This article was originally published on Spectator USA.
Did British prime minister Theresa May take a shot at Donald Trump in yesterday afternoon’s address to the UN General Assembly? Or was Trump a proxy target for a blond populist closer to home, Boris Johnson?
On Tuesday, Trump rejected the ‘ideology of globalism’ and defended the nation state and its ‘doctrine of patriotism’. The next day, May mounted the same stage and implicitly rejected Trump’s stance:
‘We have seen what happens when the natural patriotism which is a cornerstone of a healthy society is warped into aggressive nationalism, exploiting fear and uncertainty to promote identity politics at home and belligerent confrontation abroad, while breaking rules and undermining institutions.’
The United States under Trump isn’t the only state to fit that description: much of it fits China, Russia and Turkey too.
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