I can see why you'd be so confused by the "strategy" if you think Trump is causing it, but he's reacting to it. And my assessment of the situation is the other way around; there's nothing Trump could do to stop it even if he wanted to. The explosion is in progress, the very latest I could put the date for that is the Brexit vote (which, again, is itself a result, not a cause), and the only question is who can best surf the aftermath.

The EU is falling apart because of issues within the EU, not because somewhere in the early 2010s the penumbric emanations of the future Trump presidency reached back in time and started whispering in politician's ears.

The good news is that the vast majority of national politicians know fairly well how they abused the EU rhetorically and that their own countries would be crushed by global economic pressures if they left the EU. The UK and Germany are quite possibly the only countries who may be able to afford to leave the EU without major harm, and most smaller countries are aware of that.

But I agree that the perils of cheap populism and nationalism ought not be underestimated, and let's not forget that weakening Europe is in the current interest of Russia, the US in the eyes of the current Trump administration, and maybe even China. Anti-EU forces are strong, no doubt about that.

In the end, the current state of discussion is rather saddening anyway. The EU was primarily funded as a way to prevent Europe from being destroyed by inner conflicts again, which makes some sense after two devastating world wars that left Europe in ruins and killed millions of citizens. It's sad that this is sometimes forgotten and only emphasized by older politicians.

This is such an important point.

Whatever problems the EU indeed might have, its role in keeping the peace in a continent that has seen war almost uninterruptedly over the course of its history cannot be emphasized enough.

It is human nature blaming others for our own problems: as soon you cannot blame the EU anymore, you will start blaming your neighbors...

I think you are confusing the EU with NATO.

Of course it can only help with preventing incidents between member states and other cooperating actors.

10 years of stagnation or decline of GDP in all top 5 countries of the eurozone (which account for 50% of all GDP of EU) is not a perceived issue.

Moreover, if you honestly compare EU GDP development to the rest of the world, you will also find out that the EU has done fairly well despite the financial crisis that hit it harder than the US.[1]

[1] http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/...

There is very little to support this. FN has been around 20% for decades, racking in about the same 5-6M voters at most elections. Structurally, far right in France (as in other countries) splits up as soon as it starts compromising to reach a wider audience. Also structurally, contrary to UK/US, all elections in France have 2 rounds - and Le Pen will never get to win the 2nd one.

Yes, she and Mélenchon are symptoms of anger/apathy. Netherlands and Germany have similar issues. It doesn't mean the extremes are nowhere near winning.

> The EU is falling apart because of issues within the EU

Predictions on how the EU will die started in 1957. The last 10 years have put an impossible amount of stress on it - and here it is, alive, and with increasing voter support.

Living in the EU, I actually experience quite the opposite to what jerf is predicting: a reemergence of the EU as a passionate project after Brexit. People have taken the EU for granted for way too long, now it starts to emerge as an issue that is worth fighting for (check e.g., pulseforeurope.eu). Granted, there's also a nationalistic reemergence acting against the EU, but at least it's proponents are starting to fight back.

But as for everything being fine and dandy, when you get to the point that you've got sub-polities not only seriously talking about secession, but actually doing it, no, that polity is not in good health.

Yes, that fully applies to the US.

It's as if, whenever a financial crisis happens, people go dumb.

Also, might I just point out the irony of accusing people of being "anti-intellectual" in reaction to the financial crisis that is precisely the one the intellectuals promised us could never possibly happen under their guidance, and were mocking people for even considering it possible right up to the day it happened. How rational is it to belief false things simply because they carry the label "intellectual"?

> the intellectuals promised us could never possibly happen under their guidance, and were mocking people for even considering it possible right up to the day it happened

Well, source please. Not that I don't believe you, but don't remember the deriding or the predictions you're mentioning and it's actually really hard to predict a financial crisis, being dangerous to put a break on the economy based on speculations.

There's plenty of economists running around assuring everyone that Piketty is wrong, inequality doesn't matter, someone being a billionaire doesn't affect someone on welfare who has cheap iPhones, etc. However, I think these defenders of the status quo will be proven wrong. It all rings very hollow.

Anti-intellectualism, xenophobia, inequality. Don't forget that last one. It's the one that puts us liberal techies on the hook too.

How much immigration is there into, say, Belarus? Practically none. How well-off is the common worker in Belarus? Miserable.

Immigrants are occupying either the low end jobs that nobody wants, like what you get in agriculture (e.g. strawberry pickers - if you don't know how that's like, try it out ;-)), cleaning services, etc, or they are occupying the high end jobs, like what you get in Silicon Valley, an industry that creates jobs, or say medical doctors, which are hired because of their expertise or to lower the prices, which in the end translates to lower healthcare bills, etc.

Either way, if you ban immigration, you'll get automation, or a crashing economy due to other countries being more competitive. And if you get automation, it's worse than immigrants, because those immigrants are spending their salaries locally, whereas robots don't get salaries.

You know, it's funny you should say that. I'm from an ex-communist country from Eastern Europe and let me tell you, the problem with communism was the extreme inefficiency due to the state's incentive of keeping people hired which ultimately led to hunger and the fall of the USSR.

And lets not pretend the availability of cheap labour has nothing to do with jobs being low-end.

Medical doctors sure is a funny example to give however - the USA has a lot of immigrants - how well has that worked in keeping healthcare affordable?

The USA don't have a problem with immigrants - they have a problem with the runaway corruption of their political leaders. Corporate lobbyists get to write laws for representatives to rubber stamp. The reason the same drugs cost 5x more in the US than in Canada has nothing to do with immigrants.

First, I'd like to point out that medical staff form just the tip of the iceberg in terms of wage-reduction by immigrants. For example, my father in law lives in an old age home staffed almost entirely with low-wage foreigners - a mix of immigrants, migrants, what-have you. There are job markets in health and old age care, cleaning, agriculture and construction that completely dwarf just that for doctors.

Secondly, because much of the current discussion of immigrants relates specifically to refugees: to selectively accept desirable highly-qualified refugees from countries people are fleeing for their lives would be deplorably, cynically selfish and inhumane.

Third, if I remember correctly, "nationals-only" reproduction in Germany and some other European countries, but also e.g. Japan is below the level required to sustain a population (there's a technical term for that, but I've forgotten it), so many modern countries actually _need_ immigrants to fill job vacancies in countries with industries that insist on continuing to grow regardless of populations.

The Japanese are (at the moment) resolved to let their country dwindle out before diluting their treasured racial stock. That's their decision, and they can go that way if they want to. Other countries, meanwhile, don't base their immigration policies on -let's be honest- racism, or less so.

And, are you saying the stance of governments to their people is "We need more workers - breed faster, or we'll import someone who will"? Britons are now an ethnic minority in London, but only racists would be bothered by the same taking place in their countries, I guess.

Except that those countries are, frankly, undemocratic, corrupt, and devoted to suppressing working conditions.

>And, are you saying the stance of governments to their people is "We need more workers - breed faster, or we'll import someone who will"?

Except of course that these same governments don't want their local capitalists to have to pay family-founding wages.

>Britons are now an ethnic minority in London, but only racists would be bothered by the same taking place in their countries, I guess.

I'm an ethnic minority everywhere except a tiny, embattled corner of the planet, about the size of New Jersey. What sympathy ought I have for inheritors of the British Empire being concerned about foreigners?

Turks, Greeks and (though you didn't mention them) Italians are another matter: The industries of Germany (and other countries) practically begged people from these countries to come to Western Europe and augment labor pools here. The first deals were for short-term working arragements; later it was decided that there were good humanitarian and societal reasons to let these people emigrate and stay. The city I live in has a complement of about 10% (ethnic) Turks plus a colorful mixture of other origins. My dentist is a Turk!

Your idea of shipping aid to where it's needed is poorly considered, as another commenter has explained nearby. Syria, for example, continues to be a slaughterhouse, and its broken infrastructure can't feed and house people in bales of money.

No, it's not governments blackmailing their public to breed faster - the compulsion to maintain population figures is a purely social thing, no coercion needed. Former immigrants from Turkey and elsewhere will be working to pay part of my pension. You, meanwhile, are considering immigration as a threat. I have to tell you, your concern about "ethnic minorities" in London really is troubling. When people from other countries emigrate to England, they become British, and then only racists are concerned that those British people or their parents were formerly residents of a different country. Do I need to remind you that the USA is populated almost exclusively by emigrants from other countries? Oh wait, most of those were white, so that makes it... different? Conclude what you will.

Syrians are not the only significant refugee group, there is also Afghanistan and Iran in the top 3. Together they currently make up about a third of all applications for asylum in Germany according to BAMF.

Poverty is detrimental to societal security.

maybe they are wrong, but basically they are being called dumb for being pushed into minimum wage jobs and told 'dont worry, we'll raise minimum wage to 15 an hour and give you free community college' and rejecting that offer.

So should we throw our sabots at the microcontrollers and robotic arms? Or what?

>...free community college

I suppose those people have college degrees?

Oh, no?

So basically they want a well-paying middle class job but feel they're entitled to that wage without getting any education.

Feelings of resentment and entitlement aren't mutually exclusive with "going dumb". In fact, they usually co-exist.

It's almost as if this economic boom > financial crash > war socioeconomic system we have in place is utter insanity.

The Remain campaign certainly was, your comment being evidence.

There's no way around this; if it's gotten to that point of illness it has already proved itself extraordinarily weak. Blaming Trump for pushing it over the edge is just a politically-convenient privileging of the numerous other forces that must be pushing it over, and it's hard for me to believe that Trump is even in the top 10 reasons, especially given the lateness of his entry on the scene. Do we seriously believe that things would be so much better if Trump had not won? It's not like Obama particularly managed to hold it together or anything.

That was never the reason for the foundation of the EU. If that's the level of your understanding of European politics, I can't take you seriously anymore.

If the EU fails, which I doubt, Trump would have played a minuscule role, exacerbating existing tensions. I actually expect quite the opposite from a Trump presidency, though unintended by him.

American influence has actually been instrumental in getting the project started[1]. 'Europe' doesn't have any geopolitical or military ambitions, and as so many member states are NATO members, it tends to follow American interests in these matters.

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/1356047/Eur...

That would be news to me. The EU has never claimed it is a counter-balance to the United States. Some people argue for a stronger, independent EU, but this is surely not the primary purpose of it.

At the moment the Euro is just a mechanism to transfer wealth from the northern countries to the southern countries and to make exports easier for Germany. Greece and Italy would be able to import much less goods from Germany if they had their own weak currencies, so would be bad for German exports, but would allow Greece and Italy to recover their economies by devaluing their currencies which would result in decreasing imports, increasing exports.

In the current situation a country like Greece will never recover and Northern European countries will pay perpetually. The same stuff could happen with Italy, Spain, etc...

> mechanism to transfer wealth from the northern countries to the southern countries and to make exports easier for Germany

I agree that it works very well for Germany. This, by the way, also implies that the transfer of wealth is not a problem. It is economically reasonable for Germany to pay and the Greek people, for instance, have clearly stated that they want to stay in the Eurozone. Additionally, the Euro can be fixed, it is just currently not politically possible to take the required actions, because the current state of affairs is "good enough". This will change if the Euro is seriously threatened.

The European Union might be disintegrating. Why it might be disintegrating is then a more complex thing.

But mostly it's not because of Trump or because of populists or because of Russian influence. It's because those who are building a federal state, United States of Europe, are far too impatient and try to rush it. We are witnessing a backlash. I am myself contributing to a backlash, because EU is doing things it shouldn't.

Yes, I definitely don't want to be in a Russian sphere of influence, but EU isn't acting credibly here. And the White House has little to contribute to current development. It's done by the EU itself by trying to legislate member countries over things I and many others don't want to be legislated at.

Starting from things like whether we are allowed to control who comes to our country and lives here. Or to prepare for and resist to Russian attempts to take over.

EU leaders (Juncker, Schulz and many others) act as if they had an empire, before they actually built it.

The great opportunity-cost of integrating populations and monitoring them when it fails has clearly become too expensive and people are saying "enough".

Oddly, the EU doesn't seem to acknowledge the sentiment of the public and just keep hammering on about 'ever closer union'. Clarity from mainstream Parties on this issue alone would shrink the poll numbers of the Far-Right.

It's easy to be "humanitarian" with somebody else's money and resources

Consider this - despite graphic photos of drowned children, the funding of refugee camps on the other side of the Mediterranean was not exactly loudly promoted.

[0] http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/

In fact, anglophones have some trouble understanding the situation through the language barrier

She's getting "pumped up" through the Brexit/Trump wave, but don't assume it's the same thing

(though I am worried about the repercussions, if she gets elected, naturally)

Together the EU is a formidable negotiation partner (GDP equal to the US), while alone each EU state is in a much weaker position, thus giving the US an advantage.

Also Trump has said that he sees the EU and the Euro as a tool created by Germany to give them a competitive advantage. And Trump seems to see Germany is one of the main competitors of the US (and has a massive trade surplus with the US).

Right to live in another country might require some paperwork filing, but visiting is rather different.