Monday, December 5, 2016

Western Leaders Resigned To Their Fate

                The Emperors have no clothes. And no one to lord over anymore.
                There is a photo of Western leaders- taken back in April of this year- that has recently gone viral…and for good reason. The picture was taken at the G5 Summit in Hannover, Germany, and shows the five rulers chatting outside on a patio. In this White House photo, we see British Prime Minister David Cameron, President of the United States Barack Hussein Obama, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and French President Francois Hollande chatting amicably.
                Every one in that picture may be going the way of the dinosaur. Prime Minister Cameron resigned in July after the Brexit vote. President Obama is a lame duck, and his party’s choice for President was defeated by Donald Trump in November, laying waste to his legacy. Prime Minister Renzi said yesterday that he intends to resign after a referendum on constitutional reforms he had backed was soundly defeated. And France’s President- Francois (“France is going to have to live with terrorism”) Hollande- recently announced that he will not seek re-election, becoming the first French President to do so since the French Fifth Republic was born in 1958. This probably has something to do with the fact that Hollande’s approval rating stands at 4 percent. That is not a typo.
                Gonorrhea has a higher approval rating.
                Anyway, four down, one to go. Chancellor Merkel’s hold on power is not in existential danger yet, but her own approval ratings are dropping faster than trousers at a swinger’s convention. If the Germans, God willing, continue to sober up, she too will be nothing but a memory a year from now.
                A clean sweep? A “Western Spring?”
                Morning in the West.

                Let’s roll.

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