Just before heading to the White House, Zelensky met with selected senators who are among Ukraine’s strongest defenders in Congress. With their backing, he challenged Trump and Vance. But Zelensky does not know the etiquette of the White House. You do not address the Vice President by their first name, and you do not show up there in a T-shirt.
And it is not up to Norwegian journalists to decide whether this is a trifle. In the US, it’s not a trifle. From the moment he stepped out of the limousine, Zelensky was shouted at about why he wasn’t wearing a suit. When asked the same question in the Oval Office, Trump tried to smooth it over.
Norwegian and European journalists are only interested in what builds their own perspective. This no longer prevails in the US. With Trump 2.0, there has been a shift.
Under Trump 2016, the media had an upper hand. They drove the stories and controlled the news because they had the leaks from the White House and the administration. They demonstrated their power when they forced Mike Pence to fire Mike Flynn.
But the system doesn’t work like that this time. Trump has learnt. He has one of the best teams ever around him. Only top people. But most importantly, he has the backing of the American people. European leaders and media refuse to recognise this.
Trump and Vance have another advantage: They understand Europe, but Europe doesn’t understand Trump’s America. Vance’s speech in Munich was proof of that. Vance said only what any thinking person realises: that a value gap is opening up between the US and old Europe. He cited a few examples: the suppression of free speech in Germany and the UK, and the coup in Romania.
These words would have been explosive anyway, but Vance’s choice of the Security Conference as a platform was perceived as an insult by European leaders. This is their forum. That’s why the Norwegian prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, didn’t applaud. They felt insulted as if they were nobles in a bygone era. If Jens Stoltenberg hadn’t been NATO Secretary General for ten years, wouldn’t he be taking over from Christoph Heusgen, perhaps? Heusgen cried when he finished for the last time. This was a breach of decorum. Trump had ruined the good mood.
The prerequisite for European leaders to wage war and be cheerful at summits is that no one spoils the good mood.
But Trump won precisely because he destroyed the good mood in Washington. This was clear from the very first moment: the nomination battle in 2016. Voters loved the fact that Trump ducked them one by one.
Støre and von der Leyen have not realised this. They prefer to character assassinate Trump and think that it works, like in the first term.
But it doesn’t. Because Trump has an overwhelming mandate from the voters.
European leaders will not recognise this, because they exclude their voters when confronted with right-wing opposition. The treatment of the Freedom Party (FPÖ) in Austria, Alternative for Germany (AfD) and Rassemblement (RN) in France follows the same pattern: Those on the inside have the power of definition and can label the opposition “far right”. In doing so, they legitimise the exclusion. They are morally obliged to engage in censorship and boycotts. No-one wants a 1933 all over again, do they? To let «Hitler»loose?
That’s why the elite and the media constantly circle around Nazi references. This conveniently happens every time someone challenges the establishment: Swastikas are painted on Tesla’s in both Europe and the US.
But legitimising the exclusion of political opponents by referring to Nazism is tantamount to reaching out and allying with the far left.
This is what one of the major parties in the US has been doing, long before Trump came along, but it used to be on the fringes. Now it has become mainstream.
But American voters rejected both this brownwashing, which legitimises censorship, they rejected the perpetual war – and not least the abuse of the judicial system. Americans know what the CIA is capable of. They didn’t want the US to become a police state.
Støre and Erna are unable to recognise this, because they have invited the deep state and the war party to Europe, and they are unable to see where the EU/NATO/CIA ends and Norway begins. They have sold out.
On Norwegian radio, journalist Bjørn Myklbust attempted to challenge and highlight the predicament the Norwegian elite has put itself in by asking whether Prime Minister Støre and leder of the Conservatives, Erna Solberg, have a community of values with an illiberal president. The two boringly repeat that we have a community of values with Trump’s USA, but what about 6 January, allegations of electoral fraud in 2020, the pardon of the 6 January prisoners, etc. Is this a community of values?
Støre said he understood the question, but that the US and Norway have a deep community of interest, and mentioned the northern regions. “But a community of values and a community of interests are two different things. Now it’s only the latter that counts, and that keeps Europe and the US together. The community of values has gone. They just can’t say it out loud.
But it is allowed to describe events and feelings. Erna said: “We’ve all been in pain this weekend.”
It’s been exciting, but painful? Only if you buy the media’s portrayal that it was Trump who defamed Zelensky. That’s what the media have been churning out, and they’re stirring up the population more and more against Trump.
The media have fuelled an unprecedented hatred of Trump. That’s why we’re now seeing boycotts against the US. This is a dangerous game.
Trump has already challenged Norway and the EU in Israel/Gaza by showing zero respect for Barth Eide’s (the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway) narrative: UNRWA is to be closed down, the Palestinians will no longer go on welfare generation after generation. This is a parallel to social democracy’s treatment of immigrants: They are allowed to go on public support, and no demands are made. As a result, second-generation immigrants become more radical than the first.
The Norwegian government has allowed itself to be radicalised and talks about a two-state solution even after 7 October, when everyone who supports Israel understands that this has become an impossibility. Hamas and the Palestinians say no. They want one state.
Nevertheless, Barth Eide continues on Norway’s behalf: He recognises Palestine and is working diplomatically for a boycott of Israel. The government has unleashed forces it does not control.
It has much in common with the activists on campus in the US who shout “from the river to the sea”. The annihilation of Israel has become an integral part of politics in the West.
Anti-Semitism was also rejected by the majority in the election on 5 November. But Europe doesn’t want to see it. Here, the continent’s darkest demons have emerged with names like Islamism, NGOs and George Soros.
We forget: Putin knows a thing or two about infiltration and can read the left like an open book.
Anti-Semitism is, of course, an issue that all authoritarian states can play on, especially the Islamist ones, but also China and Russia.
This is what happens when you get into a war and consider yourself the knights of justice.
Europeans are unable to let go of this self-image, but in the US it is beginning to crumble.
Before heading to the White House, Zelensky met his most ardent defenders. They gave him a sense of full backing and tempted him to challenge Trump/Vance. Zelensky was given the impression that he was their equal.
At the meeting were Republicans like Lindsey Graham, who has helped build up Ukraine’s army and has been 100 per cent in favour of Ukraine in NATO. You have others, like Roger Wicker, who right after Putin invaded, was no stranger to using tactical nuclear weapons. You also had more responsible Republicans, like Chuck Grassley. But the majority were Democrats, including the likes of Chris Murphy, Klobuchar, Chris van Hollen, Sheldon Whitehouse and Richard Blumenthal – opponents who want to pull the rug out from under Trump. They are on the defensive. They want to continue Biden’s policies: War is profitable. That’s why they fired him up. Zelenskyj came to the meeting with Vance and Trump full of confidence.
But he failed to «read the room». He doesn’t understand Trump 2.0 and the revolution behind it, the mood shift and the Democrats’ self-inflicted defeat. The backing the Democrats and the war party gave him was worth nothing.
That’s why he was put in his place. That’s something other than honourable. But the media took it personally. They felt that it was they who were put in their place, and that was it.
But in Europe, Zelensky is still a hero. Here, Starmer embraced him as the prodigal son. European leaders are vying to honour him and promise him support.
Good luck with that. Europeans have neither the finances nor the capacity for war. They only have words. Empty words.
It’s only a matter of time before Zelensky has to go to the cross.
When a hawk like Lindsey Graham goes out and says on camera that Zelensky has embarrassed himself and must resign before the US can have anything more to do with Ukraine, you realise that something has happened.
Graham is a senator from South Carolina, not from Ukraine.
The Europeans haven’t realised that. They suffer from overstretch; they’ve stretched the rubber band too far.
First the elastic has to break – then the realisation will come.
Someone will have to pay.
Someone will have to pay a high price. Not least the Ukrainians.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/03/bipartisan-group-rinos-democrat-senators-met-zelensky-blew/