In an article titled “The Saddest Little Dictator,” Bulwark editor Jonathan Last speculated that President Donald Trump was having a hard time coping with his exclusion from Chinese President Xi Jinping’s lavish military parade.
“When the world’s most powerful dictators gathered to push their agenda, they wouldn’t let Trump sit at their table, even though he’d spent nearly a decade trying to join them… Now imagine that the American president may have viewed this event not with disgust, but with jealousy,” Last wrote, citing a Wall Street Journal report that Trump told his advisers he was disappointed by his military parade.
But “the world is moving away from America,” Last said, as are the Indo-Pacific leaders who met at Xi Jinping’s initiative to discuss their futures. “Among them were Putin and India’s ambitious authoritarian president, Narendra Modi. The goal of this meeting was to show that we are now living in a post-American reality.”
“It’s not Trump’s fault, it’s America’s,” Last said.
“It’s America’s eternal shame that Brazil took the coup attempt more seriously than we did,” he added, adding that Trump’s second election was the confirmation the world needed to understand that the American people could no longer be relied upon.
“Other countries can no longer make long-term plans based on America, so the world is now looking for alternative solutions,” he added.
“Canadians are tied to Europe. Europeans are detaching from America. Russians are trying to dominate Europeans. The Middle East is preparing for a post-oil future where they behave like the global hedge fund. Indians are trying to be like the Chinese… But China is clearly further along in its plan than I thought, because Xi Jinping has reached a point where he is no longer satisfied with Trump.” “This means that the Chinese believe that America’s decline has come to an end,” Last said.
“That’s the reality and there’s no going back,” said Last. “The American people exposed themselves and the rest of the world can’t un-see it.