A EUROPEAN GOES TO TRUMP’S WASHINGTON

and what he finds is disturbing

Ivan Krastev, Chairman, Centre for Liberal Strategies, Sofia; Permanent Fellow, Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), Vienna

Moderation: Eva Nowotny, Member of the Board of the Bruno Kreisky Forum

“For a European, visiting the United States these days is a bit like going to the dentist: Your mouth is agape, you smell trouble, and you leave with a lingering bad taste. I recently spent three months in Washington as the Henry A. Kissinger chair at the Library of the Congress. My job, ostensibly, was to make sense of a world that has gone wild. But I think in my time there the only thing I really achieved was high-level confusion. This wasn’t my first visit to America, but it was my most disturbing one. What I found so disconcerting was the pervasive political polarization afflicting the country. It was also clear that America has become inward-looking and conspiracy-minded. And in Washington now, people are incapable of discussing anything but President Trump. They talk about Mr. Trump even when they pretend to be speaking about something else. It’s all Trump, all the time.”