‘La Nuit Americaine’ Yields on the Continent to the Promise of a New Dawn for Trump

ATHENS — As the sun came up, Italians were talking about “la volata di Trump” — the Trump sprint — and the Spanish were abuzz as Mr. Trump se pone por delante — took the lead — while leading European television networks were busily reporting the New York Times projection that the Republican candidate had snapped up 301 electors against Kamala Harris’s 240: the necessary majority, of course, being 270. Shortly after sunrise, all were reporting that Mr. Trump stood a 91 percent chance of winning.This then is hasta la vista to nearly four years of Biden debacles. What France’s TV5 dubbed “la nuit américaine” with non-stop election coverage from poll opening to closing — seems to be turning into a dawn where America is going to come first and foremost for an incoming administration. That does not at all mean, of course, that the rest of the world will be forgotten. This correspondent spent the better part of Election Day fielding the questions “Who’s going to win?” and “What’s going to happen if Trump wins?” The latter was occasionally paired with the flimsy “He’s anti-European, so I would support Harris.” These questions came from friends, Athenians, taxi drivers, and, of course, tenders of bars.For where else is one to spend at least a portion of a momentous election night other than at a bar, preferably a cosmopolitan hotel bar where the clientele ranges from high to higher and few ask how much things cost. My first stop at the illustrious Hotel Grande Bretagne, however, was not the main lobby bar but the hideaway Alexander’s Cigar Lounge. It is where, a copy of what used to be called The International Herald Tribune in hand, I read a story with the headline, “Win or lose, Trump has already won.” The writer, Matthew Schmitz, stated that what Mr. Trump has accomplished on the two signature issues of trade and immigration entails “a clearer realization that it is permissible, and often essential, to give priority to one’s fellow citizens over those of other countries.”Not everybody will agree with that assessment — not even everybody in the Republican party will agree. However, it is precisely that message that has resonated so deeply with vast segments of the European public. It is what hoisted Italy’s unstoppable Giorgia Meloni to power and what made France’s far right National Rally the most powerful political party in that complicated country and vital partner of America. Europeans have been exasperated by the failed policies of the Brussels technocrats who hamper free trade through burdensome regulations. In Germany, the rise of the far right is testament to the discredited, blurred vision of Angela Merkel who glibly said that Germany could “manage” more than a million Syrian refugees when clearly it cannot.It is the message that has resonated with tens of millions of Americans who see right through the hollowness of Hollywood potshots at conservative politicians and the chicanery of the Democrats’ quietly desperate obsession with celebrity endorsements. The entertainer Beyoncé may have looked lovely standing before a crowd in Texas to support Ms. Harris, but the majority of Americans were not convinced that the co-owner of a $200 million dollar Malibu mansion has a clue about the chaos on our southern border, sowed by the disastrous policies of President Biden and candidate Kamala Harris. Europe, too, is facing an immigration crisis, of staggering proportions. There is no indication that European countries will be in lockstep with a Trump administration when it comes to migration policies, but change is in the air, and the Continent often takes its cue from Washington. That is why, in response to the barkeep’s question close at closing time, “What happens if Trump wins?” I answered in haltingly bad Greek, to káneis kai esý — “you do too.”

‘La Nuit Americaine’ Yields on the Continent to the Promise of a New Dawn for Trump

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