Complex Event Analysis - Report

Key Focus

  • At one level, the Europe that sent tens of thousands of people to listen to Obama speak at the Brandenburg Gate when he was not even yet president is the same one that packed tens of thousands into European capitals at the height of a global pandemic to call for justice for George Floyd: It is an international community obsessed with America, and dominated by it
  • To listen to an Atlanta rapper address a press conference, or a Houston police chief speak to a crowd of protesters, is to watch a more accomplished, powerful, and eloquent public speaker than almost any European politician I can think of.
  • We just don't know what with."
    Today's convulsions are not without precedent - many I spoke to cited previous protests and riots, or America's diminished standing after the Iraq War in 2003 (a war, to be sure, supported by Britain and other European countries) - yet the confluence of recent events and modern forces has made the present challenge particularly dangerous
  • And today, the ugliness that is on display is amplified, not calmed, by the American president.
    To understand how this moment in U.S. history is being seen in the rest of the world, I spoke to more than a dozen senior diplomats, government officials, politicians, and academics from five major European countries, including advisers to two of its most powerful leaders, as well as to the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair
  • Momentum supporting factors

  • (america, ugliness)
  • (europe, trump)
  • Challenge supporting factors

  • (america, european)
  • (america, american, trump)
  • (america, trump)
  • (america, american, ugliness)
  • (america, ugliness)
  • (america, tom_mctague)
  • (america, tinker_tailor_soldier_spy)
  • (american, china, trump)
  • (trump, united_states)
  • (policy, trump)
  • Work-in-progress supporting factors

  • (american, european, trump)
  • (america, leaders)
  • (america, iraq_war)
  • (america, european)
  • (america, countries)
  • (american, china, trump)
  • (american, european, politicians)
  • (american, politicians)
  • (america, american, united_nations)
  • (america, united_nations)
  • Complex Event Time Series Summary - REPORT


    Time PeriodChallengeMomentumWIP
    Report18.32 0.76 80.92

    High Level Abstraction (HLA) combined

    High Level Abstraction (HLA)Report
    (1) (america,european)100.00
    (2) (america,ugliness)85.75
    (3) (american,china,trump)67.48
    (4) (america,trump)65.26
    (5) (american,european,trump)58.13
    (6) (america,leaders)52.34
    (7) (america,iraq_war)50.89
    (8) (america,countries)49.33
    (9) (american,european,politicians)43.32
    (10) (american,politicians)41.09
    (11) (america,american,trump)40.42
    (12) (america,american,united_nations)38.53
    (13) (america,united_nations)38.42
    (14) (america,american,ugliness)37.31
    (15) (america,american,syria)36.19
    (16) (america,american,prison)35.08
    (17) (america,american,politicians)33.96
    (18) (american,policy)32.41
    (19) (america,american,political)31.51
    (20) (america,american,paris-based)30.40
    (21) (america,american,nadir)29.29
    (22) (america,american,leaders)28.17
    (23) (american,china)28.06
    (24) (america,american,iraq_war)26.84
    (25) (america,wife)24.50
    (26) (china,trump)24.39
    (27) (america,tom_mctague)24.16
    (28) (america,tinker_tailor_soldier_spy)24.05
    (29) (america,the_last_dance)23.94
    (30) (american,china,european)23.39
    (31) (american,policy,trump)21.38
    (32) (american,music)20.82
    (33) (european,trump)17.48
    (34) (american,trump,yin)17.15
    (35) (american,trade)16.37
    (36) (american,european,white_house)16.04
    (37) (american,european,unimaginable)14.59
    (38) (american,trump,unimaginable)14.25
    (39) (american,european,unifying)13.25
    (40) (american,trump,unifying)12.92
    (41) (american,trends,trump)12.58
    (42) (american,trade,trump)12.14
    (43) (american,european,spiritual)11.47
    (44) (trump,united_states)11.36
    (45) (american,spiritual,trump)10.80
    (46) (music,trump)10.24
    (47) (american,economic)8.80
    (48) (american,european,ugliness)8.24
    (49) (american,european,snobbery)7.46
    (50) (american,military)7.24
    (51) (american,iraq)6.79
    (52) (american,european,self-interest)6.46
    (53) (american,european,politics)5.46
    (54) (iraq,trump)5.35
    (55) (europe,trump)5.35
    (56) (policy,trump)4.79
    (57) (american,health)3.12
    (58) (cynicism,trump)2.78
    (59) (middle_east,trump)2.23
    (60) (iran,trump)2.00
    (61) (equivalence,trump)1.56
    (62) (transactional,united_states)1.22
    (63) (tiananmen_square,united_states)1.11
    (64) (the_washington_post,united_states)1.00
    (65) (terrorism,united_states)0.89
    (66) (smear,united_states)0.78
    (67) (shorn,united_states)0.67
    (68) (self-serving,united_states)0.56
    (69) (russian,united_states)0.45
    (70) (recoiled,united_states)0.33
    (71) (putin,united_states)0.22
    (72) (pro-democracy,united_states)0.11

    Complex Event Analysis - REPORT

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    Supporting narratives:

    • momentum (Read more)
      • In the president and first lady, the burning cities and race divides, the police brutality and poverty, an image of America is beamed out, confirming the prejudices that much of the world already have - while also serving as a useful device to obscure its own injustices, hypocrisies, racism, and ugliness.

        It is hard to escape the feeling that this is a uniquely humiliating moment for America
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (america,ugliness)

    • momentum (Read more)
      • Each of the continent's major countries has the freedom to break from American power should it summon the political will to do so, but prefers to offer symbolic opposition while hoping for a change in leadership. In some respects, Europe's response since 2016 has been almost as lamentable as Trump has been to American prestige.
        By 1946, when Winston Churchill arrived in Fulton, Missouri, to deliver his famous Iron Curtain speech, the might of the United States was obvious
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (europe,trump)

    • challenge (Read more)
      • realized." The rot, in this reading, started with Obama, a professorial cynic of the West, and has culminated in Trump, whose abandonment of the American idea marks a break in world history. Yet if America no longer believes in its moral superiority, what is left but moral equivalence.
        It is as if Trump were confirming some of the accusations leveled at America by its most fervent critics - even when those claims are not true
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (america,american,trump)
        • (america,trump)
        • (equivalence,trump)
        • Inferred entity relationships (13)
        • (america,american,leaders) [inferred]
        • (america,american,political) [inferred]
        • (america,american,united_nations) [inferred]
        • (america,american,iraq_war) [inferred]
        • (america,american,ugliness) [inferred]
        • (america,american,politicians) [inferred]
        • (america,american,prison) [inferred]
        • (america,american,nadir) [inferred]
        • (america,american,syria) [inferred]
        • (american,trump,yin) [inferred]
        • (america,american,paris-based) [inferred]
        • (american,trump,unimaginable) [inferred]
        • (american,trump,unifying) [inferred]

    • challenge (Read more)
      • Yet this dominance comes with a cost: The world can see into America, but America cannot look back. And today, the ugliness that is on display is amplified, not calmed, by the American president.
        To understand how this moment in U.S. history is being seen in the rest of the world, I spoke to more than a dozen senior diplomats, government officials, politicians, and academics from five major European countries, including advisers to two of its most powerful leaders, as well as to the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (america,american,ugliness)
        • (america,ugliness)
        • Inferred entity relationships (10)
        • (america,american,trump) [inferred]
        • (america,american,leaders) [inferred]
        • (america,american,political) [inferred]
        • (america,american,united_nations) [inferred]
        • (america,american,iraq_war) [inferred]
        • (america,american,politicians) [inferred]
        • (america,american,prison) [inferred]
        • (america,american,nadir) [inferred]
        • (america,american,syria) [inferred]
        • (america,american,paris-based) [inferred]

    • challenge (Read more)
      • At one level, the Europe that sent tens of thousands of people to listen to Obama speak at the Brandenburg Gate when he was not even yet president is the same one that packed tens of thousands into European capitals at the height of a global pandemic to call for justice for George Floyd: It is an international community obsessed with America, and dominated by it
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (america,european)

    • challenge (Read more)
      • To listen to an Atlanta rapper address a press conference, or a Houston police chief speak to a crowd of protesters, is to watch a more accomplished, powerful, and eloquent public speaker than almost any European politician I can think of.
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (america,european)

    • challenge (Read more)
      • That one is new.
        The Atlantic
        Story by Tom McTague
        JUNE 24, 2020

        "He hated America very deeply," John le Carre wrote of his fictional Soviet mole, Bill Haydon, in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (america,tom_mctague)

    • challenge (Read more)
      • That one is new.
        The Atlantic
        Story by Tom McTague
        JUNE 24, 2020

        "He hated America very deeply," John le Carre wrote of his fictional Soviet mole, Bill Haydon, in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (america,tinker_tailor_soldier_spy)

    • challenge (Read more)
      • They have also been unable to offer an alternative to American power and leadership, nor much of a response to some of the fundamental complaints consistent to both Trump and his Democratic challenger for the presidency, Joe Biden: European free riding, the strategic threat from China, and the need to tackle Iranian aggression.
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (american,china,trump)
        • Inferred entity relationships (3)
        • (american,china,european) [inferred]
        • (american,china) [inferred]
        • (china,trump) [inferred]

    • challenge (Read more)
      • The street protests, violence, and racism of the past few weeks have erupted at the very moment the country's institutional failings have been exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, reinforced by its apparently unbridgeable partisan divide, which is now even infecting parts of the American machine that have so far been untouched: its federal agencies, diplomatic service, and the long-standing norms underpinning the relationship between civilians and the military.
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (american,military)

    • challenge (Read more)
      • But even this opposition was never to the same extent as it is today - remember, it was a young Angela Merkel, then in the opposition, who wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post in 2003 titled "Schroeder Doesn't Speak for All Germans" signaling her party's continued alliance with the United States despite Germany's opposition to the war in Iraq. Put bluntly, Trump is unique. At the most basic level, Bush never recoiled from the core idea that there was a Western song, and that the lyrics should be composed in Washington
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (trump,united_states)
        • (iraq,trump)
        • (recoiled,united_states)

    • challenge (Read more)
      • And yet this claim of moral equivalence is no longer the smear of a foreign cynic but the view of the president of the United States himself. In an interview with Bill O'Reilly on Fox News in 2017, Trump was asked to explain his respect for Putin, and he replied with the usual generalities about the Russian president leading his country and its fight against Islamist terrorism, prompting O'Reilly to interject: "Putin's a killer." Trump then responded: "There are a lot of killers
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (trump,united_states)
        • (smear,united_states)

    • challenge (Read more)
      • What, do you think our country is so innocent." (Before he became president, Trump also praised China's apparent strength in violently suppressing the pro-democracy Tiananmen Square protests.)
        Such cynicism - that all societies are as corrupt and self-serving as the next - had previously been wholly rejected by the United States.
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (trump,united_states)

    • challenge (Read more)
      • What, do you think our country is so innocent." (Before he became president, Trump also praised China's apparent strength in violently suppressing the pro-democracy Tiananmen Square protests.)
        Such cynicism - that all societies are as corrupt and self-serving as the next - had previously been wholly rejected by the United States
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (cynicism,trump)
        • (pro-democracy,united_states)
        • (china,trump)
        • (tiananmen_square,united_states)

    • challenge (Read more)
      • Is it an aesthetic thing, in other words, an instinctive reaction to all that Trump represents, rather than the content of his foreign policy or the scale of the injustice. Why, if it is the latter, have there not been marches in Europe over the mass incarceration of Uighur Muslims in China, the steady stifling of democracy in Hong Kong, and Russia's annexation of Crimea, or against murderous regimes across the Middle East, such as Iran, Syria, or Saudi Arabia
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (policy,trump)
        • (europe,trump)

    • challenge (Read more)
      • First, he said, there is more support for the substance of Trump's foreign policy than might appear. He cited Europe's need to "up its game" on defense spending, the American willingness to put China's trade practices on the table, and Trump's push back against Iran in the Middle East
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (policy,trump)
        • (europe,trump)

    • challenge (Read more)
      • What, do you think our country is so innocent." (Before he became president, Trump also praised China's apparent strength in violently suppressing the pro-democracy Tiananmen Square protests.)
        Such cynicism - that all societies are as corrupt and self-serving as the next - had previously been wholly rejected by the United States. Today, international relations is little more than a transactional bargain for the United States, and power - not ideals, history, or alliances - is the currency.
        The irony is that this globalized morally equivalent world order, shorn of naive notions of the "free world" of democratic nation-states, finds its mirror image in the internationalized, post-national street protests against racism that we have seen over the past few weeks
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (self-serving,united_states)
        • (transactional,united_states)

    • challenge (Read more)
      • Today, international relations is little more than a transactional bargain for the United States, and power - not ideals, history, or alliances - is the currency.
        The irony is that this globalized morally equivalent world order, shorn of naive notions of the "free world" of democratic nation-states, finds its mirror image in the internationalized, post-national street protests against racism that we have seen over the past few weeks
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (shorn,united_states)

    • WIP (Read more)
      • What has united almost all of them is the sense that America's place and prestige in the world are now coming under direct attack by this sudden coming together of domestic, epidemiological, economic, and political forces.

        Michel Duclos, a former French ambassador to Syria who served at the United Nations during the Iraq War, and who now works as a special adviser to the Paris-based think tank Institut Montaigne, told me the nadir of American prestige has, until now, been the revelations of torture and abuse inside the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad in 2004
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (america,iraq_war)
        • (america,american,syria)
        • (america,american,paris-based)
        • (america,united_nations)
        • (america,american,iraq_war)
        • (america,american,united_nations)
        • (america,american,political)
        • (american,economic)
        • (america,american,nadir)
        • Inferred entity relationships (11)
        • (america,american,trump) [inferred]
        • (america,american,leaders) [inferred]
        • (america,american,political) [inferred]
        • (america,american,united_nations) [inferred]
        • (america,american,iraq_war) [inferred]
        • (america,american,ugliness) [inferred]
        • (america,american,politicians) [inferred]
        • (america,american,prison) [inferred]
        • (america,american,nadir) [inferred]
        • (america,american,syria) [inferred]
        • (america,american,paris-based) [inferred]

    • WIP (Read more)
      • What has united almost all of them is the sense that America's place and prestige in the world are now coming under direct attack by this sudden coming together of domestic, epidemiological, economic, and political forces.

        Michel Duclos, a former French ambassador to Syria who served at the United Nations during the Iraq War, and who now works as a special adviser to the Paris-based think tank Institut Montaigne, told me the nadir of American prestige has, until now, been the revelations of torture and abuse inside the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad in 2004.
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (america,american,prison)
        • Inferred entity relationships (10)
        • (america,american,nadir) [inferred]
        • (america,american,syria) [inferred]
        • (america,american,trump) [inferred]
        • (america,american,leaders) [inferred]
        • (america,american,political) [inferred]
        • (america,american,united_nations) [inferred]
        • (america,american,iraq_war) [inferred]
        • (america,american,ugliness) [inferred]
        • (america,american,paris-based) [inferred]
        • (america,american,politicians) [inferred]

    • WIP (Read more)
      • And today, the ugliness that is on display is amplified, not calmed, by the American president.
        To understand how this moment in U.S. history is being seen in the rest of the world, I spoke to more than a dozen senior diplomats, government officials, politicians, and academics from five major European countries, including advisers to two of its most powerful leaders, as well as to the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (american,european,politicians)
        • (america,countries)
        • (american,european,ugliness)
        • (america,american,politicians)
        • (america,european)
        • (american,politicians)
        • Inferred entity relationships (21)
        • (american,european,trump) [inferred]
        • (america,american,leaders) [inferred]
        • (american,european,spiritual) [inferred]
        • (american,european,snobbery) [inferred]
        • (american,european,ugliness) [inferred]
        • (american,european,white_house) [inferred]
        • (america,american,iraq_war) [inferred]
        • (america,american,ugliness) [inferred]
        • (america,american,prison) [inferred]
        • (america,american,nadir) [inferred]
        • (america,american,syria) [inferred]
        • (american,european,unifying) [inferred]
        • (american,european,self-interest) [inferred]
        • (america,american,trump) [inferred]
        • (american,european,politics) [inferred]
        • (america,american,political) [inferred]
        • (america,american,united_nations) [inferred]
        • (american,european,politicians) [inferred]
        • (american,politicians) [inferred]
        • (america,american,paris-based) [inferred]
        • (american,european,unimaginable) [inferred]

    • WIP (Read more)
      • And today, the ugliness that is on display is amplified, not calmed, by the American president.
        To understand how this moment in U.S. history is being seen in the rest of the world, I spoke to more than a dozen senior diplomats, government officials, politicians, and academics from five major European countries, including advisers to two of its most powerful leaders, as well as to the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (america,american,leaders)
        • (america,leaders)
        • Inferred entity relationships (11)
        • (america,american,trump) [inferred]
        • (america,american,political) [inferred]
        • (america,american,united_nations) [inferred]
        • (america,american,iraq_war) [inferred]
        • (america,american,ugliness) [inferred]
        • (america,american,politicians) [inferred]
        • (america,american,prison) [inferred]
        • (america,american,nadir) [inferred]
        • (america,american,syria) [inferred]
        • (american,leaders) [inferred]
        • (america,american,paris-based) [inferred]

    • WIP (Read more)
      • Some of those I spoke to said it wasn't just the protesters who were guilty of a form of selective blindness, but Europe's leaders themselves who sought America's protection, while refusing to bend to any democratically expressed concerns that went beyond Trump.
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (america,trump)

    • WIP (Read more)
      • Some of those I spoke to said it wasn't just the protesters who were guilty of a form of selective blindness, but Europe's leaders themselves who sought America's protection, while refusing to bend to any democratically expressed concerns that went beyond Trump
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (america,leaders)

    • WIP (Read more)
      • "We just don't know what with."

        Today's convulsions are not without precedent - many I spoke to cited previous protests and riots, or America's diminished standing after the Iraq War in 2003 (a war, to be sure, supported by Britain and other European countries) - yet the confluence of recent events and modern forces has made the present challenge particularly dangerous
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (america,iraq_war)
        • (america,european)
        • (america,countries)

    • WIP (Read more)
      • Driving to meet a friend here in London as the protests first erupted in the States, I passed a teenager in a basketball jersey with jordan 23 emblazoned on the back; I noticed it because my wife and I had been watching The Last Dance on Netflix, a documentary about an American sports team, on an American streaming platform
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (america,the_last_dance)
        • (america,wife)

    • WIP (Read more)
      • From a European perspective, it is also striking to see the energy, oratory, and moral authority once again bubbling up from below - the beauty of America, not the ugliness. To listen to an Atlanta rapper address a press conference, or a Houston police chief speak to a crowd of protesters, is to watch a more accomplished, powerful, and eloquent public speaker than almost any European politician I can think of
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (america,ugliness)

    • WIP (Read more)
      • Blair and others were also quick to point to the extraordinary depth of American power that remained regardless of who was in the White House, as well as the structural problems faced by China, Europe, and other geopolitical rivals.
        Most of those I spoke to were, however, clear that Trump's leadership has brought these currents - in tandem with the pressure of relative economic decline, the rise of China, the reemergence of great-power politics, and the decline of the West as a spiritual union - to a head in a manner and speed previously unimaginable.
        After almost four years of the Trump presidency, European diplomats, officials, and politicians are to varying degrees shocked, appalled, and scared
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (european,trump)
        • (american,china,european)
        • (american,china,trump)
        • (china,trump)
        • (american,european,spiritual)
        • (american,china)
        • (american,trump,unimaginable)
        • (american,european,white_house)
        • (american,spiritual,trump)
        • (american,european,politics)
        • (american,european,trump)
        • (american,economic)
        • (american,european,unimaginable)
        • Inferred entity relationships (19)
        • (trump,white_house) [inferred]
        • (american,european,trump) [inferred]
        • (american,european,spiritual) [inferred]
        • (american,european,snobbery) [inferred]
        • (american,european,ugliness) [inferred]
        • (american,european,white_house) [inferred]
        • (american,european,unifying) [inferred]
        • (american,trump,yin) [inferred]
        • (china,trump) [inferred]
        • (american,european,self-interest) [inferred]
        • (american,trump,unimaginable) [inferred]
        • (american,china,european) [inferred]
        • (american,china,trump) [inferred]
        • (american,european,politics) [inferred]
        • (american,china) [inferred]
        • (american,european,politicians) [inferred]
        • (american,european,unimaginable) [inferred]
        • (european,trump) [inferred]
        • (american,trump,unifying) [inferred]

    • WIP (Read more)
      • He cited Europe's need to "up its game" on defense spending, the American willingness to put China's trade practices on the table, and Trump's push back against Iran in the Middle East
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (american,china,trump)
        • Inferred entity relationships (3)
        • (american,china,european) [inferred]
        • (american,china) [inferred]
        • (china,trump) [inferred]

    • WIP (Read more)
      • First, he said, there is more support for the substance of Trump's foreign policy than might appear.
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (american,policy)
        • (american,policy,trump)
        • Inferred entity relationships (3)
        • (policy,trump) [inferred]
        • (american,policy,trump) [inferred]
        • (american,policy) [inferred]

    • WIP (Read more)
      • Trump today hears no unifying music - only the dull beat of self-interest.
        One senior adviser to a European leader, who did not want to be named relating private deliberations, told me that Continental snobbery at the notion of American leadership of the free world, of the "American Dream" and other cliches dismissed until now as hopelessly naive, has suddenly been exposed by Trump's cynicism
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (american,european,self-interest)
        • (music,trump)
        • (american,trump,unifying)
        • (american,music)
        • (american,european,trump)
        • (american,european,snobbery)
        • (american,european,unifying)
        • Inferred entity relationships (13)
        • (american,european,trump) [inferred]
        • (american,european,spiritual) [inferred]
        • (american,european,snobbery) [inferred]
        • (american,european,ugliness) [inferred]
        • (american,european,politics) [inferred]
        • (american,european,white_house) [inferred]
        • (american,european,politicians) [inferred]
        • (american,european,unifying) [inferred]
        • (american,trump,yin) [inferred]
        • (american,european,unimaginable) [inferred]
        • (american,european,self-interest) [inferred]
        • (american,trump,unimaginable) [inferred]
        • (european,trump) [inferred]

    • WIP (Read more)
      • At these moments, however, men of stature occupied the White House - flawed, sometimes corrupt, occasionally even criminal, but all sure of America's unique role in the world.
        A European ambassador told me Trump himself is an expression of American decline. "Choosing Trump is a way of not very successfully adapting to the globalized world," the diplomat, who asked for anonymity, said
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (american,european,trump)
        • Inferred entity relationships (10)
        • (american,european,unifying) [inferred]
        • (american,european,spiritual) [inferred]
        • (american,european,snobbery) [inferred]
        • (american,european,ugliness) [inferred]
        • (american,european,politics) [inferred]
        • (american,european,white_house) [inferred]
        • (american,european,unimaginable) [inferred]
        • (american,european,politicians) [inferred]
        • (american,european,self-interest) [inferred]
        • (european,trump) [inferred]

    • WIP (Read more)
      • All of this is happening in the final year of the first term of the most chaotic, loathed, and disrespected president in modern American history.
        Of course, not all of this can be laid at Trump's door; indeed, some of those I spoke to said he was the inheritor and even the beneficiary of many of these trends, the cynical, amoral yang to Barack Obama's first post-Pax Americana yin, which itself was the result of U.S. overreach in Iraq after September 11.
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (american,trump,yin)
        • (iraq,trump)
        • (american,iraq)
        • Inferred entity relationships (2)
        • (american,trump,unimaginable) [inferred]
        • (american,trump,unifying) [inferred]

    • WIP (Read more)
      • All of this is happening in the final year of the first term of the most chaotic, loathed, and disrespected president in modern American history.
        Of course, not all of this can be laid at Trump's door; indeed, some of those I spoke to said he was the inheritor and even the beneficiary of many of these trends, the cynical, amoral yang to Barack Obama's first post-Pax Americana yin, which itself was the result of U.S. overreach in Iraq after September 11
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (american,trends,trump)

    • WIP (Read more)
      • He cited Europe's need to "up its game" on defense spending, the American willingness to put China's trade practices on the table, and Trump's push back against Iran in the Middle East.
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (american,trade)
        • (iran,trump)
        • (middle_east,trump)
        • (american,trade,trump)
        • Inferred entity relationships (3)
        • (trade,trump) [inferred]
        • (american,trade) [inferred]
        • (american,trade,trump) [inferred]

    • WIP (Read more)
      • Are we witnessing America's imperial possessions metaphorically taking a knee to signal their opposition to the values the Empire has come to represent.
        The world has, after all, opposed the music of American policy before: over Vietnam and Iraq, world trade, and climate change. Occasionally, the tone and the music have even come together to alienate America's closest allies, as under George W. Bush, who was widely mocked, reviled, and opposed abroad
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (american,policy)
        • (american,trade)
        • (american,music)
        • (american,iraq)
        • Inferred entity relationships (2)
        • (american,trade,trump) [inferred]
        • (american,policy,trump) [inferred]

    • WIP (Read more)
      • Blair and others were also quick to point to the extraordinary depth of American power that remained regardless of who was in the White House, as well as the structural problems faced by China, Europe, and other geopolitical rivals.
        Most of those I spoke to were, however, clear that Trump's leadership has brought these currents - in tandem with the pressure of relative economic decline, the rise of China, the reemergence of great-power politics, and the decline of the West as a spiritual union - to a head in a manner and speed previously unimaginable.
        After almost four years of the Trump presidency, European diplomats, officials, and politicians are to varying degrees shocked, appalled, and scared.
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (american,european,politicians)
        • (american,politicians)
        • Inferred entity relationships (9)
        • (american,european,unifying) [inferred]
        • (american,european,trump) [inferred]
        • (american,european,spiritual) [inferred]
        • (american,european,snobbery) [inferred]
        • (american,european,ugliness) [inferred]
        • (american,european,politics) [inferred]
        • (american,european,white_house) [inferred]
        • (american,european,unimaginable) [inferred]
        • (american,european,self-interest) [inferred]

    • WIP (Read more)
      • America seems mired, its very ability to rebound in question. A new power has emerged on the world stage to challenge American supremacy - China - with a weapon the Soviet Union never possessed: mutually assured economic destruction.
        China, unlike the Soviet Union, is able to offer a measure of wealth, vibrancy, and technological advancement - albeit not yet to the same level as the United States - while protected by a silk curtain of Western cultural and linguistic incomprehension
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (american,china)
        • Inferred entity relationships (2)
        • (american,china,european) [inferred]
        • (american,china,trump) [inferred]

    • WIP (Read more)
      • Lawrence Freedman, a professor of war studies at King's College London, told me the institutions of American power themselves have been "battered." The health system is struggling, the municipalities are financially broke, and, beyond the police and the military, little attention is being paid to the health of the state itself.
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (american,military)

    • WIP (Read more)
      • Lawrence Freedman, a professor of war studies at King's College London, told me the institutions of American power themselves have been "battered." The health system is struggling, the municipalities are financially broke, and, beyond the police and the military, little attention is being paid to the health of the state itself
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (american,health)

    • WIP (Read more)
      • As one friend living in the States put it to me, there's still a hell of a lot of glue holding the United States together, with or without Trump.
        Over Americas history, it has had any number of crises and any number of detractors
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (trump,united_states)

    • WIP (Read more)
      • Trump today hears no unifying music - only the dull beat of self-interest.
        One senior adviser to a European leader, who did not want to be named relating private deliberations, told me that Continental snobbery at the notion of American leadership of the free world, of the "American Dream" and other cliches dismissed until now as hopelessly naive, has suddenly been exposed by Trump's cynicism. Only once the naivete has been taken away, the adviser said, could one see that it had been "a more powerful and organizing force than most
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (cynicism,trump)

    • WIP (Read more)
      • But even this opposition was never to the same extent as it is today - remember, it was a young Angela Merkel, then in the opposition, who wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post in 2003 titled "Schroeder Doesn't Speak for All Germans" signaling her party's continued alliance with the United States despite Germany's opposition to the war in Iraq
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (the_washington_post,united_states)

    • WIP (Read more)
      • In an interview with Bill O'Reilly on Fox News in 2017, Trump was asked to explain his respect for Putin, and he replied with the usual generalities about the Russian president leading his country and its fight against Islamist terrorism, prompting O'Reilly to interject: "Putin's a killer." Trump then responded: "There are a lot of killers
      • High Level Abstractions:
        • (terrorism,united_states)
        • (russian,united_states)
        • (putin,united_states)

    Target rule match count: 75.0 Challenge: 0.09 Momentum: 0.00 WIP: 0.40