Emmanuel Macron was one of the first, who rushed to send his congratulations to Donald Trump, while CNN’s “clock” had not passed the magic number of 270, competing in study with some declared followers of the next “planetary”, such as Viktor Orban from Hungary, Andrzej Duda from Poland and Alice Weidel from the far right in Germany.

“We are ready to cooperate as we have for the last four years. With your beliefs and mine. With respect and ambition. For greater peace and prosperity” wrote the president of the French Republic, to be followed naturally by other European leaders, the Secretary General of NATO and the president of the European Commission.

Beyond political politeness

All those who presented as a nightmare the version of the election result, which finally turned out to be true, are now forced to dig their heads out of the sand and see the reality. This is certainly a forced choice, which goes far beyond the bounds of political politeness. They will necessarily have to work with him for the “peace and prosperity” that Macron is calling for, for “trade and investment on each side of the Atlantic (which) depends on the dynamism and stability of our economic relationship” as von von der Leyen, “for the promotion of peace through the strength of NATO”, as Mark Rutte said. They are lined up there.

But this is only one aspect of the problem, which analysts, journalists, policymakers and politicians have been focusing on for months anyway. And with a dose of exaggeration, one could say that it might also be the easiest, although the presence of Trump does not necessarily mean that the centrifugal tendencies within the EU will decrease.

Trumpism is here to stay

But there is another even more difficult aspect of the “new order of things”, which will determine after January 20, 2025 the infamous transatlantic relationship. Because Trumpism and what it entails and uses as tools of success, hate speech, bigotry, falsehood, conspiracy theory, theatrics, intemperance, insults and character assassination of opponents, even physical violence do not only thrive in across the Atlantic.

It’s not just Orban and Kaczynski. Couldn’t an AfD MP easily claim what Trump says about “dark-skinned foreigners eating cats and dogs” if he rates it as a success slogan? How different are the occasionally xenophobic statements of politicians such as Kickl of the Austrian “Liberals” or Wilders of the Dutch far-right from those of the multi-millionaire politician? How much less inhumane are Meloni’s deals with North African dictators and warlords than Trump’s walls?

In a number of EU countries, the extreme right co-governs or forms the official opposition and has long set the agenda. It is defiantly hypocritical for the political “elite” to pretend that the problem does not concern them. Although some of its executives have often not hesitated to call the European clones of this foreigner “trumpists”, who is now returning with greater momentum to take his revenge for the “victory” that was stolen from him – as he still insists – four years ago years.

The biggest insider threat

Trump’s sweeping ascendancy may indeed be due to American peculiarities. But it is naive to think that he will not give a huge “push” to those who admire him and have long since adopted his practices. They are here and we will always find them in front of us. Discouraged. Either we have an election, like in a few months in Germany, or we don’t.

Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer who compiled the Trump-Russia Dossier, in his recently published book, Unredacted, argues that the greatest risk to western democracy today is neither Putin’s Russia, nor Xi Jinping’s China, nor the Islamic State, but the threat from within that Trump represents, due to his special relationship with Putin, as well as his many offshoots , which have spread to a number of countries. The book was published shortly before the elections. Since the early hours of Wednesday, this threat has been overblown.