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Elon Musk and Maga are already interrupting the prestige quo, and Europe is poorly prepared.
By Katrin Bennhold
Beyond the decade or more, European governments have tried the secret operations of influence of adversaries such as Russia and China.
Now they have a very different challenge: Fending off overt efforts by Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s MAGA movement to seize territory, oust elected leaders and empower far-right causes and parties.
Even before returning to office, Mr. Trump is making threats, perhaps serious, perhaps not, to obtain territory of NATO allies such as Canada and Denmark. And Mr. Musk, the largest monetary defender of the elected president, is his social media platform X to take the election of the extreme right for the German party to the great party of the Center-Labor Labor Party of Great Britain.
It is transparent if the European policy immune formula has antibodies to protect themselves opposed to these new incursions.
This is not the first time that a Trump’s best friend has tried to build a bridge with the European right end. In 2018 and 2019, the Trump advisor, Stephen K. Bannon, held meetings with extreme right politicians in Europe. But the political panorama is now very different. The governments of Germany and France have collapsed; The extreme right parties are in those countries and are already in force in several others throughout the continent.
A senior official of the first Trump administration, which is online for an even superior role in the second, Frank in his evaluation: Europe, he said, does not have a concept of this that is happening.
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