Europe's Dilemma

I cannot begin to imagine what Europe's political leaders make of Trump. Normally political systems filter out the fools, those just in it for a a lark or self promotion. But America's system failed to do so in part because of Citizen's United, but also because none of the framers of the constitution probably could have imagined a wealthy reality TV star running for public office. This was an almost unimaginable confluence of circumstances.

Now the leaders of the world's leading democracies, who have been groomed and moulded by systems that reward, if not the exclusion of all else then to a large degree, serious policy engagement, must find a way of interacting with someone the like of whom they have probably never had to engage with in any serious fashion, someone who has no patience for, or understanding of, policy.

The two questions I imagine they much be asking themselves are these: how can Trump be contained in the short term from doing too much damage to the world order; and is this just a temporary aberration that will be gone in 30 months, or does it reflect a real underlying change in the USA's electorate's orientation to world affairs?

To the second I suspect only time will tell...