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Boris Johnson, the incoming British prime minister, is a classical scholar. So he will understand: after hubris, nemesis. The gods are watching. The moment of retribution is upon him. Nemesis comes much as Hemingway described the onset of bankruptcy: first slowly, then suddenly.MILAN — “A banner is a banner, nothing more” wrote Giovanni Bianconi on the front page of Corriere della Sera, the leading Italian daily. “But also nothing less.”“What about these notes?” President Donald Trump demands of Don McGahn, then his White House counsel. “Why do you take notes? Lawyers don’t take notes. I never had a lawyer who took notes.”TEL AVIV, Israel — It was a referendum on him, and he nailed it. Nobody can take that away from Benjamin Netanyahu. This summer, in his fifth term, he will surpass David Ben-Gurion as the longest-serving Israel prime minister. Enough said.I watched Joe Biden at the Munich Security Conference earlier this year. “We will be back; we will be back,” he declared. He meant the United States after the moral abdication of the Trump years. He also meant himself, the president-in-waiting who would wait no longer to reach the Oval Office.TEL AVIV, Israel — Let’s talk Fascism, the perfume I mean.His name is Isadore Greenbaum. He’s a Jew, a plumber’s helper from Brooklyn. He rushes onto the stage, beneath a portrait of George Washington flanked by swastikas. He tries to accost the Nazi who is denouncing the “Jewish-controlled press” and calling for a “white gentile-ruled” United States. Uniformed storm troopers beat him. Police officers drag him from the stage, pants ripped, arms raised in desperate entreaty. The mob howls in delight.First, here’s the good news on Brexit. The Malthouse Compromise is dead. Britain has signed a post-Brexit free trade agreement with Fiji and Papua New Guinea. The irritating phrase “meaningful vote” has lost all meaning. Prime Minister Theresa May, who increasingly resembles one of those characters that just won’t die in a TV series, is running out of time to pop up again with her so-called “deal.”Two of my children were born in socialist France. They survived. In fact, their births were great experiences: excellent medical care, wonderful postnatal follow-up, near-zero cost. My son’s bris, in a Paris deserted through the August exodus, was another story, but I won’t get into that.Two of my children were born in socialist France. They survived. In fact, their births were great experiences: excellent medical care, wonderful postnatal follow-up, near-zero cost. My son’s bris, in a Paris deserted through the August exodus, was another story, but I won’t get into that.SWINDON, England — Mr. and Mrs. Average are said to live in this southwestern English town better known as a political bellwether than for any charm. Its 54.7 percent vote for Brexit in 2016 was one of the first results announced, an early indicator of upheaval. Now, with less than a month until the March 29 deadline for Britain to leave the European Union, it’s again aligned with most of the country, this time in its cluelessness as to what is about to happen.LONDON — Europe’s gathering Jewish question came into sharp focus this month when a British MP declared that she had come to the “sickening conclusion” that one of the country’s two main political parties, Labour, is now “institutionally anti-Semitic.”LONDON — Brexit. Brexit? <strong xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Brexit! BREXIT</strong><strong xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><em>!?</em></strong> The Backstop! Norway Plus! Canada Minus? The Cooper Amendment! The Malthouse Compromise? The Kyle-Wilson Amendment! Hard Brexit! Soft Brexit! No deal? Brexiteer! Remoaner! <strong xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><em>BREXIT!!?? Aaaargh.</em></strong>MUNICH — If the Munich Security Conference had a soul it was embodied in Sen. John McCain, always an invigorating presence here and always a fierce advocate of the trans-Atlantic alliance. He’s gone now and so is the idea of inevitable liberal democratic convergence, replaced by great power competition in the age of the strongman.EL PASO, Texas — I have a suggestion for President Donald Trump. Instead of fanning fear during your visit to this city on Monday night, stroll across the Paso del Norte Bridge into Ciudad Júarez. Join the 70,000 people crossing four bridges who daily form the human tissue linking the United States and Mexico. They work, they study, they eat, they shop, all part of what Dee Margo, the mayor of El Paso, calls “one region, one culture.”EL PASO, Texas — This tranquil city of bilingual trans-border commerce is where lurid fantasy meets humdrum reality. President Donald Trump will come here Monday, risking life and limb at “our very dangerous southern border,” that “lawless” frontier facing a “tremendous onslaught.” I can reassure the president: He will be able to gaze at Mexico without breaking a sweat or putting his hairdo at risk.I read the paper the other day, a satisfying two-hour meander across the world, full of surprises, diversions and revelations. Of course newspapers are dying. This sort of unfocused experience has nothing to do with efficiency or squeezing the last drop of productivity from each minute. It may assuage the soul but is alien to the demands of contemporary hustle culture.When I covered the war in Bosnia I got to know Nermin Tulic, a prominent Sarajevo actor. He had his legs blown off by a Serbian shell on June 10, 1992.A democracy that cannot change its mind is not a democracy. The people may do that when presented with the whole picture after seeing only a partial or distorted one.So President Donald Trump’s main concern at the border with Mexico is the supposed discovery of “prayer rugs.” Trump came into office as an anti-Muslim bigot; he is still an anti-Muslim bigot. In fact, he remains himself in every aspect, his miserable pettiness impervious to any glimmer of uplift through his office.
