Anxious Europeans Grab a Seat and Gaze at Yankee Showdown for the Ages

ATHENS — Reports of Europeans’ fascination with the American election are not exaggerated. The only thing dominating the news cycle more in recent days is the torrential rain in Spain — which, as it turns out, does not fall mainly on the plain. With that storm passed, the way is open for whatever blows in next from the other side of the Atlantic. It has been building in recent days, less in Britain, where the summer’s mostly genteel duel between right and left is for now in the rear view mirror, than in France, where the press has tended to cast the race for the White House in starkly Manichean terms. Leading newspapers like Le Monde, have in recent weeks openly referred to Donald Trump’s rallies as “racist” while giving Kamala Harris the kid-glove treatment.Not that tout le monde is having it. A parliamentarian with the National Rally party, 38-year-old Jean-Philippe Tanguy, is accusing the French press of widespread bias against Trump and the Republican party in general, presenting a caricature of American politics and drumming up baseless fear. Speaking at an event co-organized Sunday by French television station M6 and Le Figaro, Mr. Tanguy said that the election of Mr. Trump would not have the cataclysmic consequences that some imagine.“ We must not fall into this caricature trap where we make people believe that there is a president who will be elected and that everything will change,” he said.Monsieur Tanguy criticized the manner in which Mr. Trump has been portrayed in the French press as “a species of nouveau fasciste” while his opponent, Kamala Harris, is routinely presented by the French press as “the messiah.” In his estimation journalists “are trying to create fear.”He said that regardless of who wins, America will continue to “pursue an isolationist policy initiated by Barack Obama,” adding that “France can only count on itself to defend itself” and that the French “must reconnect with the spirit of General de Gaulle.” The president of the now dominant party, Jordan Bardella, is more unequivocally pro-Trump. On October 28 he told France 2 television that “What is clear is that Donald Trump defends the interests of the Americans and defends a form of American pride, and I love this patriotism.”To that he added, “I like these political leaders who also put the interest of their own and the interest of their country and their nation, perhaps before that of others.”Elsewhere many Europeans worry that a new victory for Donald Trump could mean a weakening of NATO, or at least less American money spent on the alliance, and possibly the imposition of tariffs on European products.Some Italian newspapers have also noted that a win for Kamala Harris — a “geopolitically inexperienced” candidate, in the view of Corriere della Sera — will not automatically mean the maintenance of the status quo, as it is thought she will focus her attention more on Asia than Europe. The Italians have also been zeroing in on some of the potential legal battles linked to what is already being characterized as the one of the “the most contested presidential elections in American history.” America First Legal, an organization directed by Stephen Miller, has already filed preemptive complaints in 25 state courts, Corriere della Sera reported, related to issues of validity of postal votes, the reliability or lack thereof of lists of registered voters, and attempts to admit immigrants who are not American citizens to the polls. “Opposing armies of Republican and Democratic lawyers and activists are determined to monitor the voting operations, question and perhaps slow down the counting, even contest the results of Tuesday’s elections, if they see their political party defeated,” the newspaper reported. That kind of language — even before most Americans headed to the polls — gives an indication of just how gladiatorial a dimension this tight race is taking at home and abroad. The further east you go, however, the more measured the pulse. As the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitostakis, said on Monday, “regardless of the election outcome, the geopolitical maturation of Europe is today the big issue.” That won’t stop many government officials at Athens from “spending the night in front of their televisions and mobile phones waiting for the winner of the elections,” as one Greek newspaper reported.The general view, however, is that Greek-American defense cooperation will remain strong. That strategic relationship was bolstered under the Trump administration. It is worth noting that less than a week ago, Mr. Trump’s former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, had dinner with Mr. Mitsotakis in downtown Athens — not far from the American embassy.Y Viva España. As the final days of campaign mudslinging came to a crescendo in America, Spaniards were glued to their television screens, transfixed by images of desperate Valencians pelting Queen Letizia and King Felipe with mud. The socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, was also heckled and had to be evacuated. The message was clear: in a pinch, the “progressive” technocratic state is powerless to manage even a basic natural disaster, the vaunted Brussels bureaucratic apparatus apparently just as worthless. Lost lives, destroyed cars, flooded roads with little help: People are understandably seething. From Madrid in the west to Athens in the east — where the left, some of whose players are seen as having been cultivated by the Biden administration, is in the process of self-destructing — unapologetic anger is now all the rage.

Anxious Europeans Grab a Seat and Gaze at Yankee Showdown for the Ages

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