When Donald Trump first visited Paris when President in 2017, he appeared as something of a passing curiosity; the apparent manifestation of America’s inexorable decline, captured in all its spray-tanned vulgarity. Seven years later he has returned to Paris as emperor, crowned by his client kings in none other than the spiritual home of modern Christendom: Notre-Dame. “It was a coronation,” as one European diplomat put it to me, laughing with incredulity at the spectacle.
What is so striking about this second coming of Trump is not just that the world appears to have accepted his victory this time, but to have actively embraced him as the harbinger of a new age, no longer seeking to protect the old one that has been discredited. The visual proof of this diplomatic embrace was captured in the image of Europe’s leaders in Paris, one after the other, moving to submit themselves at the feet of the new imperator.
The next few years promise a great deal of fun.
