I wonder if our allies will eventually have to storm the shores of our
beaches to liberate us from an enemy , foreign (Putin), and from domestic terrorism (the administration of Donald Drumpf). It gives me hope.
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Maybe not Hillary Clinton, but not so bad. She has lots of experience dealing with Putin, and Trump won't be so different. Maybe even easier. He's easily manipulated with flattery and nice shiny rewards dangled in front of him. In this age of nukes there will be no storming of beaches or liberating armies. We'll have to do most of the work ourselves, like the Germans did when the Berlin Wall came down. But our allies can help a lot by restraining the most dangerous impulses of the new mad emperor abroad. And there are many ways our friends overseas can support our dissidents as we once did with the old Soviet Union. We are going to need a lot Snowdens over the next four years. Germany and other democracies could help a lot by providing a safer, friendlier asylum than Russia and a repository of leaked evidence of corruption.
I am not suggesting that Angela Merkel is some kind of savior. She is a fallible human being who hasn't always done the right thing. The Greeks know all about that. She is up against some formidable enemies at home, bankers and xenophobes mainly, that she has to placate. But she is really trying. In every picture I have ever seen she looks like she has the weight of the world on her shoulders. I find that reassuring, and if Hillary Clinton had won the election I think a year into her term she would have had that same look. It's a sign that you care, like President Obama's grey hair.
Isn't it ironic that seventy some years after WWII we have switched places with Germany? They are what we once were: a light unto the nations (mostly). And we are in great danger of becoming what they once were. There is a lot they could do to return the favor that was the Marshall Plan.
