On the same day the US voted, “Qatari voters headed to the polls on Tuesday and opted to end their country’s brief experiment with a teeny bit of democracy at the national level … over 90 percent voted to end elections for two-thirds of Qatar’s 45 seat Shura Council…. All 45 seats will revert to being filled by royal appointment....”
–
The morning after the election NBC News reported that “Black people are receiving racist text messages about picking cotton 'at the nearest plantation.’”
–
The day after the election German Chancellor Scholz fired his finance minister, who pulled his party out of the ‘traffic light’ coalition, collapsing the government. “Scholz went on national TV to declare that he wants to set aside money to support Ukraine, and for an increase in defence spending that has now become necessary after the victory of Trump.” Scholz’s government thus falls before publication of his predecessor’s memoir (November 26).
–
Two days after the election “Amsterdam police said early Friday that at least five people had been injured and at least 62 people arrested after a soccer match Thursday night between (Europa League teams) Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax.”
–
Two days after the election, Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking at the Valdai Discussion Club, said the BRICS countries demonstrate an example of constructive cooperation and are “the basis of a new just world order.”
–
Two days after the election, three airports in eastern Finland announced reversion to a 1960s radio navigation technology known as ‘DME’ because interference in the more contemporary GPS technology has increased significantly along Finland's eastern border since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, with incidents reported on a daily basis.
–
Two days after the election “Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said … he is re-establishing a special Cabinet committee on Canada-U.S. relations to address his administration’s concerns about another Donald Trump presidency.”
“Canada is one of the most trade-dependent countries in the world, and 75% of Canada’s exports go to the U.S. During Trump’s first time, his move to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, and reports that he was considering a 25% tariff on the auto sector were considered an existential threat in Canada at the time.”
–
Two days after the election Reuters reported that, “Argentina's libertarian President Javier Milei will meet with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and tycoon Elon Musk next week in the United States, a government spokesperson said on Thursday.”
–
Two days after the election Mike Davis, Former Chief Counsel for Nominations, Senate Judiciary Committee, Law Clerk for Justice Neil Gorsuch and regular on Steve Bannon’s “Warm Room” podcast, posted a call for loyalty to the president-elect on X:
–
Three days after the election of Federal District Court in Washington granted a request from the special counsel, Jack Smith, to pause all filing deadlines in the federal case accusing President-elect Donald J. Trump of plotting to overturn the 2020 election.
–
Three days after the election, “Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Donald Trump's reelection as U.S. president has created a 'new situation' for Europe as he wrapped up an informal summit in Budapest on November 8, telling his EU counterparts that the continent cannot finance the war in Ukraine alone.”
–
Four days after the election day former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, writing in the Financial Times, called for talks with Russia to achieve “a negotiated settlement that is acceptable to Ukraine and does not reward aggression.”
–
Four days after the election Baltic and Nordic leaders scheduled a round of consultations. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said “French President Emmanuel Macron and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte would soon visit Warsaw, and that he would meet British Prime Minister Keir Starmer either in Warsaw or in London” to discuss transatlantic cooperation and the war in Ukraine in the context of the “new political landscape.” Tusk will also meet Nordic and Baltic leaders in Stockholm.
–
Four days after the election, in another indication that loyalty will be paramount in the second Trump administration, the president-elect announced on social media that “he would not invite Nikki Haley, his former ambassador to the United Nations, or Mike Pompeo, his former secretary of state, to join his incoming administration.”
–
Four days after the election ABC News projected President-elect Donald Trump would win Arizona, thus sweeping all seven battleground states in the 2024 election. The final electoral college count was Trump: 312, Harris: 226.
–
Five days after the election Donald Trump Jr. “shared on Instagram a clip posted by former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin which read ‘POV [point of view]: You're 38 days from losing your allowance’ over a video of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.”
–
Five days after the election President-elect Donald Trump selected Rep. Elise Stefanik to be his U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Last month she called for a ‘complete reassessment of U.S. funding of the United Nations.’
–
Five days after the election South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol “convened an emergency economic and security meeting over the weekend in response to Trump’s election victory,” his office said in a text briefing Sunday.
–
Five days after the election Olivia Troye, a former Trump administration official who denounced him in a speech at the Democratic convention in August, told NBC News, “I’m worried that I’ll be targeted by him and a lot of people in his circle,” Troye said in an interview. “They very much know who I am. And I’m concerned for my family.” A private attorney, Mark Zaid, said he has advised some to leave the country before Trump is sworn in and live abroad until they have a clear sense of whether he is bent on retaliation. Incoming Vice President JD Vance suggested last month that the Trump administration would pull the security clearances of the 51 people with national security experience who signed a letter before the 2020 election questioning the authenticity of emails found on a laptop belonging to Joe Biden’s son Hunter.
–
Six days after the election the Financial Times reported that “searches by US students for foreign bachelors’ and masters’ courses jumped more than fivefold after Tuesday’s election, from a daily average of about 2,000 to nearly 11,000 on Wednesday when the former president’s victory was confirmed.”
–
Six days after the election Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic, who recently organized a grandiose welcome for Chinese President Xi Jinping and refuses to participate in sanctions against Russia, said he spoke with Donald Trump late Sunday, inviting him to visit the Balkan country. In May 2024 the president-elect’s son-in-law Jared Kushner’s investment firm Affinity Partners secured a 99-year permit to develop the former Yugoslav Ministry of Defense site into a high-end hotel, luxury apartments, and office spaces in Belgrade. Affinity Partners is backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, which invested $2 billion, and other investors including entities from the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Israel and Brazil.
–
Six days after the US election the annual U.N. climate summit began in Baku, Azerbaijan. “The COP29 conference is doomed to be defined not only by Trump’s return to power, but also by the absence of those who might resist him. What else to make of the list of leaders planning to miss the talks? Joe Biden is skipping. As is Macron, who once reveled in countering Trump’s gleeful climate denial. The European Union’s top executive, Ursula von der Leyen, who has made it her personal mission to deliver world-leading climate targets for 450 million people, is also a pass. Germany’s Olaf Scholz was supposed to go, but his government collapsed a day after Trump’s election, leading to his quick withdrawal.
The host of next year’s climate talks, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is out thanks to a minor brain hemorrhage — and no, that’s not a metaphor. Trump won’t be there either, of course, having a whole government to set up in Washington.”
–
Six days after the election, NBC News reported that Russia had massed “tens of thousands of troops” as part of a major effort to retake land in its Kursk region that was seized by Ukraine, according to the commander in chief of Kyiv's armed forces. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last week that about 11,000 North Korean soldiers were taking part in “combat against Ukrainian militaries” alongside the Russians.
•
At the European Political Community meeting in Budapest last week, French President Emmanuel Macron asked, ”Do we want to read the history written by others — the wars launched by Vladimir Putin, the US election, China's technological or trade choices? Or do we want to write our own history? I think (emphasis mine) we have the strength to write it.”
It sounded like an honest question, and his tentative answer sounded honest, too.
•••••
Next week on CS&W we’ll raise our heads up and take a look at America and its place in the world out there. See you then.
•••••