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Anti-Americanism is a mug’s game

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Anti-Americanism is a mug’s game

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Perhaps there is one simple reason why Donald Trump’s agenda is so hostile to Europe. Trump responds to flattery. Europe offers him almost none.

Even as European leaders sometimes try to massage the world’s most thin-skinned man, their publics make no secret of their contempt. Among voters in France, Germany and Spain, two-thirds say that Trump’s election has made the world less safe. Europe is too rowdy for sycophancy.

Trump surely notices this, just as he surely noticed the balloon of a giant orange baby flown on his state visit to London in 2019. His policies — imposing tariffs, threatening Greenland, shredding climate action, betraying Gaza and Ukraine — could hardly be better targeted as payback.

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The temptation for Europeans is to go further: to vent not only at him, but America itself. It’s a short jump from decrying the US president as a dictatorial moron to decrying the public who elected him. In February, Canadian ice-hockey fans booed the US national anthem; “Make America Go Away” has made a great baseball cap. But otherwise, anti-Americanism has been notable by its absence.

Compare this to the years of George W Bush, the president who claimed he was misunderestimated before choking on a pretzel, when Americans were routinely mocked as fat, ignorant and arrogant. New Yorkers on holiday were made to feel personally responsible for war crimes. On the eve of the Iraq war, Europeans joked about the difference between yoghurt and Americans. The punchline: after a while, yoghurt develops some culture. 

The then French president, Jacques Chirac, liked to say that he had a simple principle in foreign affairs: “I see what the Americans are doing and I do the opposite. That way, I’m sure to be right.” How they chuckled. This was the zenith not just of anti-American Islamist terrorism, but of anti-imperialist Latin American populists such as Hugo Chávez and Evo Morales.

But anti-Americanism has changed in 2025. Jokes about nationality don’t land as comfortably now. It’s rightly unfashionable to blame citizens for their governments, especially if the Americans we are most likely to encounter are despairing Democrats. 

Anyway, Netflix and social media have bound us all together. You can’t really dismiss American culture when you choose to consume it daily. Go to Paris today, and see how readily people speak English. Go to London, and puzzle at the number of NFL fans. Judging by JD Vance’s and Pete Hegseth’s Signal messages, the Trump team is more anti-European than Europeans are anti-American.

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Those repelled by Elon Musk’s X have moved to another West Coast-based network, Bluesky. European car buyers boycott Tesla but would buy a good American alternative. Just as the most effective takedowns of Bush came from an American filmmaker, Michael Moore, the best critiques of Trump and Musk will probably also come from the US itself. America is both thesis and antithesis. 

Diplomatically too, anti-Americanism doesn’t fit the moment. Trump has reconciled with one regime that was fanatically anti-American under Bush — that is, Putin’s Russia — and even makes sporadic gestures to chavista Venezuela. Europeans are hardly in anti-imperial mood: they want American protection, not withdrawal.

The lesson of the Bush years is that presidential idiocy is temporary. Five and a half years after invading Iraq, America elected Barack Obama as president. Anti-Americanism is akin to amputating your broken leg, instead of waiting for it to heal. 

But if it’s wrong to conflate Americans and their president, it’s wrong to disentangle them entirely. Trump reflects half of America. He reflects a society where a democratic majority is prepared to tolerate mass shootings and a warped political system. America provides so much of the world’s cultural backdrop that we sometimes mistake it for our own country. It is not, even when a Democrat is president. 

Just last spring, during Joe Biden’s presidency, the US was seen unfavourably by at least half the public in Greece, Singapore and Australia, and by more than 40 per cent in Britain and Canada. The next time pollsters ask the question, they will doubtless find record western disillusion. 

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Europeans — and Canadians and others — are realising that we have our own values and not long to stand up for them. Boycott Philadelphia cream cheese if it makes you feel better. But most Europeans see that the times are now too serious for knee-jerk anti-Americanism.

Henry Mance is the FT’s chief features writer

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Man Charged With Posting Bomb Instructions Used in New Orleans Attack

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Man Charged With Posting Bomb Instructions Used in New Orleans Attack

Federal prosecutors have filed charges against a former Army serviceman they accused of distributing instructions on how to build explosives that were used by a man who conducted a deadly attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Day last year.

The former serviceman, Jordan A. Derrick, a 40-year-old from Missouri, was charged with one count of engaging in the business of manufacturing explosive materials without a license; one count of unlawful possession of an unregistered destructive device; and one count of distributing information relating to manufacturing explosives, according to a criminal complaint unsealed on Wednesday. The three charges together carry a maximum sentence of 40 years in federal prison.

Starting in September 2023, the authorities said, Mr. Derrick was using various social media sites to share videos of himself making explosive materials, including detonators. His videos provided step-by-step instructions, and he often engaged with viewers in comments, sometimes answering their questions about the chemistry behind the explosives.

The authorities said that Mr. Derrick’s videos were downloaded by Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, 42, who was accused of ramming a pickup truck into a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans on Jan. 1, 2025, in a terrorist attack that killed 14 people and injured dozens. Mr. Jabbar was killed in a shootout with the police. Before the attack, Mr. Jabbar had placed two explosives on Bourbon Street, the authorities said, but they did not detonate.

The authorities later recovered two laptops and a USB drive in a house that Mr. Jabbar had rented. The USB drive contained several videos created by Mr. Derrick that provided instructions on making explosives. The authorities said the explosives they recovered were consistent with the ones Mr. Derrick had posted about.

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Mr. Derrick’s lawyers did not respond to requests for comment.

Mr. Derrick was a combat engineer in the Army, where he provided personnel and vehicle support, the authorities said. He also helped supervise safety personnel during demolitions and various operations. He was honorably discharged in February 2013.

The authorities did not say whether Mr. Derrick had any communication with Mr. Jabbar, or whether the men had known each other. In some of Mr. Derrick’s videos and comments, he indicated that he was aware that his videos could be misused.

“There are a plethora of uh, moral, you know, entanglements with topics, any topic of teaching explosives, right?” he asked in one video, according to the affidavit. “Of course, the wrong people could get it.”

The authorities also said that an explosion occurred at a private residence in Odessa, Mo., on May 4, and the occupant of the residence told investigators that he had manufactured explosives after watching online tutorials from Mr. Derrick.

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Mr. Derrick’s YouTube account had more than 15,000 subscribers and 20 published videos, the affidavit said. He had also posted content on other platforms, including Odysee and Patreon. Some videos were accessible to the public for free, while others required a paid subscription to view.

“My responsibility to my countrymen is to make sure that I serve the function of the Second Amendment to strengthen it,” Mr. Derrick said in one of his videos, according to the affidavit. “This is how I serve my country for real.”

Outside of the income he received through content creation, Mr. Derrick did not have any known employment. He did receive a monthly disability check from Veterans Affairs, the affidavit stated.

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The Girls: “This isn’t ringing alarms to y’all?” : Embedded

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The Girls: “This isn’t ringing alarms to y’all?” : Embedded
Allegations pile up, but Child Protective Services declines to investigate and the school district continues to promote Ronnie Stoner. We include an update at the end of the episode. “The Girls” is a 4-part series from the Louisville Public Media’s investigative podcast, Dig.
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Chud the Builder, Known for Racist Confrontations, Charged With Attempted Murder

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Chud the Builder, Known for Racist Confrontations, Charged With Attempted Murder

A streamer known for hurling racist slurs in public settings under the nickname “Chud the Builder” was charged with attempted murder after a shooting outside a Tennessee courthouse on Wednesday, the authorities said.

The streamer, Dalton Eatherly, 28, was involved in a confrontation with an unidentified man that escalated to gunfire outside the Montgomery County Court in Clarksville, about 50 miles northwest of Nashville, the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. Both men sustained gunshot wounds and were in stable condition, the office said.

In addition to attempted murder, Mr. Eatherly was charged with employing a firearm during dangerous felony, aggravated assault and reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon, the sheriff’s office said.

Mr. Eatherly, who is white, has accumulated an online audience by livestreaming confrontations in which he uses racist language toward Black people in public.

Law enforcement did not provide any details about the second man involved in Wednesday’s shooting. Mr. Eatherly posted an audio recording online of paramedics treating his wounds in which he claims he shot the man in self-defense.

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A video posted by the website Clarksville Now shows Mr. Eatherly on a stretcher with a microphone attached to his lapel.

Mr. Eatherly is being held at the Montgomery County Jail, pending arraignment, the sheriff’s office said.

According to court records, Mr. Eatherly was scheduled to appear for a court hearing on Wednesday morning in an unrelated case brought by Midland Credit Management, a collections agency.

A lawyer listed in court records from a separate harassment case in which Mr. Eatherly was a defendant in November did not respond to a request for comment.

On Sunday, three days before the shooting in Clarksville, Mr. Eatherly was arrested in Nashville. According to a police affidavit, Mr. Eatherly live streamed his meal at a restaurant, Bob’s Steak and Chop House, on Saturday even though the restaurant had asked him ahead of time not to do so.

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When he was confronted, Mr. Eatherly “became disruptive and started making racial statements, yelling, screaming and otherwise creating a scene,” according to the affidavit.

He then refused to pay for his $370 meal. Mr. Eatherly was charged with theft of services, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. He was released on $5,000 bond.

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