From Slovenia to America, for a Better World

In November 2016, just days after Donald Trump’s first victory in the U.S. presidential election, I received a request through an acquaintance from a Wall Street Journal journalist, asking whether I’d be willing to describe the pride I felt as a fellow Slovenian entering the White House. I gladly accepted the invitation and sent the journalist a message — which The Wall Street Journal never published. I don’t know why.

“I understand that Americans love good rags-to-riches stories, but I don’t understand why so many Slovenians are so excited and proud to play the role of the ragged in this story. Because of them, we come across as an amorphous, primitive bunch of Eastern European buffoons, unwilling, unable, or uninterested in taking an ethical — or any — stance on events shaping the world around us, simply because we’re so desperate for attention and hope that some random connection to the decline of liberal democracy and basic human decency in the world’s most powerful country might bring us a buck or two.

Slovenia fought for its independence in the name of values that are in many ways the polar opposite of those that brought Melania’s husband to the White House. I have nothing against the poor woman, but there aren’t enough Tic Tac mints in the world to make me root for a man whose core values I fundamentally reject — just because I was born in the same country as his wife.”

For those who may have forgotten, I mentioned the mints in reference to Trump’s statement that he always freshens his breath before groping women. Because even if he’s a sexual predator, he’s still a gentleman.

I remembered that never-published reply eight years later, while following the media and political reactions to the return of Slovenia’s son-in-law to the White House. If the situation weren’t so serious and troubling, this media and political circus might even be amusing. It’s not every day you see a prime minister competing with Branko Grims over who loves Donald Trump — or Elon Musk — more. But it’s not funny, because the situation is serious and troubling.

Of course, it’s clear to everyone that politics must adapt to the new reality and find ways to safeguard national interests amid these changed and unpredictable circumstances. Trump will be president of the United States for the next four years, and we can’t just ignore that because we disagree with him or find him repugnant. We need smart diplomacy to help us get through the upcoming period with as little damage as possible.

But what we’ve been witnessing since the announcement of the November election results is neither smart nor diplomatic. It’s a breathtaking display of opportunistic servility and shameless fawning. One senses confusion, discomfort, and helplessness. Not just elsewhere — here, too. The widespread idea that in Trump’s brave new world we should seek business opportunities and promotion for our country through his third wife, or even hope that Melania might make him slightly less brutal toward us than toward others, is humiliating. There are already final court rulings on how considerate Trump is toward Melania. Hoping he’ll be kinder to us because of her is just dumb.

Appeasement is the wrong strategy when dealing with psychological profiles like Trump’s. The man obviously enjoys groveling — but he despises the grovelers. That’s the whole point: the thrill of watching others humiliate themselves.

Appeasement is also unnecessary. It’s a panicked reaction to the artificially constructed myth of Trump’s political invincibility and inevitability, both in the U.S. and globally. This myth is partly fueled by Trump himself through a constant barrage of increasingly insane, scandalous, and dangerous moves — from banning plastic straws to real estate plans in Gaza. But we help fuel the myth too — especially the media, who, out of fear, opportunism, clickbait greed, lack of journalistic ethics, or sheer stupidity, uncritically repeat the narratives dictated by the White House.

“Trump broke the president of Colombia in 24 hours,” “Trump brought Mexico and Canada to their knees” — these are just two of the typical headlines we’ve been reading in Slovenian media since the election, alongside in-depth analyses of the subtle messages in Melania’s hat.

Yet these three examples also show that you get much further with Trump if you find your spine and stand up to him. Contrary to the image promoted by most media, in each of those conflicts — with Colombia, Mexico, and Canada — Trump was the first to blink. Deportations of undocumented Colombians are proceeding just as they did under Biden — with scheduled flights and no shackles on wrists or ankles. Punitive tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods were delayed in exchange for hokey concessions mainly aimed at massaging Trump’s ego.

This doesn’t mean that a trade war won’t escalate or spread in the future — only that we’ll navigate this madness far better if we find our backbone.

Far worse and more dangerous are the consequences of uncritically feeding the Trump myth when the Slovenian son-in-law isn’t just threatening tariffs, but also announcing conquests of foreign territories — from Canada to Greenland, through Panama, and now even Gaza, which he’d clear of Palestinians to build seaside resorts for “global citizens.”

At this point, reasonable people — if any remain in politics — must ask themselves where opportunistic normalization and rationalization of such rhetoric leads, especially when those words may become actions tomorrow. Those who loudly applauded his “role” in solving the Middle East crisis need to look in the mirror and ask whether they’re ready to share moral responsibility for his blundering — in which he disregards not only Palestinians, but ultimately Israelis too, serving only his ego and self-image as a global boss.

We can only fear what his next “brilliant” ideas will be for ending the war in Ukraine — a war he says he recently discussed with Putin, who supposedly told him he wants “people to stop dying.” As if Putin had nothing to do with how the dying started.

American journalist Ezra Klein had a simple response to Trump: Don’t believe him. Trump is hollow on the inside, and there’s nothing around him. Stop enabling him and holding his hand. If we stop believing him, eventually he’ll run out of breath.