Essay for Index on Censorship - "Europe worries a lot about Trump. Trump doesn't think about Europe at all."

This essay is at the moment only available in the print magazine, but if an online version becomes available, I'll up this post with the link. The piece is about free speech and Trump's indifference to Europe (and almost everything else), which becomes more harmful by the day. Here's an excerpt from near the beginning:

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The basic worry is that Trump wants to leverage his power to run roughshod over Europe. He has his eye on the continent, and this is causing no end of anxiety for European leaders and ordinary citizens alike. 

But this framing misses a crucial fact: Trump doesn’t actually care about Europe. He doesn’t care about its wars, security or independence and he likewise doesn’t care about free speech – not in general (just ask Jimmy Kimmel) and certainly not in Europe. Trump simply does not hold a principled commitment to free speech.

The situation recalls a famous scene in the television series Mad Men, where Michael Ginsberg confronts Don Draper for ignoring his work in a client pitch. Riding the elevator afterward, Ginsberg tries to salvage his pride by wounding Draper’s. “I feel bad for you,” he says to the ageing adman. 

Draper immediately voids the insult with his devastating response. “I don’t think about you at all.”

This exchange is sometimes portrayed as capturing the American attitude toward Europe, which is not entirely true but also not entirely false. It is certainly true of Trump, however, and not just with respect to Europe. It is not evident that he particularly cares about anything or anyone besides himself: his narcissism shades into solipsism. 

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