Globe and Mail tells you twice, in case you missed it the first time

The folks on the bridge of the Good Ship Globe & Mail want you to believe that the USA was a benign hegemon from 1945 till January 20 of this year. Sure, those Yanks may have made a misstep here or there once or twice, but that’s to be expected when the weight of the world is on your shoulders, and besides, even those missteps were clearly cases of good intentions gone sour – through no fault of America, of course.

Yup, for over seventy years the planet basked in an unprecedented era of peace and freedom and democracy and prosperity, thanks to America’s leadership.

Then Donald ascended to the oval office and night descended on the planet.

Just how dark is it?

Oh, dark enough to give Doug Saunders some prime Focus section real estate in today’s paper. Chances are if you’re a regular G&M reader you already know Doug’s opinion on Trump, so there’s nothing new here.

Maybe that’s why the guys who make the big decisions at 351 King decided to commission an article by an actual history professor from U of T to run right beside Doug’s rant saying more or less the same stuff.

See! Doug’s not full of shit; real live history professors from Canada’s number one university agree with him!

In fairness, Doug does see a bit of a silver lining; “the West may regroup,” whereas our U of T historian claims “the fracturing of the transatlantic relationship is a disaster for the world.”

What’s been a disaster for much of the world has been the last seventy plus years of American leadership. Sure, Western Europe has enjoyed relative peace and prosperity, but there’s more to the world than Western Europe.

How has Southeast Asia enjoyed these last seventy years of US leadership?

Or Central America?

Or Afghanistan or Iraq?

How are our European allies enjoying the refugee crisis that US foreign policy has gifted them?

How are the people of Greece enjoying the austerity enema that our idol Angela has been forcing on them for the past few years?

Yes, great things will happen if the West “regroups” behind the leadership of big-bank toadies Merkel and Macron!

Doug, I fear you are sadly mistaken.

Night did not fall on the 20th of January. In much of the world, it’s been getting darker for a long time.

Trump is a mere symptom.

“American exceptionalism” is the disease.