The Imperial Presidency

[robkelk]

The day the old American order cracked in the Oval Office

"How they humiliated them in public. How they bullied them. There has been no precedent in the United States," said Aurel Braun, an expert on eastern Europe at the University of Toronto, calling the meeting "extraordinary."

The catastrophically bad meeting signalled our new geopolitical era — where tributes to allies, democracy and the postwar order are fading in the rear view.

We're seeing flashes of something else ahead: Hard power, wielded by hard leaders, lorded over their neighbours on a scale unseen in generations.

This fundamental turn in U.S. foreign policy played out in real time, on camera.