On Yeats, Trump & Putin

Dispatch from NATO, Brussels – Day 1

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

— William Butler Yeats, "The Second Coming"

I can't seem to get Yeats out of my head. Ever since November 5th, his dark tale has been my guide to make sense of the Trump ascendancy.

And then this morning at the NATO parliamentary meetings in Brussels, I felt like a bit actor in a dramatic rendition of Yeats' nightmare poem.

Setting The Stage

NATO is a huge, slow-moving bureaucracy. Budgets, plans, and objectives are carefully designed over multiple meetings with precise input from all players. By the time the parliamentarians are invited to give their views, the long-term objectives are carved in stone.

Dull is the order of the day.

But not anymore.

Many of the delegates to this gathering had just come from the disastrous Munich meetings where J. D. Vance launched his disgraceful attack on European democracy. They were rattled.

As the agenda slowly moved through its already out-of-date plans, the world was shaking around us.

People were checking their phones to get the latest from Paris, where European leaders were "turning and turning in the widening gyre" as they scrambled to stop Putin and Trump from carving up Ukraine.

Then, text messages began hitting cell phones of word that America may be abandoning support for the Baltic countries as Putin’s power in Eastern Europe grows.

"Surely some revelation is at hand," delegates must have thought to themselves. And yet, somehow, the meeting lumbered on.

In whispered conversations over coffee, delegates spoke of how the destruction of USAID would lead to massive Chinese inroads in Africa and South America. They spoke of the frightening breach between the United States and Europe at a time of growing Russian boldness.

Everyone was aware that we are in very uncharted territory. But it felt as if everyone was trying to keep calm and carry on. And this meant trying to ignore the large American elephant in the room.

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Going Over The Boards

During the morning session, I was given the opportunity to make initial remarks from the Canadian delegation. I decided that rather than be polite and diplomatic, it was time to say bluntly what everyone had been avoiding.

My reason for doing so was in response to an official who, trying to appease the American delegation, made a remark about how Canada needed to "pull its weight."

I stood up.

I told them my family had an uncle lying in the fields of Belgium just miles from this meeting. I reminded them that families all across Canada had uncles, cousins, and grandfathers who died, freeing the European people from fascists.

I looked up into the hall of European delegates and said bluntly:

"So don't let anyone in this room ever accuse Canadians of not being there when it's time to defend freedom from fascism."

I then pointed out that the United States - a NATO ally - has stated that we don't even have a right to exist as a nation.

Canada is looking for its place in a new and dangerous world. We would like that place to be with our European allies, but we needed to know whether they would stand with us.

I then turned my attention to Elon Musk.

There had been discussion of Russian electoral interference and disinformation, but what about Elon Musk? What about his attacks on European democracy?

I was fully expecting to get shouted down.

But surprisingly, I received a loud outpouring of applause.

Throughout the day, delegates from many countries came to me to thank me for my blunt language. They know that our world is being turned upside down by Trump's gangster regime and that we aren't doing anybody any favours by tiptoeing around the issue.

Trump's attack on Canada is part of a darker plan to destabilize global alliances, plunging us into a much more dangerous world.

That dangerous world is now here.

As one senior official said to me:

"We are not at war yet. But we are certainly no longer at peace."

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The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

The beast has slouched into Washington.

Canada will have to make some tough choices in the months and years ahead.

But I have never been so proud to be a Canadian, and I have never felt more empowered by the determination and goodwill of our people.

In a world of growing darkness, I know we can be the light.

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