Dear Readers,
It was quite the week.
American and Canadian Voters voice their displeasure, and Germany follows France in moving against radical parties.
US President Donald Trump continues to battle the blob, the old US foreign and security policy establishment. He has removed the now former National Security Adviser Mike Waltz due to frustrations over perceived disloyalty and Waltz's alignment with traditional defense establishment views. Trump’s administration continues to suffer from the blob’s obstruction, leading many to deem the execution of his policies to be haphazard and confused. Waltz is seen as one of those failing to align with the president’s goals. President Trump will likely find that he has more work to do to achieve a balance of alignment and competency to reach his goals. He would be wise to look outside of his usual circles, to academics and others who can better articulate and execute his foreign policy agenda.
A new AJC poll shows a sharp drop in support for Democrats in Georgia, especially among young voters, who express frustration over the party’s lack of assertiveness. The data signals potential vulnerabilities for Democrats in a critical battleground, with growing calls from the base for stronger stands on voting rights, economic justice, and civil liberties. The Democratic Party is in danger of losing core supporters and potentially provoking major primary fights if the old guard does not adjust or retire. Many believe that the senior Democrat leadership has proven themselves completely unequal to the challenge, and they should be responsible and make way for the next generation.
The world saw many May Day protests as workers around the world rallied for better wages, conditions, and protections. In the US, events took on a political edge with union members condemning Trump’s economic policies. In Philadelphia, birthplace of American independence, protestors blocked an intersection wearing signs reading “Workers over billionaires,” and were arrested. Workers also protested the planned reduction of the Centers for Disease Control staff responsible for critical American emergency health support.
In Rome, as cardinals gather to choose the next pope, many are meeting one another for the first time. Regular meetings were interrupted by the COVID-19 Pandemic. This “conclave of strangers” reflects the Church’s global reach and internal fragmentation. The lack of clear frontrunners ahead of the May 7th opening of the conclave creates a heightened drama in what many think will be the most important papal election of the last half-century or more.
After a wave of Russian drone strikes on Ukrainian cities, President Volodymyr Zelensky called on Western allies to intensify pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin. The strikes killed dozens and reflect Russia's continued escalation despite international condemnation, and after the US signed a deal with Ukraine for access to their minerals. Putin ordered a surprise three-day truce from May 8-10, to mark the 80th anniversary of World War II Victory Day celebrations in Moscow.
The French continue to turn against Tesla with sales down 59% in April! Chinese EV makers are benefiting from the link consumers make between Tesla with US politics.
The holy city is under threat. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has declared a national emergency in Israel as wildfires sweep toward Jerusalem, forcing evacuations. The IDF has been called out to conduct firefighting operations as unseasonably dry weather threatens to create a disaster, exposing Israel’s vulnerability to climate change.
Foreign media are tracking the news out of the US regarding the arrest and detention of foreign scholars and students. A Palestinian student detained during a US citizenship interview has been released, following public outcry and legal advocacy. The arrest, reportedly tied to questions about his activism, sparked debates about political profiling and the boundaries of lawful dissent amid growing campus tensions over Middle East issues.
“Donald Trump, Engineer of Disorder” Le Monde
This op-ed critiques Donald Trump as a deliberate destabilizer of political norms and international order. It argues that Trump’s leadership style is rooted in chaos creation, weakening alliances and democratic institutions both at home and abroad, with long-term implications for the West’s credibility and cohesion. They argue that the Democratic Party is currently incapable of challenging what is a clear disaster for the United States.
Beijing is intensifying efforts to decouple from Western tech, positioning Huawei as the backbone of a sovereign digital infrastructure. The shift includes major state investment and regulatory shields for domestic firms, part of a broader strategy to resist U.S.-led sanctions and surveillance concerns. It appears that China was waiting for the Trump trade war. This war does provide a brilliant excuse to justify the economic pain required to decouple from US technology without bearing the blame with the Chinese people. The Communist leaders now have the ability to restack the deck in their favor, and any inconvenience will be blamed on the Americans. China had a plan and a counter waiting, and the US may have walked into a trap.
Excitebike Russian Style 2025! Putin’s soldiers are increasingly using motorcycles for fast, nimble assaults in difficult terrain. The Russians are using quick-attack motorcycles to evade drones and will continue experimenting with the tactic to break the ground stalemate. The spring fighting season is revving up.
Major Highlights
Germany’s federal intelligence service has officially designated the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as a right-wing extremist group, opening the door to surveillance and state scrutiny. The charge is that the AfD promotes ethnonationalism and undermines the democratic order. In addition, the new government of the Christian Democrats must respond to the concerns fueling AfD support—immigration, economic anxiety, and cultural drift. The AfD is vulnerable if the government takes them head-on and exposes their weakness and the sellout of true German interests. This raises the stakes of US officials like the Vice President, JD Vance, supporting AfD.
The Conservatives were defeated in Canada’s Election on April 28th, and their leader, Pierre Poilievre, lost his seat in parliament. Yes, a record number of candidates ran in his district, but that is not what went wrong. While 91 candidates ran in the Canadian riding of Carleton (Canada calls its electoral districts ridings), that did not determine the outcome. Voters are smarter than politicians give them credit for - and I argue that talking down to voters like many politicians do is actually harmful because it forces the voters into simplistic thinking when they can actually handle complexity.
The 45-year-old Mr. Poilievre had represented Carleton since he was 25 years old. One attack on him is that “he has never had a regular job” and has been in parliament since he got out of university. So he was not hurt by the candidate avalanche. Voters knew exactly who he was; he had been in the seat for twenty years already. Does anyone think that Schumer, Mitch McConnell, or Nancy Pelosi would be beaten by running 100 candidates against them for the US House or Senate? Of course not, it would only split their opponents because their supporters are locked in; beating them would mean concentrating opposition and winning over their more lukewarm supporters.
In reality, Poilievre lost by 4,315 votes out of 86,371. The minor parties that received any attention at all in this race got less than 2,000 votes combined, and the other 86 candidates all got less than 100 votes each. The winner of the election, Liberal Party member Bruce Fanjoy, won a majority of the vote. Poilievre and his supporters cannot blame that on the other candidates. A majority is a majority; you could give Poilievre all the other votes, and he would have still lost his seat. That is what Poilievre must reckon with: he was rejected by a majority of his constituents in a race he was destined to win earlier this year when polls had his party up by 20%. The US administration upended his chance to be PM. How Poilievre responds will reveal what sort of man he is and whether he is ready to lead Canada in the future.
Canada’s Liberal Party won the election but will have a minority government due to their loses in Ontario offsetting many of their gains elsewhere in Canada. They are bringing in King Charles to drive home the distinction between Canada and America. American are generally unaware that English-speaking Canada was settled by loyalists who left the 13 Colonies and rejected the American Revolution. The Crown has been central to their identity, especially with Canadian conservatives who might otherwise be thought of as the natural allies of the GOP, probably less so now as the GOP just cost them an election.
In 2011, the Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper restored the historic names of Canada’s military branches —Royal Canadian Navy, Royal Canadian Air Force, and Canadian Army— reversing a 1968 bland forces centralization policy introduced by the Liberal Party that consolidated the branches under a single, generic structure, which critics argued erased important traditions. Harper’s move was intended to reconnect with Canada’s military heritage, reinforce ties to the Crown, and strengthen national identity. It fit within his broader emphasis on history, symbolism, and traditional institutions, and was welcomed by veterans and monarchists. The monarchy separates Canadians from their republican cousins to the south.
However, the newly elected Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney now wants to embrace the Crown and Canadian nationalism to resist the threats of hostile annexation from US President Donald Trump. The CBC reports that His Majesty Charles III, King of Canada, will travel there from Great Britain to deliver the Speech from the Canadian Throne on May 27. It will be a historic moment, the first time in nearly half a century that the reigning monarch has read the Speech to open Parliament in Canada. The late Queen Elizabeth II did so way back in 1977. Prime Minister Mark Carney called the occasion "a historic honour" that reflects "the weight of our times," reaffirming the constitutional importance of the monarchy in Canada's democracy. King Charles referred to himself as “king of Canada,” when addressing the Italian parliament, which is a rare thing for the British monarch to do when not in Canada. In March, the monarch wore his Canadian military honors while meeting on the British warship HMS Prince of Wales. Charles is known to royal watchers as a man of conviction who has matured greatly in the decades since the 1990s and has the bearing and self-possession of his father, the late Prince Philip. Americans may find that what they consider funny is not to others, and this has consequences.
The Governor General, Mary Simon, the king’s permanent representative in his realm of Canada, says that the visit of the sovereign will occur May 26–27, with Queen Camilla accompanying the king. The detailed itinerary is still forthcoming. Monarchists view the King’s role in delivering the Speech as a significant reaffirmation of the Crown’s presence in Canadian public life, particularly as Charles becomes the ceremonial voice of Carney’s new government. When I was last in Canada in 2023, I took my first tour of Parliament, and when I got to the Canadian Senate, the tour guide said, almost embarrassed, that the nice red chair with E II R on it was not a throne. I rolled my eyes. Then the tour guide asked if anyone knew why the chairs of the senate were red, and I could not resist and raised my hand and said, “Because the chairs in the House of Peers in London are red!” The tour guide was shocked and said that was correct. I then said to the stranger next to me, “And that is a throne.”
Charles III is the king in the north.
Wow it was a whirlwind of politics, well done