Trump vs Moriarty Putin

Fissures and uncertainties with friends and allies, an ongoing degrading campaign against the US president, are undermining 80 years of American power. China is benefiting from it, but it should be prudent. India may become a significant and unexpected complication in US President Donald Trump’s efforts to secure a peace deal on Ukraine, with even […]

US: Church, Nation, and Pope Leo

The conclave that led to the election of Pope Leo XIV was more geopolitical than its participants were willing to admit. It also demonstrated that the Catholic Church is capable of making timely decisions in response to global emergencies when taking a stand within a world order undergoing profound transformation, if not outright disintegration. The […]

Trump’s Example to China

The lesson from the US crackdown on protests could be different in Beijing—suppressing uprisings without suppressing opposition would be a theological turn, akin to that with the Vatican. The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported that: “Chinese state media have sought to portray the escalating Los Angeles protests against President Donald Trump’s immigration policies […]

US-China – Tribal Pursuit

Group thinking, social media, and esoteric information converge in the West and China, but Beijing might do it better. The risk of autocracy is in the control of information. It could stifle it all, as the freedom of thought generated modernity. It may look like something that happened in Rome. For two decades, Italian politics […]

A Holy US Empire

A new global horizon is looming after the White House shambles. Can the US and its allies patch up a way forward and begin to shape something like a modern “Holy Roman Empire?” This week could be crucial to start outlining a way forward after the spat at the White House. It’s a massive mess […]

Trump’s Foreign Echo

It’s a US capitalist revolution, but its voice, geared towards domestic politics, is backfiring internationally, undermining the president and the country. What is fairer? The rock show of the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, brandishing a chainsaw and promising to cut civil servants’ jobs (i.e., take wealth from the poor and give it […]

Trump and Christian Faith: Between Déjà-vu and Novelty

There’s nothing particularly new about a gathering of Christian ministers praying around U.S. President Donald Trump to bless him before the flashlights. Pastor Paula White-Cain was appointed to head the White House Faith Office. It happened, and it is happening again—for once, in a very imaginative and surprising start to the presidency, the scene wasn’t […]