Donald Trump’s speech could have been written by Poland’s populists

“THE fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive,” Donald Trump declared on July 6th, standing in front of a monument commemorating the Warsaw uprising against the Nazis in 1944. In a speech that recalled his inaugural address, when he invoked the prospect of “American carnage,” Mr Trump asked whether we have the courage to protect our borders and to preserve our civilisation in the face of “those who would subvert and destroy it”.

To some, Mr Trump’s speech may have sounded like typical American grandiloquence. In fact, with its echoes of Samuel Huntington’s clash of civilisations, it was a dramatic departure. Earlier American administrations defined “the West” with reference to values such as democracy, liberty and respect for human rights. Mr Trump and many of his advisers, including the speech’s authors, Stephen Bannon and Stephen Miller, apparently see it as rooted in ethnicity, culture and religion. When George W....Continue reading

Souce: Europe http://ift.tt/2uytwBo

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