating the new year were assaulted by men who had recently arrived in Germany after Angela Merkel’s open invitation.
For some of these men, German women were worthless – an attitude shared by the Pakistani men in England who for decades have raped and abused white girls and women because they considered them ‘trash’.
In response to this week’s attack in Munich, Alice Weidel, leader of the AfD, asked: ‘Will this go on forever?’
There is certainly an air of resignation among some European leaders. In one bloody week in October 2023, an Islamist murdered a French school teacher in Arras, and another gunned down two Swedes in Brussels. Emmanuel Macron responded by declaring: ‘All European states are vulnerable … It’s the vulnerability that goes with democracies, states governed by the rule of law, where you have individuals who, at some point, may decide to commit the worst.’
But hasn’t this vulnerability been exacerbated dramatically by a continent that has given up controlling its borders?
It was certainly a defeatist message – one which echoed that of Manuel Valls in 2016, when he was Prime Minister of France. ‘Times have changed,’ he said, shortly after an Islamist had slaughtered 86 people in Nice. ‘France should learn to live with terrorism.’
Why have times changed? It took an American, JD Vance, to explain why in his speech to the Munich Security Conference. Having first offered his thoughts and prayers to those injured in the attack in the city 24 hours earlier, Vance noted that this wasn’t the first attack of its kind in Europe. ‘How many times must we suffer these appalling setbacks before we change course and take our shared civilisation in a new direction?’ said Vance. ‘No voter on this continent went to the ballot box to open the floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants.’
So why are they here? Because, said Vance, ‘of a series of conscious decisions made by politicians all over the continent.’
Europe is faced with a choice. It can follow Vance’s advice and change course, or it can carry on doing nothing, as Valls proposed, and learn to live with terrorism. This will require stoicism and a little luck – that next time a man drives a car into a crowd, you are not among them, and that the café you frequent is not a target of a drugs cartel.
One eyewitness to the attack in Grenoble remarked to reporters: ‘Guns, trafficking – Grenoble isn’t a good place to live.’ But where is, in Europe, these days?
Since Franklin D. Roosevelt, every new US administration has been judged on its first hundred days, but it is in the first 24 hours, with a flurry of executive orders and memorandums, that a president sets the tone for the coming four years. The first 24 hours hint at nine themes that will define Donald Trump’s second administration.
Trump is determined to settle scores
Theme one: Trump II will see ‘America First’ placed at the heart of White House policy even more so than during Trump I.
Among the memorandums issued from the Oval Office after noon on Monday was one outlining an ‘America First trade policy’, a revival of Trump I positions linking trade and national security, emphasising the interests of American workers and manufacturers, and interrogating Chinese trade practices and infringement of US intellectual property. Similarly, there was a memorandum revoking US participation in the OECD’s global tax deal, which Trump’s people regard as an infringement on US sovereignty and economically harmful to American enterprise.
‘America First’ will not be about trade alone. One executive order undertook to ‘put the interests of the United States and the American people first’ in negotiating international agreements on climate change, which ‘must not unduly or unfairly burden the United States’. This order re-withdraws the US from the Paris climate agreement, Trump having taken America out during his first term and Biden having taken it back in. It also revokes American assent and funding to all accords under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Foreign policy, too, will be anchored in what Trump perceives to be US national priorities. An executive order instructed the Secretary of State to ‘champion core American interests and always put America and American citizens first’ in foreign policy. Another executive order paused all foreign assistance for ninety days, instructed reviews into current spending commitments and stated that only those ‘fully aligned with the foreign policy of the President of the United States’ would be restored.
Theme two: Trump intends to enforce America’s borders and reverse the tide of illegal immigration.
Among the pile of immigration-related missives fired out from behind the Resolute desk was a proclamation recognising mass illegal entry via the US-Mexico border as an ‘invasion’, and another proclamation barring entry into the United States by anyone involved in this incursion. In addition, there was an executive order providing for the building of a wall along the border, prevention of illegal entry into the country, and the detention and deportation of unlawful aliens. A further executive order undertook to ‘faithfully execute the immigration laws against all inadmissible and removable aliens, particularly those aliens who threaten the safety or security of the American people’. This will be done by hiring more enforcement officers, identifying and deporting illegal aliens, denying government benefits to illegals and refusing federal funds for sanctuary cities.
To underscore how seriously Trump takes the issue, he penned an executive order commanding the US Armed Forces to ‘prioritise the protection of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the United States along our national borders’. This reframes illegal immigration as a national defence issue and not only a border control issue. This was girded by an executive order denying citizenship documents or recognition to anyone born in the United States to a mother who was in the country temporarily or unlawfully. This addresses right-wing concerns about ‘anchor babies’, children whose parents entered the US illegally to give birth and gain for their offspring and themselves the benefits of American citizenship.
Theme three: National security, public safety and refugee screening will be leading priorities.
Trump has always been a law-and-order guy and he clearly intends to step this up over the next four years. He drew up a memorandum reorganising the National Security Council and signed an executive order designatingMexican drug cartels and criminal gangs including MS-13 as foreign terrorist organisations, allow for tougher measures to be taken in countering them.
The threat to public safety from dangerous people who enter the country as refugees was addressed by an executive order suspending the US Refugee Admissions Programme, meaning no further refugees will be admitted except on a case-by-case basis if jointly agreed to by the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security. Every 90 days, the suspension will be reconsidered to see if Homeland Security is confident that the programme can be resumed in a manner that prioritises public safety and national security, will admit ‘only those refugees who can fully and appropriately assimilate’, and would preserve resources for US citizens.
In a similar vein, there was an executive order pledging to protect US citizens from ‘aliens who intend to commit terrorist attacks, threaten our national security, espouse hateful ideology, or otherwise exploit the immigration laws for malevolent purposes’. This will mostly take the form of enhancing visa vetting and screening of refugees. Trump is an ardent believer in capital punishment and so it was unsurprising to see an executive order restoring the federal death penalty. Thirteen federal prisoners were given a lethal injection during Trump I but the Biden administration paused further executions. The order instructs the Attorney General during Trump II to pursue capital punishment in more cases and to seek federal jurisdiction in state crimes that involve the murder of a law enforcement officer or in which the offender is an illegal alien.
‘America First’ will not be about trade alone
Theme four: The second Trump administration is committed to undoing Joe Biden’s legacy in the White House.
Biden used executive powers to wipe the slate clean of Trumpism when he took over and now Trump will return the favour. He signed an executive order rescinding dozens of Biden-era executive orders, including those relating to racial equity, gender identity, climate change, immigration, refugee resettlement, pandemic response, and Biden’s sanctions against Israelis living in Judea and Samaria. Among the initiatives to fall foul of Trump’s slashing pen are the White House Gender Policy Council, the Climate Change Support Office, and the President’s Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement.
A major theme of Trump’s election campaign was blaming the cost of living crisis on Biden’s tax and spend policies, which Trump deemed inflationary. As such, he inked a memorandum directing the federal government to provide price relief, including by reducing the cost of housing, increasing supply, scrapping ‘unnecessary’ healthcare expenses, encouraging the unemployed into the workforce and doing away with climate policies that drive up gasoline and grocery costs.
The frequency with which political control of the executive branch changes means there is a see-sawing quality to US policy. Trump lodged an executive order withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organisation. (He originally withdrew in 2020 in response to its handling of the Covid pandemic and the undue influence of China over the organisation, but Biden reversed that move.) More controversially, even among otherwise sympathetic right-wingers, was an executive order pausing enforcement of Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, the legislation which effectively bans TikTok in the United States. Trump’s team have signalled scepticism towards concerns that the video and music app is harmful to the United States to the advantage of Communist China. Many who generally praise Trump’s national security believe he is perilously wrong on this one.
Theme five: Understanding how the issue motivates his base and pries away moderate voters from Democrats, Trump will push back against ‘woke’.
No one is about to mistake Donald Trump for a radical feminist, yet his executive order making it US government policy to ‘recognise two sexes, male and female’ affirms a fundamental principle of gender-critical feminism. The directive requires federal agencies to ‘enforce laws governing sex-based rights, protections, opportunities, and accommodations to protect men and women as biologically distinct sexes’, putting down in black and white that women’s single-sex spaces should be safeguarded. Another executive order revoked diversity, equity and inclusion programmes and racial preferences in the federal government, while an additional executive order promised to protect freedom of expression and enjoined the federal government from participating in any abridgement of speech rights.
A little further down the hierarchy of culture war battlefronts, Trump set out an executive order instructing federal agencies to ‘honour the contributions of visionary and patriotic Americans in our nation’s rich past’ when naming natural landmarks and works of art. The order reverses Barack Obama’s 2015 directive which renamed Mount McKinley, the tallest mountain in the United States, ‘Denali’, the name traditionally assigned to the peak by local indigenous people. But the order will garner most attention for its announcement that the United States will now refer to the Gulf of Mexico as ‘the Gulf of America’. Meanwhile, there was also a memorandum ordering federal officials to ensure that all new public buildings ‘respect regional, traditional, and classical architectural heritage in order to uplift and beautify public spaces and ennoble the United States’. This is one area where classical conservatives and the very online MAGA movement are in agreement.
Theme six: Energy security will be a key area of action for Trump II.
Monday saw an executive order declaring a national energy emergency and directing federal agencies to expedite exploration and production of domestic oil and gas resources. There as also an executive order encouraging ‘energy exploration and production’; safeguarding ‘economic and national security and military preparedness’ by ensuring ‘an abundant supply of reliable energy’; cancelling Biden’s electric vehicle mandate; reviewing any agency action or policy that might impede energy security; speeding up oil and gas permits; and withdrawing funding for the Green New Deal. That represents a veritable bonfire of Biden administration policies and could also be designed to inflict the maximum pain and anxiety among climate-alarmed liberls. To make matters worse for them, there was an executive order allowing gas exploration in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, something environmentalists have fought against for decades. Trump also sent out a memorandum suspending any further permits for wind farms on the US outer continental shelf and another one ordering that water reserves be directed to southern California rather than to the protection of marine life.
Theme seven: Having learned the lessons of his first term, Trump is putting his people in key positions for his second term.
There were the usual memorandums appointing acting Cabinet secretaries, nominating full-term Cabinet secretaries, nominating sub-Cabinet appointees, and designating chairmen of various federal commissions. Such things are run of the mill for every incoming administration. But there was also a memorandum decreeing that the process of security-clearing Trump appointees to sensitive roles within the President’s executive office must take no more than six months. The memo blames ‘a backlog created by the Biden Administration’ and a ‘broken security clearance process’ for Trump appointees not having received access to the White House to take up their new posts. Allied to this was an executive order strengthening accountability for federal employees in policy-influencing positions, reflecting Trump’s grievances about senior agency staff attempting to resist the MAGA agenda during his first term.
Theme eight: Trump plans not only to stack government with MAGA people but to reform the size and structure of government.
As expected, there was an executive order establishing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and a memorandum implementing a hiring freeze, which will prevent federal departments and agencies from filling vacancies or creating new positions. (Defence, immigration, national security and public safety agencies are exempt.) Reflecting the innovation-minded thinking of Trump’s inner circle, another memorandum instructedthat no further regulations be created unless approved by the Trump administration. This was accompanied by a memorandum rescinding any arrangements allowing federal employees to work from home, an executive order reforming the federal hiring process so that it prioritises merit, ability and commitment to government efficiency over immutable characteristics, and a memorandum shaking up the organisation and performance of senior federal staff.
Theme nine: Trump is determined to settle scores.
Donald Trump is one of life’s great grudge-bearers and his initial executive actions reflected this trait. There was a proclamation pardoning or commuting the sentences of those involved in the January 6 insurrection and an executive order directing that the US flag always be flown at full-staff on inauguration day. (Old Glory was flying half-staff on the morning of Trump’s inauguration in honour of the late Jimmy Carter.)
These were joined by an executive order mandating an investigation of the Biden administration for a ‘systematic campaign against its perceived political opponents’, including by setting law enforcement and intelligence agencies on them. This reflects Trump’s belief that investigations and prosecutions brought against him and his associates were a form of political warfare waged by the previous White House and its ideological fellow travellers.
The biggest score Trump wants to settle is one he believes played a role in shifting public opinion ahead of the 2020 president election. He issued an executive order addressing the political misuse of US intelligence services, which revokes the security clearances of former officials who signed a letter during the 2020 election dismissing the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story as Russian disinformation. It also withdraws clearance from John Bolton, Trump’s former National Security Adviser, for a 2019 book ‘rife with sensitive information drawn from his time in government’.
Donald Trump didn’t get much done in his first term, but he appears to mean business this time. His first day back in the Oval Office proves it, and he has another 1,460 days to put his agenda into effect.
Se um historiador, no futuro, quiser compreender o regime, vai ser muito difícil convencê-lo a não usar como fontes principais os casos Marquês, Influencer e Tutti Frutti. É a trilogia do regime.
Que um deputado dedique as suas horas vagas a roubar malas no aeroporto, pode ser vergonhoso ou até um bom pretexto para piadas. Sem dúvida que as direcções dos partidos, a quem o sistema político entregou a escolha dos nossos representantes no parlamento, deveriam gastar um pouco mais de tempo a escrutinar os candidatos que propõem aos portugueses. Mas entre 230 deputados, por mais apertado o crivo, terá sempre de passar alguma excentricidade ou aberração. Outra coisa, muito diferente, é o caso Tutti Frutti. Aí, não se trata de uma ou duas maçãs podres. Foi o cesto que apodreceu.
Se um historiador, no futuro, quiser compreender o actual regime, vai ser muito difícil convencê-lo a não usar como fontes principais os casos Marquês, Influencer e Tutti Frutti. É a trilogia do regime. Por causa dos meandros da justiça, não sabemos se vai haver condenação, ou sequer julgamento. Mas as provas e alegações judiciais não deixam dúvidas sobre o que está em causa. A acusação da operação Marquês apresenta-nos um primeiro-ministro e líder de um dos dois maiores partidos a conspirar para dominar bancos, empresas e órgãos de comunicação social. O que sabemos da operação Influencer revela que leis e regras só incomodam quem não tem o telefone de membros do governo. A acusação da operação Tutti Frutti sugere que a cidade de Lisboa bem podia ficar no clássico sul de Itália.
Há mais de dez anos que o regime tem andado a tentar não ver, não ouvir e não ler. No caso Marquês, finge-se que o problema era a personalidade do primeiro-ministro. Como se o que ele fazia, além do alegado aproveitamento pessoal, não tivesse uma dimensão política de abuso de poder, e, por esse lado, pudesse ser ignorado pelos seus colegas. No caso Influencer, têm-nos explicado que só para evitar que a burocracia impedisse um negócio de “interesse nacional”, é que os membros do governo se meteram por atalhos equívocos. Mas se a burocracia tudo bloqueia, porque não a mudam, em vez de a usarem como pretexto para deixarem os grandes negócios à discrição de ministros e secretários de Estado? Quanto ao caso Tutti Frutti, querem convencer-nos de que tudo está resolvido com umas suspensões de mandatos – mandatos obtidos em eleições a que a direcção do partido aceitou que os suspeitos fossem candidatos sabendo que eram suspeitos.
A democracia em Portugal está a ser subvertida pelas elites instaladas. Não estamos a falar só de corrupção, no sentido da prevaricação isolada de um ou dois indivíduos. Estamos a falar da subversão do regime pela sua própria classe política a actuar em rede, como uma mafia. Estamos a falar do cinismo de gente que, quando à vontade entre si, não esconde desprezar leis, regras, valores e instituições (“há massas para distribuir?”). Estamos a falar de dirigentes dos grandes partidos “fundadores” do regime que não levam a sério a democracia. Não são todos assim? Mas os que não são assim não parecem ter força ou convicção para resistir ao aviltamento.
Todas estas histórias são, no fundo, a mesma história. Na democracia liberal, é suposto a classe política ter menos poder do que em qualquer outro regime, porque o poder está dividido, sujeito a leis e procedimentos, e aberto a escrutínio. O que percebemos através destes três casos de justiça, é que o principal cuidado de uma parte da classe política, por interesse pessoal ou ganância de mando, tem sido ultrapassar essas limitações. Para isso, atropela leis, vicia procedimentos, e cultiva a promiscuidade.
Vivemos em democracia, mas nem toda a classe política é democrática. Não se deixem, por isso, distrair com malas. Os piores políticos não são aqueles de quem nós nos rimos: são aqueles que se riem de nós.
Ao caso deram o peculiar nome de “Tutti-Frutti”, o que me leva sempre a acreditar que deve haver poucos empregos mais divertidos do que o do cidadão que baptiza as operações policiais que nos enchem o espaço mediático, e é, todo ele, mais relevante do ponto de vista político do que criminal.
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O já velho e sempre cínico mantra de António Costa, «à justiça o que é da justiça, à política o que é da política», paira constantemente sobre todos estes casos judiciais e é, na verdade, revelador de um estado de coisas quase unanimemente considerado insuportável. A política, com recurso ao expediente de tal afirmação, depois de alguns anos a tentar a tese de cabala, acabou a ver-se livre dos problemas de uma forma bastante simples, em que qualquer problema de natureza moral ou ética passaria automaticamente para a esfera dos tribunais. A política não quis fazer o trabalho de se auto vigiar e judicializou a ética. O Ministério Público aceitou o repto. E, considerados os chamados «tempos da justiça», os casos morriam nos noticiários e terminavam, naturalmente, com absolvições ou condenações. No primeiro caso, não se verificando acto digno de censura criminal, o Ministério Público e a imprensa tinham feito um auto-de-fé público a um desgraçado, independentemente de a conduta em causa ter sido de ética, duvidosa ou censurável. Se se verificasse a condenação, o partido respectivo via-se definitivamente livre de um problema, que passava a ser de natureza meramente individual do agente criminoso, e não fruto, muitas vezes, de um contexto partidário e institucional que favorecia a prática em si.
Em boa parte das opiniões mediáticas, sempre ávidas de se afirmarem acima dos comportamentos animalescos e toscos do povo que lê a imprensa menos querida das elites, ganhou, entretanto, tracção a ideia de que o Ministério Público tem uma agenda. Não é inédito. De Otelo a Sócrates, passando pelos vários arguidos mediáticos que o país viu nas últimas décadas, todos eles se queixaram da agenda do Ministério Público, ignorando expressamente que os procuradores têm como função investigar, e os juízes julgar, e que processos que resultam em condenações e absolvições acontecem diariamente. Já não era bem uma cabala, era uma «agenda». Já para a lentidão dos processos, ninguém parece ter particular preocupação, excepto nas ocasiões em que se anuncia alguma investigação sobre uma personalidade do status quo.E sobre o facto de o poder político continuar a sacudir alegremente a água do capote da sua própria fiscalização e ética para cima do poder judicial, parecem ser ainda menos os interessados. Esta é a primeira nota.
É evidente que, tendo ou não o caso Tutti-Frutti alguma consequência condenatória, as coisas já começaram mal. Oito anos para deduzir acusação não é razoável. Mas, mais uma vez, o problema não é individualizado. Há arguidos constituídos todos os dias, anos infinitos de demora nas decisões, e esse é um problema demasiado sério que o país tem, sem o querer resolver. Deixo-vos aqui uma experiência pessoal. Há cerca de cinco anos, fui notificado para me apresentar numa esquadra da PSP, onde me dirigi de imediato. A agente da polícia deu-me umas breves indicações sobre a história que ali me levava e constituíram-me arguido, o que agradeci. Optei por não prestar declarações ali, e remeti, por escrito e com prova documental, ao Ministério Público a minha versão dos factos. Três anos depois, nada sucedera. E, por estar já cansado das obrigações decorrentes do termo de identidade e residência, um dia telefonei para a secretaria do DIAP e perguntei se havia novidades. Disseram-me que sim: o processo tinha sido arquivado uns meses antes, não estava acusado de nada, podia seguir a minha vida em paz e tranquilidade, mas não me tinha ainda sido enviada por correio a notificação com o respectivo despacho de arquivamento porque não havia papel no tribunal – chegaria cerca de meio ano depois. Ninguém neste país está a salvo de ser constituído arguido por ter sido alvo de uma queixa-crime qualquer, nem a salvo de se ver enfiado num buraco negro burocrático e judicial. Pessoas mediaticamente expostas não passam a ter direitos superiores aos dos restantes, que estão igualmente sujeitos aos mesmos novelos kafkianos. Esta é a segunda nota.
Dados os apontamentos iniciais, fica o problema político. De política pública, naturalmente, porque o país tem um problema crónico de lentidão judicial que parece materializar-se na eternidade. E da restante política, como não podia deixar de ser. Como disse, boa parte do problema reside no facto de a política e os partidos terem achado boa ideia oferecer o controlo ético da própria política aos tribunais. A restante parte é a que qualquer pessoa pode ver. Independentemente de haver acusações (e existem, neste caso em concreto) sem particular relevância criminal, ou até de condenação duvidosa, o que sobressai da Tutti-Frutti é um modus operandi que o país desconhecia em concreto, mas de que suspeitava largamente. Não é já segredo que, sobretudo nos grandes partidos, PS e PSD, poderosas redes de contactos, empregos, adjudicações, favores e controlo, tudo ancorado no Estado, se movem pelos bastidores da alta política, numa espécie de sub-mundo partidário, feito de desvalidos intelectuais e morais, produzindo líderes, deputados, vereadores, presidentes disto e daquilo. E não há uma alma neste país que, sendo dotada de algum nojo, sinta alguma vontade de participar politicamente em partidos que são, para lá das cúpulas que vemos nas televisões, manobrados por verdadeiras máfias de desocupados mentais e de indigentes a quem só a política e o partido salvaram da fome.
Não espanta, pois, que o país corra o sério risco de levar à segunda volta de umas eleições presidenciais um marujo que não abre a boca e o homem que grita sobre tudo, varre o seu próprio lixo para debaixo do tapete, e continua a apontar o dedo a todos aqueles de quem o país se vai cansando, PS e PSD. Os dois maiores partidos estão na rota descendente da sua vida, e talvez ainda não tenham percebido. Talvez já de nada valham as palavras de Hugo Soares, que forçou a saída do parlamento dos acusados na operação e recusa candidaturas autárquicas na mesma situação. O país, justa ou injustamente, já não olha para os Hugos Soares de forma diversa daquela com que observa o mais reles cacique de uma qualquer concelhia do seu partido. Se no PS e no PSD não percebem que o Almirante vem para ocupar o espaço deles, então ainda não perceberam nada. Mas não foi por falta de aviso.
Trump não mudou o mundo. Está apenas a tentar adequar o poder dos EUA a um mundo que já mudou há algum tempo. O problema não é, como muitos gostariam de acreditar, um homem: é a história.
Primeiro, estranha-se, depois, entranha-se. Fernando Pessoa terá inventado a frase para promover uma bebida importada. Podia tê-la inventado para descrever a recepção, nos meios bem-pensantes, às declarações e decisões do presidente Trump. Primeiro, temos sempre indignações de bancada de futebol, com alguns desfalecimentos de teatro antigo. Ele quer tirar a Gronelândia à Dinamarca! Ele ameaçou o México com direitos alfandegários! Ah, a loucura. Depois, percebemos que a Dinamarca não está capaz de controlar a Gronelândia, ou vemos que o México, intimidado, se dispôs enfim a colaborar na contenção do tráfico de pessoas e drogas. E eis o que tinha sido acolhido como um capricho de Nero a ser reavaliado como o rasgo de um Bismarck.
Trump não mudou o mundo. Está apenas a tentar adequar o poder dos EUA a um mundo que já mudou há algum tempo. O problema não é, como os anti-trumpistas gostariam de acreditar, um homem: é, se quiserem chamar-lhe assim, a história. Há quem julgue que está a criticar Trump, e está apenas a criticar a mudança dos tempos.
O mundo de anteontem era melhor? Provavelmente. Mas acabou. O mundo de anteontem era o mundo da ordem mundial do pós-guerra, um mundo de leis e de organizações internacionais, em que era suposto os Estados, quando tinham queixas ou aspirações, discursarem na ONU, ou recorrerem aos tribunais internacionais. Qual o problema desse mundo? Este: assentava no poder dos EUA e da Europa. Era a projecção no planeta do Estado de direito desenvolvido nas sociedades do Ocidente. O resto do mundo sujeitou-se a essa teia jurídico-civilizacional, apenas porque não podia afrontar o Ocidente, ou porque precisava dos mercados ocidentais. Isto foi sobretudo assim após o colapso da União Soviética, em 1989-1991. No Ocidente, sabia-se que o resto do mundo era diferente, mas acreditava-se na globalização dos valores e modo de vida ocidentais. Promovendo a circulação de bens, pessoas e capitais, a China comunista acabaria por tornar-se uma nova Suécia, e o ayatollah Khamenei a versão muçulmana do Papa Francisco. A UE convenceu-se até de que podia desprezar a aliança americana e viver pacatamente de importar mão de obra do Magrebe e energia da Rússia.
Essa ilusão acabou. A globalização expandiu o consumo nos EUA e na Europa e resgatou milhões de pessoas da pobreza no resto do mundo. Mas também subverteu, através da deslocalização industrial e da imigração descontrolada, a coesão das sociedades ocidentais e confrontou o Ocidente com potências determinadas em revolucionar a ordem mundial, como a China, a Rússia ou o Irão. O Ocidente já não produz a maior parte da riqueza do mundo, como até 2005, nem as suas populações são as que mais se reproduzem, como quando colonizou as Américas. Essa ascendência era a base das regras e organizações internacionais. Era uma ordem que não traduzia a convergência definitiva do resto do mundo em relação aos valores ocidentais, mas apenas uma inibição temporária perante a força do Ocidente.
O século XXI não é o prolongamento da última década do século XX. Um sinal é a perversão das organizações internacionais, que agora, como o TPI, aplicam as suas severidades apenas às democracias do Ocidente. Aos países ocidentais, restam duas vias: ou iniciam uma guerra sem fim de liberalização do mundo, para que lhes faltam meios, ou dispõem-se a usar o poder que ainda têm para defender, sem equívocos, os valores e interesses das sociedades mais livres e prósperas que a humanidade inventou. Trump é o primeiro chefe de Estado ocidental a perceber isso. Não é garantia de que sempre acerte e de que tudo lhe correrá bem. Mas permite esperar que não cometa os mesmos erros dos seus antecessores.
We already knew that most economists are quite bad at economic policy. Unfortunately, foreign policy appears not to be much of a strength either. Indeed, it appears most financial experts may not even know the difference, based on their criticism of Donald Trump’s recent tariff threats against Mexico, Canada and China.
Of course, a nation can introduce tariffs to generate revenue, promote domestic production, shift international supply chains and ‘decouple’ itself from an undesirable trading partner. But a nation can also use tariffs as powerful leverage to make other states change their behaviour. That is a negotiating tariff, not an economic one, and it is designed not to minimise potential domestic pain but to maximise potential cost for the counterparty. Sudden and unpredictable actions can enhance, rather than detract from, the strategy’s effectiveness. And this is precisely how the Trump administration operates.
In Trump’s first week back in the White House, when Colombia rejected two US military aircraft repatriating illegal immigrants, the President responded by threatening to impose immediately a 25 per cent tariff on all Colombian goods (rising to 50 per cent after one week) and to restrict travel of Colombian officials. Within hours, Colombia’s President caved. Actual cost to the United States? $0. That the United States had no economic quarrel with Colombia, and that imposing the tariff would have done little to nothing for the American economy, is entirely beside the point.
Something similar has happened with Mexico and Canada. While experts spent many hours weighing up the trade balances north and south of the US border, the White House fact sheet announcing the 25 per cent levies explicitly framed the policy as ‘addressing an emergency situation’ and ‘using our leverage’. Nothing in the document indicated an economic focus. Sure enough, within 24 hours of the announcement, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum and the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had both telephoned Trump and agreed to his demands on immigration controls and clamping down on the supply of the illegal drug fentanyl.
Anyone criticising Trump’s actions as a poorly designed economic tariff, or using it as evidence that economic tariffs have high costs and low benefits, is offering talking points rather than useful analysis. So is anyone applauding Trump’s action as a well-designed economic tariff, or claiming it will deliver excellent economic results. Think of a negotiating tariff like an embargo or a loan – an economic tool of statecraft used to advance foreign policy aims. Evaluate it on that basis. The policy toward Mexico and Canada was ill-designed to achieve economic objectives but well-tailored to work as a negotiating position.
Once you understand that, you begin to see why Trump announced a lower 10 per cent tariff on its real economic target: China. The United States already imposes tariffs on China and the latest action includes elimination of the de minimis exception for low-value packages, which would hit China especially hard. As a new status quo, the threatened arrangement across all three countries would make little economic sense. On the other hand, extracting concessions from Canada and Mexico quickly, while going forward with a new 10 per cent tariff and no de minimis exception for China, would be a very good economic outcome.
So while the headlines are about a North American ‘trade war’, the real question is how President Trump’s aggressive strategy will alter the terms of US relationships with friends and foes alike. Trump has made it clear that he wants to move the United States away from a post-Cold War operating model of benevolent hegemon and shift instead to a model where America focuses on its own interests, and relationships with other countries must serve those interests first and foremost.
Key members of his economic team have emphasised this point. ‘We are going to have to have some kind of a grand global economic reordering,’ said Scott Bessent, now US Secretary of the Treasury, in June. ‘I’d like to be a part of it.’ In a paper published in November, Stephen Miran, now chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, wrote of the need for policy that ‘improves burden sharing’, noting that ‘tariffs will likely be implemented in a manner deeply intertwined with national security concerns’.
This requires a significant change in mindset for all involved. For decades everyone has assumed that the US will operate on the world stage with both arms tied behind its back, in this magnanimous way – premised on a belief that promoting the liberal world order will ultimately work out best for everybody, the US included. Unfortunately, that has not worked out well for the US.
The message from Team Trump is loud and clear: we are not going to bear burdens for everybody else any more. Other countries are going to have to start working from different assumptions and anticipating different challenges and trade-offs. You can still be very good friends and allies with a country that is pursuing its own interests first, but you have to recognise and respect what those interests are.
There are many different theories regarding the best way to start down the path toward dramatic change. Do you try to change the game incrementally through small steps, or do you flip over the board and scatter the pieces? In a lot of areas, Trump has shown a strong inclination to take that latter course: to break the status quo, not to reform it. Obviously, there are short-term disruptions and costs associated with that approach, but that doesn’t necessarily make it wrong.
That said, if the goal is to change behaviour, the tariff-imposing government has an obligation to communicate its demands clearly and maximise leverage in service of those demands. Here, the actual demands remain unclear at best. Are the tariffs just about border security? Or is the goal to reset the global order? What are other countries – Canada in particular – supposed to do differently?
The sudden, sharp imposition certainly maximises pain, on both sides, but not in a way that encourages capitulation. For both Canada and Mexico, a clear schedule of gradually increasing tariffs, paired with a clear set of objectives and milestones that must be reached to postpone them, would be preferable. The United States does not benefit from crippled allies. Shooting first and asking questions later is bad economic policy and bad diplomacy.
The US should be working toward anchoring a free-trade bloc centred in its own hemisphere and including allies around the world similarly committed to the principles and legal framework of democratic capitalism. Participation in the bloc would require adhering to US-defined requirements that ensured balanced trade, the revitalisation of American industry and the exclusion of China and its producers from supply chains and markets. Thus, all nations in the bloc would need to maintain parallel financial and trade barriers to entry for any nation outside the bloc. China would presumably have a bloc of its own, and those countries would likewise maintain barriers to entry for the American bloc.
While the end goal might be low tariffs among allies, the US can probably get from the current system to the future one only through an intermediate step that threatens and even imposes tariffs worldwide before offering relief from them for nations that agree to the terms. Liberal internationalists might ask why other countries would agree to America’s terms if America treats them badly. The answer is that doing so will be in their interest, especially when compared with the alternative of falling into the Chinese sphere or being excluded from both.
In his November paper, Miran cites a proposal from Bessent for ‘putting countries into different groups based on their currency policies, the terms of bilateral trade agreements and security agreements, their values and more… These buckets can bear different tariff rates, and the government can lay out what actions a trade partner would need to undertake to move between the buckets’.
According to Bessent, ‘more clearly segmenting the international economy into zones based on common security and economic systems would help… [to] highlight the persistence of imbalances and introduce more friction points to deal with them’. To that point, Miran has added: ‘Countries that want to be inside the defence umbrella must also be inside the fair-trade umbrella.’
Sometimes the board must be flipped, but that does little good without an idea of how to set it back up. And best not lose the pieces, if you ever want to play again.
Simon Goldhill describes how intimate friendships between students and teachers were actively encouraged, with the college providing a refuge for gay men and helping them define their sexuality
Interviewed on television for his 80th birthday in 1959, E.M. Forster said that one of the reasons he was so fond of King’s College, Cambridge, where he had lived as a Fellow since 1946, was ‘a very precious tradition, that the old people and the young can meet here very easily and without self-consciousness’. In this svelte and sprightly book, Simon Goldhill (himself a Fellow of King’s) traces this tradition over some 140 years, and describes the part it played in the creation of a remarkable, ever evolving community of gay men.
He begins his story in 1885 when J.K. Stephen, the future tutor to Queen Victoria’s grandson Prince Albert Victor, became a Fellow of the college. As Goldhill notes, this was also the year in which the Labouchère amendment made all sexual acts between men illegal, and thus criminalised not only Stephen but most of the book’s other leading characters. Like many Kingsmen, Stephen had been educated at Eton, where his tutor was Oscar Browning, who had himself been a pupil there, gone on to King’s, and then went back to the school to become a popular teacher. Browning’s closeness to certain boys had led to his being sacked; but this proved no bar to his returning to King’s as a Fellow, where intimate friendships between teachers and students were not merely accepted but encouraged. ‘The young men who came from school to university, to be met and educated by older dons, became those older dons in turn, or returned to college as friends from outside,’ Goldhill writes.
This resulted in a community created by ‘intergenerational passing on – of stories, possessions, values’ that evolved ‘at the same time that homosexuality as a developed idea was coming into being’. Goldhill’s contention is that King’s has not only over the years provided a welcoming refuge for queer men, but from the late 19th century onwards helped them define their own and each others’ sexuality.
It was not until 1892 that the word ‘homosexuality’ appeared in print in Britain, and it took another two decades for it to pass into general English usage. While Browning was not shy of shouting from the rooftops the love that elsewhere dared not speak its name, other dons had a less clear understanding of their sexuality. M.R. James enjoyed the company of handsome younger men, but deflected any investigation of the nature of such relationships and was probably celibate. This did not prevent those who knew him from being ‘fascinated by the question of what sex he wasn’t having’, as Goldhill nicely puts it. Among them was A.C. Benson, who was also celibate, but whose diaries reveal someone consumed by a desire for other men that he is unable or unwilling to name.
Their contemporary Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson helped matters along with his popular 1896 book The Greek View of Life, in which a ‘careful discussion of homosexuality is embedded in a history of Greek culture and values’. His sly observation in the Dictionary of National Biography that when Browning retired to Rome he ‘assisted young Italians, as he had young Englishmen, towards the openings they desired’, suggested that he at least had no difficulties in placing people, including himself, on the sexual map.
Dickinson was also a committed pacifist and internationalist, who was instrumental in the forming of the League of Nations, and Goldhill submits that his view of the world was ‘explicitly informed’ by his experiences as a gay man. The same might be said of his close friend and biographer Forster, whose celebrated 1929 essay ‘What I Believe’ champions the moral values and ‘personal relationships’ he had found at King’s.
Several of the other gay men Goldhill features also had an influence far beyond the college gates, notably the economist John Maynard Keynes, the architect and designer C.R. Ashbee and the leading musicologist Edward Dent. Indeed, the book teems with extraordinary characters and amusing anecdotes but it is not, Goldhill insists, ‘an idealised or idealising narrative’. He allows that there are ‘many recorded memories of beautiful young heads resting on old knees, while books are real aloud’, but he also recognises that the behaviour of several of his subjects left much to be desired. While we may expect no better from such as Keynes, Rupert Brooke and the nevertheless beguiling J.T. Sheppard, it is refreshing to see the manifest personal failings of the sainted Dadie Rylands, who taught several generations of leading actors to speak Shakespearean verse, being given a very thorough airing.
Goldhill fully acknowledges that most of his characters come from the world of white male privilege, but he also emphasises that their aims included striving for a better society, one that among other things would find an accepted place for the homosexual. ‘For all their narcissism, triumphs, foolishness, brilliance, arrogance, privilege, love, despair, these men shared a will to imagine the world otherwise,’ he writes.
He concludes sadly that universities currently reflect the ‘polarising social and cultural forces’ of the wider world, and ‘are finding it harder and harder to maintain the open-minded, explorative, critical space that [King’s] provided to the figures of this history’. That, as he says, is why this fascinating story is now so worth telling.
Alice Weidel, co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), is waiting in the wings (Credit: Getty images)
Germany’s government after the election on 23 February will likely be led by pro-business Christian Democrat Friedrich Merz. His coalition partner, probably the Social Democrats of failed Chancellor Olaf Scholz, or else the Greens of economy minister Robert Habeck, will torpedo any serious economic reforms. Equally worrying: Merz’s own reform blueprint is far too timid.
A new wild card in the vote – up to now dominated by the economy – is spiralling migrant violence and failures of German authorities to lock up people known to pose acute threats. A horrifying knife attack on a nursery school group in a park in Aschaffenburg, in Bavaria, on Wednesday, allegedly by an Afghan man, killed a two-year old boy and a 41-year-old man who tried to protect the children. This follows the attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg, reportedly by a Saudi man using an SUV, that killed six and injured hundreds on 20 December.
Reactions to the latest killings by Merz and other candidates have been harsh, but it’s too early to tell if this will upend campaigning and lead to a tougher German position challenging EU laws on migration.
The hustings have so far focused on Germany’s economy, which is in deep trouble after contracting in both 2024 and 2023. Merz, who’s among the few German politicians with international business experience from BlackRock and law firm Mayer Brown, should be an ideal leader to fix Europe’s biggest economy.
His Christian Democratic bloc, though leading all other parties, is stuck in the opinion polls at around 30 per cent. It will need a coalition partner. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is in second place with about 20 per cent and, if it was a normal party, would be the obvious ally. But the CDU and other German parties have vowed no coalitions with the AfD which is anti-EU, anti-euro, anti-Nato, pro-Russia, pro-China, anti-U.S. and plays down Hitler and the Nazis as “just a bird shit in over 1000 years of German history.”
Unlike France, where Marine Le Pen’s National Rally has moderated, the AfD is radicalising. At its party convention this month, members celebrated their leader, Alice Weidel, by chanting “Alice für Deutschland!” which sounds almost like the banned Nazi chant “Alles für Deutschland!” (Everything for Germany!) that an AfD regional leader was fined for using. Anti-migrant policy, the AfD’s political bedrock, has morphed into kicking out foreigners living in Germany, a plan it officially dubs “remigration.” Energy policy is also radicalising: Weidel calls for tearing down wind turbines which provide about 32 per cent of the country’s electricity.
“The AfD is getting more radical because it has never been tested in government, which usually tones ideologues down,” says Jan Techau, director Europe at the Eurasia Group, a political risk research firm. “The collective experience of the party is that you can make ludicrous claims and still win.”
Ruling out the AfD leaves only the SPD and the Greens as possible coalition partners for Merz. With the SPD at 16 per cent and the Greens at 13 per cent, a strong AfD result might even lead to a divisive four-party CDU-CSU, SPD, Greens alliance (The Christian Democrats have a separate Bavarian wing, the CSU, which delights in its role as the awkward squad.) To be sure, polls also show that 30 per cent of voters are undecided. There is room for an election day surprise.
Chancellor Scholz’s SPD and Greens, together with the liberal Free Democrats who were kicked out of government last year triggering early elections, were in power since 2021. Though the economy crashed on their watch, SPD and Greens are doubling down on their tax, energy and regulatory policies.
German business leaders blame Greens economy supremo Habeck for the misery; and over 80 per cent say he’s done a bad job, according to an Allensbach poll. Habeck’s qualifications to be minister of the world’s third biggest economy include a doctorate on how nature is depicted in literature and writing children’s books such as “Call of the Wolves” about kids saving a wolf from an evil hunter.
The survey of 500 German business leaders bluntly names “political measures” as the chief reason for Germany’s economic decline and says cutting red-tape and a major tax reform would be the best way to trigger a revival.
Merz’s own reform blueprint is far too timid
They may not get this. Germany’s highest income tax rate is already 45 per cent, but Habeck is campaigning for yet a new tax on investment income to fund public health insurance. The Greens seek de facto abolishment of German private health insurance. Almost 90 per cent of Germans have public health insurance, but private insurance plays a vital role in subsidising doctors and hospitals because it pays them more for procedures than the public system does. In 2022, the extra money amounted to 12.3 billion euros (£11 billion). Despite this, the Greens and the SPD want to axe the private system which they claim creates two-class medicine. The UK’s superbly functioning NHS seems to be their model.
The CDU’s Merz promises 2 per cent GDP growth per year based mainly on cutting both corporate and income taxes. Yet instead of a bold tax move to kick-start growth, Merz’s Agenda 2030 reform plan slow-walks tax cuts with modest steps over four years that would only start in 2026. Regarding Germany’s notorious debt-brake that strictly limits new government borrowing, Merz only hints he might back limited change. Pledges in the 14-page paper to cut Germany’s suffocating bureaucracy are vague and unambitious. Merz despises big-bang policy by leaders such as Argentinian president Javier Milei. “What (Milei) is doing there is ruining the country, trampling on the people,” Merz says.
The CDU says shortfalls caused by tax cuts would be compensated by increased tax revenue of 20 billion euros (£17 billion) yearly due to an expanding economy and cutting social welfare payments. Clearly, no political party in history has ever claimed that more tax revenue from projected economic growth will fund its tax cuts.
Even the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has poured cold water on Merz’s plan by noting it fails to take into account the demographics of Germany’s swiftly ageing population and the refusal of the CDU to consider raising the retirement age. Sagging German corporate investment is a fatal sign, the newspaper says. “This shows how unattractive Germany is as a place to do business. More investment and a hoped-for productivity miracle need freedom, of which the U.S. has plenty, and Germany not enough.” In sum, Merz’s proposals underwhelm.
Scholz’s SPD, though it presided over the debacle of the past years, is campaigning on even more intensive application of much the same policies which it claims will yield better results. The chronic shortage of affordable housing in Germany was top priority of the Scholz government. A friend in Potsdam, which borders Berlin, recently listed an apartment for rent and got over 300 inquiries on the first day.
But the SPD’s signature policy of building 400,000 new apartments a year is in tatters. The Ifo Institute, a Munich-based economic think tank, projects 225,000 apartments being built in 2024, falling to 195,000 for this year and 175,000 for 2026.
Rent-price controls are still the SPD’s main answer to the shortage of apartments, even though this is the best way to deter private investors from building new rental units. Otherwise, the SPD promises tax cuts that will benefit what it says are 95 per cent of all tax payers, free school lunches and cuts in the ticket prices for public transport. It vows to pay for this by raising taxes on the top 5 per cent of earners in Germany.
Aside from migrant violence, we haven’t talked about Germany’s other problems to which the established parties have few answers: staggering costs to restore the armed forces amid Vladimir Putin’s threats to invade and Donald Trump’s threats to withdraw; the floundering energy shift to renewables; and acts of self-harm to the key auto industry.
With Germany set for half-baked economic reforms and other political and social problems bubbling over, the true election victor is likely to be the party that needs to lose to win.
Alice Weidel’s rightist AfD will profit mightily from more economic muddling through and all the rotten compromises on migration and in other areas that a Chancellor Merz will be forced to make with the SPD, the Greens or with both parties.
Weidel’s declared goal is to move the AfD from its number No. 2 position among voters into the front place as the strongest party in Germany.
“I won’t be able to do that by February 23rd. But I will be able to do it by the next federal election,” she said in a Neue Zürcher Zeitung interview.
Germany is rapidly running out of time to reform. If it fails now, then the 2029 elections may yield the political earthquake of a Chancellor Weidel.
