“A number of observers of the political, moral and spiritual life in recent years have taken up the famous theme of the decline of the West,” the French journalist Luc Ferry wrote in Le Figaro at the end of January. “They recall that civilizations are mortal, like human beings, and that our own, far gone in decadence, is dying. Nevertheless, I fail to see how one can include the United States in this pessimistic reading of history. Not only does it remain the most powerful economic and military power in the world… politically speaking, whatever one thinks of [Donald] Trump, of his antics and his perverse narcissism, it is difficult to deny that he has given new life to the idea that politics can change the world, that action taken by a leader can have an impact on the real world.”

M. Ferry is especially approving of the American President’s removal from office in Venezuela of the “bloody clown” Nicolás Maduro and of Trump’s first bombing raid last June against Iran; he regrets only that the President did not press his military campaign to remove the mullahs from power for good. “The comparison with France,” he notes, “is a cruel one: faced with his energetic action on all fronts – immigration, wars, AI, the economy – the ‘at the same time’ of [an Emmanuel] Macron embedded in an absurd dissolution of power is pitiful to behold.”

The Biden administration’s success in steering the country leftward made a sharp and........

© The Spectator