Daniel Warner

The United States is going through a period of gloom and doom. Confidence in its institutions has fallen, politics is deeply polarized, and talk of

Trump and the Macrons at Versailles. (Screengrab from CSPAN.) Donald Trump's visit to Évian and Versailles offered this Geneva resident an

The tenth anniversary of the British vote to leave the European Union raises two immediate questions: Was it worth it? Can it be undone? The answer to the first is increasingly clear. Experts generally agree that the British economy has suffered for a decade, accompanied by political instability. The second question is more complex. Democracies are built on the assumption that citizens can change their minds. Elect a new government. Hold another referendum. Reverse course. But can a nation ever truly return to where it was before a fateful decision?

Bombs fly after a cease-fire is announced in wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. Are these announcements real steps towards peace or just a distraction?

Trump's diatribe against communism assumes that the United States won the Cold War both strategically and ideologically. If you even read Karl Marx, the implication is that you are embracing a failed worldview and are therefore not a true American. The implied narrative is that Marxism belongs to history's losers, while American capitalism belongs to history's winners. That is his assumed cause and effect.

Photograph Source: MichaelEmilio – CC BY 4.0 Norway stunned football royalty Brazil in the World Cup.

The Morandi Bridge after the collapse that occurred on August 14, 2018. Photo: Michele Ferraris, Wikimedia. Public Domain.

For FY2026, the United States is expected to spend about US$1 trillion on defense. The estimated US$3–4 billion reduction in funding for Geneva-based humanitarian organisations amounts to roughly 0.3–0.4% of that budget. Yet the United States is not fighting a declared war. It is dismantling humanitarian institutions to save less than half of one percent of what it spends on its military. What do these choices say about American priorities?

Several weeks after the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, I finally sat down to watch Trump’s performance. The Dinner is one occasion when the President is expected to be entertaining as well as presidential. What I saw was a very poor imitation of Borscht Belt comic performers like Sid Caesar, Rodney Dangerfield and Henny Youngman. While More

The rail network in the Catskills with summer resorts, ca. 1901 – Public Domain