It didn't take long to cast a sour note on these Olympics. I'm not talking about the protests in Milan last night. I'm talking about the appearance of VP Vance and his wife Usha at the Opening ceremony. Wherever this guy goes he gets booed but don't tell Donald that. He thinks VP is a swell guy but when in a foreign country, you know things can kind of get out of hand.
I don't even know how VP can show his face in Europe after all the things he has said over the past year, but then he probably thought he had a sympathetic audience in Italy where the Far Right parties represent the ruling coalition in Parliament. I don't know if Giorgia Meloni was laughing at him or some joke he tried to crack.
A big part of the White House National Security Strategy is to get more Far Right governments in power. When in Munich last year, VP was actively courting the AfD in Germany, which subsequently lost in the parliamentary elections that month. Meloni and her coalition have been in power for several years, no thanks to Trump. In fact Far Right parties are pleading with Trump officials to back off as all that bellicose talk about Greenland sent shockwaves throughout Europe, especially in Denmark, where MP Anders Vistisen told Trump to fuck off after he suggested buying Greenland and had other choice words to say to the President. Vistisen represents the far-right Danish People's Party. No one wants these Americans in Europe, especially extremist populist parties that now see Trump as a major liability.
Here again don't tell Trump that. He thinks he's the rage of Europe. So wildly popular that European leaders call him "daddy" and the "President of Europe." It didn't sound like that in Milan or anywhere else for that matter, where he is lucky if he cracks 20% in popularity polls. Not surprisingly, only 4% of Danes have a favorable impression of Donald.
In fact, Trump has become a secret weapon for mainstream political parties, with far right parties trying to distance themselves as far as possible from the daft president. Morten Messerschmidt, the leader of the Danish People's Party has found it especially difficult, as he traveled to Mar-a-Lago last year to court Trump and is now having to deal with political fallout over Trump's dream of annexing Greenland. Needless to say his Danish political opponents aren't letting Morten off the hook.
The far-right populist parties had been doing well throughout Europe. Norway's Labour Party barely held off a far right populist surge in last year's parliamentary election. You might recall that Trump wrote a Christmas letter to PM Jonas Store asking why he didn't win the Nobel Peace Prize. Now that far-right threat appears to be diminishing, all thanks to Donald trying to flex his power over Europe.
It's a good thing as most of these far-right populists want to secede from the EU and divest in NATO. Petty nationalism is their main cause. They even want to get rid of the Euro and bring back old national currencies like the Franc and Deutschmark, thinking this will somehow bring a return to better economic times. A few countries have retained their currency like Denmark and Poland, much to the chagrin of French and German nationalists, but then it is their countries' central banks that underpin the Euro. They should take that as a compliment.
However, these populists firmly believe that the Euro is the reason for the high inflation rate they suffered through a few years ago. It doesn't matter that inflation currently sits at 1.7% on average throughout Europe. It had been as high as 25% in many countries when the war broke out in Ukraine in 2022. This had nothing to do with the Euro but rather the worry over fuel and grain supplies during those first few volatile months. Same in the US.
Hard to believe it has been almost four years since Russia invaded Ukraine. We were enjoying the Winter Olympics in Beijing that year. If you recall, Russia also annexed Crimea shortly after the Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014. The Kremlin seems to like to time its actions with worldwide events, using them as a cover for its operations, which is why it wouldn't surprise me at all if Russia instigated these protests in Milan through social media. Russia is very good at playing off both the Far Left and the Far Right. So, expect something big to happen in the next few weeks. That would very much be Putin's modus operandi.
As such it makes it hard to completely enjoy these Olympic games despite the convivial atmosphere on display Friday night at the Opening ceremony. Especially seeing so many Russians parading as participants from other countries. Don't let that AIN tag fool you, an estimated 40 Russian athletes are competing with countries like Georgia, Kazakhstan and other Central Asian teams. There was even a Russian flag swirling at the USA-Czechia women's hockey game yesterday. Maybe there was a Russian player on one of the teams?
Somebody's plotting something. What it is, no one knows for sure? The biggest worry is that the US may be aiding and abetting Russia by providing intelligence. Trump very much wants to bring Putin back to the table. One assumes that is because his ties run so deep with Moscow that the only way to keep Vlad off his back is to accommodate him, as if the Epstein Files weren't bad enough. There was VP Vance to cheer the boys and girls of the US Olympic Team, letting everyone know that everything is copacetic. America's good will ambassador in action.
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