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Eastern Europe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Europe

trump and kids in e eur?

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IVANKA ISLAND?

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AN 10 26

President Donald Trump attempted to distance himself from two of his long-time political advisers, who cashed in by working for a Russia-aligned government got instant pushback.

After The New York Times reported that James Blair and Chris LaCivita had gone to Republika Srpska, a Serb-majority area in Bosnia and Herzegovina, to advise its government before the elections there, Trump reacted on Truth Social. The report states that the two men were each paid hundreds of thousands of dollars through a Washington-based law firm that had been hired by the government.

“Chris LaCivita and James Blair are outside consultants,” Trump wrote. “They do not work for me, other than as outside consultants.”

CNN anchor Dana Bash mentioned the post a minute later, calling it "pretty wild" and mentioning that Blair and LaCivita are two of Trump's "closest political advisers" and that the former "is literally running MAGA Inc"

While discussing Trump's effort to describe them as outside consultants, CNN White House reporter Alayna Treene gave a more detailed account of the president’s relationship with them, calling the president's denial "astonishing" due to their high profile within his close circle.

“They do work for the president, and they are very close,” Treene said. “They are very much considered part of his inner circle, very close with Susie Wiles.”

Treene said LaCivita and Wiles, the chief of staff to the White House, ran Trump's 2024 campaign together and that Blair was closely connected to both of them.

“And James Blair really is in charge of the president’s entire political operation, even though it’s being run on the outside of the White House,” she said.

Blair was political director of Trump's 2024 campaign and later became a deputy chief of staff in the White House. LaCivita was also one of the campaign managers for Trump in 2024, and both of them are still taking part in the Trump-associated political operation as the November midterms approach.

Treene described Trump’s threat as significant due to his close ties to both advisors, and she linked the president’s move to midterm anxiety.

“That is a huge deal for people who have been loyal to him from the beginning and comes. Of course, this comes less than 30 days away from the midterm elections. A lot of alarm bells, of course, going off across the country for republicans in some of these very vulnerable districts and these tight races.”

She also gave one possible reason why the president took public steps about the report, namely that Trump has in the past disliked his aides earning money in ways that could involve his name; she also pointed out the huge conflict of interest.

His current denial is now drawing focus to the relationship which he had aimed to limit, but CNN reports the pair are still firmly within his political circle, which could lead to some political blowback.

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9 26 AFD DOES WELL IN 2 PROV IN EAST GERM; 1.8% LEADERS DN

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AInvest

https://www.ainvest.com › news › transatlantic-shift-trump-jr-play-eastern-europe-economic-loyalty-2504

The Transatlantic Shift: Trump Jr.'s Play for Eastern Europe's Economic ...

Apr 26, 2025Real Estate and Brand Licensing: The Trump Organization's ventures—such as a proposed golf resort in Serbia and a luxury hotel in Belgrade—serve as tangible investments in this strategy. These projects aim to capitalize on the region's underdeveloped tourism infrastructure while leveraging the brand's global appeal.

MSN

https://www.msn.com › en-us › money › other › trump-jr-heads-to-eastern-europe-to-expand-family-business › ar-AA1DteCe

Trump Jr. Heads to Eastern Europe to Expand Family Business - MSN

US President Donald Trump's eldest son will make a trip to eastern Europe, where he's seeking to expand his family's business ties, according to people familiar.

an 6 26

Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn is among the MAGA Republicans who faced federal criminal charges during Donald Trump's first presidency; in 2017, he pled guilty to lying to the FBI about his communications with Sergey Kislyak, then Russian ambassador to the United States. Now, 16 and one-half months into Trump's second presidency, Flynn is drawing vehement criticism from MAGA Republicans for registering as a foreign agent.

The New Republic's Edith Olmsted reports, "Far-right blogger Scott McMahan posted a Foreign Agents Registration Act form Monday that was dated October 2025, and stated that Donald Trump's former national security adviser was now making $100,000 per month from the Republic of Srpska. The confederated entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina is run by Milorad Dodik, a key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin."

On X, formerly Twitter, McMahan, posted, "Dodik's proximity to Putin is not conjecture. Dodik personally met with Putin on Russia's May 9 Victory Day. Putin said, 'It's very important that you all think alike ... we commonly advocate for a more fair world order ... free of any external intervention.'"

McMahan isn't the only MAGA Republican who is commenting on Flynn registering as a foreign agent.

MAGA influencer Sebastian Gorka tweeted, "A reminder: When I joined the first Trump administration, I was asked to sign two documents. In one I promised to not work as a lobbyist for a decade. In the second, I promised to never work for another government. I was happy to do sign both. I presume GEN Flynn also signed similar documents."

Phillip Buchanan, who goes by Catturd on X and has 4 million followers on that platform, responded to McMahan's tweets, posting, "100,000 per month?"

Olmsted comments, "If MAGA is upset that Flynn is working on behalf of a Russian ally, just wait until they realize all the ways Trump has stuck his neck out for Putin — and he's doing it for free!"

Despite the criticism from McMahan, the far-right Flynn is known for being a longtime Trump loyalist and an aggressive defender of the U.S. president. Much of the right-wing criticism of Flynn during Trump's first presidency came not from MAGA, but from a combination of Never Trump conservatives, neocons and libertarians.

Trump was only two days into his first presidency when Flynn, on January 22, 2017, became national security adviser. But he didn't stay in that position long, stepping down on February 13, 2017 because of the Kislyak controversy.

In December 2017, Flynn reached an agreement with then-special counsel Robert Mueller, pleading guilty to one count of lying to the FBI about his communications with Kislyak and agreeing to cooperate with Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the United States' 2016 presidential election."

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OMFG

dw

no pix lnx

US President Donald Trump's trio for the Balkans

Alexander Rhotert

02/18/2025February 18, 2025

President Trump's new team for the Balkans includes some familiar faces with close ties to Serbia: son-in-law Jared Kushner, former special envoy Richard Grenell and ex-governor Rod Blagojevich.

https://p.dw.com/p/4qdGO

Two men (Richard Grenell and Donald Trump) in blue suits stand in front of a US flag. Between them and the flag is a large blue banner with the words 'Protect our food from China' and 'Protecting America Initiative,' which are only partially visible

Richard Grenell (left) and Donald Trump at an event in Philadelphia in September 2024Image: AP Photo/Alex Brandon/picture alliance

The first weeks of Donald J. Trump's second presidency have shown that The New York Times hit the nail on the head with its Inauguration Day headline: "The Deal Maker in Chief Is Back."

Trump's foreign policy also seems to show that his beloved "deals" will remain a dominant theme of his second administration.

There have already been three indications of this: The US is willing to continue sending military aid to Ukraine in return for access to its reserves of raw materials such as rare earths and lithium, the "takeover" of the Gaza Strip to create a "Riviera of the Middle East," and — a Trump classic — a "Trump Tower" in the Serbian capital, Belgrade.

The first attempt to get this last project off the ground stalled in 2012. The fact that construction is now about to begin 13 years later is largely due to Trump's close adviser, Richard "Ric" Grenell.

Grenell was special presidential envoy for Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations during the first Trump administration, and Trump recently named him presidential envoy for special missions.

Trump Tower No. 5

Grenell has close — almost friendly — relations with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Foreign Minister Marko Djuric, a former Serbian ambassador to the US.

Vucic even presented Grenell with the Order of the Serbian Flag in 2023 in recognition of his "balanced approach" to Europe's youngest state, the Republic of Kosovo, which Serbia still claims as part of its territory 26 years after the end of the Kosovo War.

The Trump Tower Belgrade deal — which, according to The New York Times, comes with a price tag of half a billion dollars — was concluded by the Serbian government, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and Arab investors in March 2024.

A man in a blue suit (Richard Grenell) holds a box containing an order. Beside him is a taller man (Aleksandar Vucic). The two men are standing in front of a row of flagsA man in a blue suit (Richard Grenell) holds a box containing an order. Beside him is a taller man (Aleksandar Vucic). The two men are standing in front of a row of flags

Grenell (left) received the Order of the Serbian Flag from Serbian President Vucic (right) in Belgrade on October 25, 2023Image: Darko Vojinovic/dpa/picture alliance

The plan is to turn the former headquarters of the Armed Forces of Serbia (then the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) into a hotel complex with luxury apartments, including a memorial to the victims of the NATO bombardment of Belgrade in 1999, during which the building was damaged.

After New York, Chicago, Manila and Istanbul, this would be the fifth Trump Tower worldwide.

'The perfect man for Belgrade'

On February 7, Politico reported that Trump was considering making Rod "Blago" Blagojevich US ambassador to Serbia. The former Democratic governor of Illinois is a colorful political figure — even by Trump's standards.

Blagojevich, the son of Serbian immigrants, was removed from office in 2009 and sentenced three years later to 14 years in prison for corruption.

When Trump commuted his sentence during his first term in office, Blagojevich was released from prison in 2020.

A man (Rod Blagojevich) wearing a black coat and a gray roll-neck sweater looks past the cameraA man (Rod Blagojevich) wearing a black coat and a gray roll-neck sweater looks past the camera

Rod 'Blago' Blagojevich is being touted as the next US ambassador to SerbiaImage: Vincent Alban/REUTERS

This makes the Democrat an ideal ally for the Republican president, says Daniel Serwer, Balkans expert at Johns Hopkins University and US Balkans negotiator under former US President Bill Clinton. "Blago is the perfect man for Belgrade: a profoundly corrupt politician who will be willing to do anything Trump wants to be rehabilitated," Serwer told DW.

Trump popular with Serbs — at home and abroad

After his removal from office, Blagojevich appeared on Donald Trump's show "The Celebrity Apprentice" in 2010.

When Trump was nominated presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in July 2024, Blagojevich and Grenell made several electoral appearances together, especially in parts of the USA with large Serbian communities, where Trump had high approval ratings — as he did among nationalist Serbian politicians in Serbia and in neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, which also have Serbian communities.

A US coastguard boat with a gun on the front sails past a residence with peach-colored walls surrounded by palm trees. There is a large American flag in the grounds of the residenceA US coastguard boat with a gun on the front sails past a residence with peach-colored walls surrounded by palm trees. There is a large American flag in the grounds of the residence

According to a businessman who attended an event at Mar-a-Lago (pictured here), Trump called Blagojevich a 'great friend' and 'close associate'Image: Jen Golbeck/picture alliance/Sipa USA

In early 2024, five US businessmen with Serbian roots attended a reception at Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. One of them was Ranko Ristic, founder of the company Zastava Arms USA, which has the exclusive right to import to the US firearms produced by the Serbian company Zastava Oruzje.

According to Ristic, Trump referred to Blagojevich during the event as a "great friend" and "close associate." Ristic said that he himself had told Trump that during the 1991–95 Bosnian War, Bosnian Serbs had had to defend themselves against 3,000 mujahedeen.

Criticism of Kosovo's prime minister

Blagojevich met President Vucic in Belgrade in early February. During his visit, he was highly critical in the media of Kosovo's Prime Minister Albin Kurti, saying that Serbs in Kosovo were the target of "ethnic cleansing" that was taking place there.

In 1999, the USA and other NATO countries bombarded Serbia to force it to withdraw its troops from Kosovo, which was then part of Serbia, to prevent the expulsion of the majority ethnic Albanian population from the province.

25th anniversary of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia

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Blagojevich apologized to Vucic for the USA's involvement in this intervention in the Kosovo War. "My country did a terrible thing to your country in the 1990s," Trump's potential ambassador to Serbia told Vucic, adding: "It's no different from what Russia is doing in Ukraine (...) I think President Trump will work on improving our countries' relations."

Trump's confidant Grenell has also criticized Kosovo's Prime Minister Kurti on multiple occasions. In addition, he met with an archenemy of Kurti, former Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, in Washington the day before Trump's inauguration.

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According to a post by KosovoOnline on X, Haradinaj said that Grenell had confirmed to him that it would "not be good for Kosovo if Kurti remains in power."

Kurti has been in Grenell's bad books since 2020 when he rejected an ethnically motivated exchange of territory between Kosovo and Serbia proposed by Grenell. Kurti's Vetevendosje party won Kosovo's parliamentary election on February 9.

More radical rhetoric on Kosovo

These developments, which are extremely positive for Vucic, stand in stark contrast to the mass protests that have been rocking Serbia since early November.

In recent weeks, the Serbian president's rhetoric regarding Kosovo has taken a more radical turn, undoubtedly to divert attention from his obvious domestic problems.

In an interview with the German newspaper Berliner Zeitung, Serbian Foreign Minister Marko Djuric referred to Kosovo as "our southern province," where Serbs were exposed to "permanent discrimination and harassment."

A man (Albin Kurti) dressed in a dark green winter coat smiles broadly as he speaks into a microphoneA man (Albin Kurti) dressed in a dark green winter coat smiles broadly as he speaks into a microphone

The party of Albin Kurti (pictured here) won the parliamentary election in Kosovo on February 9Image: Florion Goga/REUTERS

Milan Mojsilovic, chief of General Staff of the Serbian Armed Forces, told the Serbian daily newspaper Vecernje novosti that Serbia's armed forces were at the ready to "protect Serbs and other non-Albanians on the territory of our southern province." There were, he said, "indicators for potential destabilization" in Kosovo.

Vucic, who has in the past referred to Kurti as "terrorist scum," described him recently on Serbia's Happy TV as a "villain" who "hates Serbs."

What does this mean for Bosnia?

Kurt Bassuener, director of the Berlin think tank Democratization Policy Council, told DW that Greater Serbian aspirations pose a threat not only to the territorial integrity of Kosovo but also to that of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The EU could, he said, respond to Belgrade's aggression toward its neighbors by "significantly beefing up" the EUFOR Althea mission, which protects peace in Bosnia, with combat troops.

Were this to happen, a US-Balkan team comprising Grenell, Kushner and Blagojevich — including a direct line to the White House — would be a gift for Belgrade. It would also mean that an improvement in Serbia-Kosovo relations — already unlikely as it is — would slip further away.

A large crowd fills a square in Nis, Serbia. Several people are holding up Serbian flags A large crowd fills a square in Nis, Serbia. Several people are holding up Serbian flags

Protests have been taking place across Serbia at regular intervals since last NovemberImage: Jelena Djukic Pejic/DW

The EU responded in 2023 to the last Kosovo Serb attacks on NATO and Kosovo security forces and a Serb military buildup on the Serbia-Kosovo border with sanctions — paradoxically, against Kosovo.

It was only the personal intervention of the then US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who spoke to President Vucic, and the enormous pressure exerted by NATO that were able to get Serbian tanks to turn back.

Today, both Western Balkans experts Serwer and Bassuener doubt that the US would stop Vucic's army should the worst come to the worst. Serwer also warns that even the discussion of the breakup of Kosovo or Ukraine would animate Serbian secessionists in Bosnia to take corresponding action.

"It will be up to Bosnians to react to that," Serwer told DW. "The Javelins are Kosovo's best defense at this point." Without the delivery of the highly effective US Javelin anti-tank weapon system, Ukraine's successful resistance to Russia's all-out invasion in 2022 would have been inconceivable.

In view of the current security policy situation, an escalation of potential conflicts in the Western Balkans is certainly becoming increasingly likely.

This article was originally published in German.

Head shot of a man (Alexander Rhotert) with glasses in front of a pale wallHead shot of a man (Alexander Rhotert) with glasses in front of a pale wall

Alexander Rhotert Political scientist, author and expert on the Western Balkans

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Computer rendering of Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of the European continent. There is no consensus on the precise area it covers, partly because the term has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, cultural, and socioeconomic connotations. There are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region".[1] A related United Nations paper adds that "every assessment of spatial identities is essentially a social and cultural construct".[2]

One definition describes Eastern Europe as a cultural entity: the region lying in Europe with the main characteristics consisting of Greek, Byzantine, Eastern Orthodox, Russian, and some Ottoman culture influences.[3][4] Another definition was created during the Cold War and used more or less synonymously with the term Eastern Bloc. A similar definition names the formerly communist European states outside the Soviet Union as Eastern Europe.[4] Some historians and social scientists view such definitions as outdated or relegated,[1][5][6][7][8] but they are still sometimes used for statistical purposes.[3][9][10]

Definitions

The European regional grouping according to The World Factbook:

  Eastern Europe

Picture shows also Northern Europe, Western Europe, Central Europe, Southern Europe, Southeastern Europe, Southwestern Europe, and other regions

Several other definitions of Eastern Europe exist today, but they often lack precision, are too general or outdated. These definitions vary both across cultures and among experts, even political scientists,[11] as the term has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, cultural, and socioeconomic connotations.

There are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region".[1] A related United Nations paper adds that "every assessment of spatial identities is essentially a social and cultural construct".[2]

Geographical

While the eastern geographical boundaries of Europe are well defined, the boundary between Eastern and Western Europe is not geographical but historical, religious and cultural.

The Ural Mountains, Ural River, and the Caucasus Mountains are the geographical land border of the eastern edge of Europe.

In the west, however, the historical and cultural boundaries of "Eastern Europe" are subject to some overlap and, most importantly, have undergone historical fluctuations, which make a precise definition of the western geographic boundaries of Eastern Europe and the geographical midpoint of Europe somewhat difficult.

Religious

The East–West Schism (which began in the 11th century and lasts until the present) divided Christianity in Europe, and consequently, the world, into Western Christianity and Eastern Christianity.

Western Europe according to this point of view is formed by countries with dominant Roman Catholic and Protestant churches (including Central European countries like Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia).

Eastern Europe is formed by countries with dominant Eastern Orthodox churches, like Belarus, Bulgaria, Greece, Republic of Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Russia, Serbia, and Ukraine for instance.

The schism is the break of communion and theology between what are now the Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Roman Catholic from the 11th century, as well as from the 16th century also Protestant) churches. This division dominated Europe for centuries, in opposition to the rather short-lived Cold War division of 4 decades.

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Since the Great Schism of 1054, Europe has been divided between Roman Catholic and Protestant churches in the West, and the Eastern Orthodox Christian (many times incorrectly labeled "Greek Orthodox") churches in the east. Due to this religious cleavage, Eastern Orthodox countries are often associated with Eastern Europe. A cleavage of this sort is, however, often problematic; for example, Greece is overwhelmingly Orthodox, but is very rarely included in "Eastern Europe", for a variety of reasons, the most prominent being that Greece's history, for the most part, was more so influenced by Mediterranean cultures and contact.[15]

Cold War

Regions used for statistical processing purposes by the United Nations Statistics Division.[5][6][1][7][8][3][10]

Another definition was used during the 40 years of Cold War between 1947 and 1989, and was more or less synonymous with the terms Eastern Bloc and Warsaw Pact. A similar definition names the formerly communist European states outside the Soviet Union as Eastern Europe.[4]

The fall of the Iron Curtain brought the end of the East-West division in Europe,[16] but this geopolitical concept is sometimes still used for quick reference by the media or sometimes for statistical purposes.[17]

Historians and social scientists generally view such definitions as outdated or relegate

http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176359/tomgram%3A_john_feffer%2C_drowning_liberalism_in_the_bathtub/

Note for TomDispatch Readers: Aftershock: A Journey into Eastern Europe’s Broken Dreams,a new book by TomDispatch regular John Feffer, is just being published.  Of it, Adam Hochschild, another TD favorite, writes, “‘John Feffer brings to this story a traveller’s eye, a rich store of experiences, and a wise perspective. His thoughtful book is a reminder that few nations, anywhere, easily throw off the heritage of tyranny.”  As you’ll see, his new book is related to today’s post and it goes instantly on my must-read list. So pick up a copy yourself.  And remember that, for a $100 contribution to this website ($125 if you live outside the USA), a personalized, signed copy of Feffer's riveting dystopian novel and Dispatch Book, Splinterlands, is still available for anyone in an end-of-year giving mood.  Check out our donation page for the details. Tom]

By the time you read this, the latest brouhaha will undoubtedly be history -- or do I mean “fake history”? -- and largely forgotten.  It will have been replaced by an explosion of media coverage about some other nightmarish set of presidential tweets or comments.  After all, it’s a pattern.  I’m referring to President Trump’s recent retweeting of three videos of purported Islamic mayhem.  They came from the Twitter feed of Jayda Fransen, the deputy leader of a British ultranationalist group, Britain First, that had previously sparked its own terror incident, the stabbing to death of Labor parliamentarian Jo Cox by a man shouting “Britain First!”  In 2016, Fransen herself was convicted of “religiously aggravated harassment” for abusing a Muslim woman in a hijab in front of her children. One of those videos of hers supposedly showed a “Muslim immigrant” in Holland beating up a boy on crutches.  (The incident actually happened, but the attacker was neither a Muslim nor an immigrant.)

When criticized by British Prime Minister Theresa May for using the fraudulent materials of such an extremist group, our commander-in-tweet lashed out (initially tweeting the wrong Theresa May) and wouldn’t back down or even remove the videos from his Twitter feed.  Fransen, who instantly gained 22,000 new Twitter followers for her fringe positions in England, thanked him fervently. (“God bless you Trump!  God bless America!”)  Meanwhile social media lit up with Islamophobic sentiments both in the U.S. and Great Britain.

Such events are regularly reported as uncontrollable presidential interruptions of other important events on the Trump agenda -- that week, the Republican tax “reform” bill -- which only frustrate his chief of staff, flummox his advisers, and generally distract the administration from everything that truly matters.  Don’t believe it for a minute.  There’s method, however intuitive, in Trump’s madness, in those endless tweetish controversies, in his regular immersion in conspiracies (think: birtherism), implosions that plunge the president and his 43.6 million Twitter followers into a deep, dark world alive with horror and terror, whether of the Muslim or even the football variety.

As *TomDispatch* regular John Feffer, author of the new book *Aftershock: A Journey into Eastern Europe’s Broken Dreams*, points out today, the “wild conspiracy theories” that go with this sort of politics have lifted not just Trump, but a whole raft of right-wing authoritarian types to power across Eastern Europe in recent years. This sort of thinking, especially with an Islamophobic edge, has helped drive Trump and a whole set of Trump-like Eastern European leaders to unimagined heights of success and has helped them remain there, too.  So don’t expect the president’s outbursts, his Islamophobic tweets, or any of the rest of it to end soon. It rallies the base. It works and he knows it.

As Feffer explains today, those Eastern Europeans learned all of this long before Donald Trump hit the political stage. So what they’ve done and how they’ve lasted is worth taking a moment to contemplate as you consider Donald Trump’s future (and ours). Think of their examples as warnings not to sell him and the method in that madness of his short. Tom

What’s the Matter with Eastern Europe? 

Welcome to the Birthplace of Trumpism 

By John Feffer

He was a rich businessman, an outspoken outsider with a love of conspiracy theories. And he was a populist running for president.

In 1990, when Donald Trump was still beyond the furthest outskirts of American politics, Stanislaw Tyminski was trying to become the new president of post-communist Poland.  He shared something else with the future Trump: nobody in the political elite took Tyminski seriously.

That was a mistake. He was the standard-bearer for a virulent right-wing populism that would one day take power in Poland and control the politics of the region. He would be the first in a long line of underestimated buffoons of the post-Cold War era who started us on a devolutionary path leading to Donald Trump. Tyminski’s major error: his political backwardness was a little ahead of its time.

In true Trumpian fashion, Stan Tyminski couldn’t have been a more unlikely politician. As a successful businessman in Canada, he had made millions. He proved luckless, however, in Canadian politics. HisLibertarian Party never got more than 1% of the vote.

In 1990, he decided to return to his native Poland, then preparing for its first free presidential election since the 1920s. A relatively open parliamentary election in 1989, as the Warsaw Pact was beginning to unravel, had produced a solid victory for candidates backed by the independent trade union, Solidarity. Those former dissidents-turned-politicians had been governing for a year, withSolidarity intellectual and pioneering newspaper editor Tadeusz Mazowieckias prime minister but former Communist general Wojciech Jaruzelski holding the presidency. Now, the general was finally stepping aside.

Running in addition to Mazowiecki was former trade union leader Lech Walesa, who had done more than any other Pole to take down the Communist government (and received a Nobel Prize for his efforts). Compared to such political giants, Tyminski was an unknown.

All three made promises. Walesa announced that he would provide every Pole with $10,000 to invest in new capitalist enterprises. Mazowiecki swore he’d get the Rolling Stones to perform in Poland. Tyminski had the strangest pitch of all. He carried around a black briefcase inside which, he claimed, was secret information that would blow Polish politics to smithereens.

Tyminski managed to get a toehold in national politics because, by November 1990, many Poles were already fed up with the status quo Solidarity had ushered in. They’d suffered the early consequences of the “shock therapy” economic reforms that would soon be introduced across much of Eastern Europe and, after 1991, Russia. Although the Polish economy had finally stabilized, unemployment had, by the end of 1990, shot up from next to nothing to 6.5% and the country’s national income had fallen by more than 11%. Though some were doing well in the new business-friendly environment, the general standard of living had plummeted as part of Poland’s price for entering the global economy. The burden of that had fallen disproportionately on workers in sunset industries, small farmers, and pensioners.

Mazowiecki, the face of this new political order, would, like Hillary Clinton many years later, go down to ignominious defeat, while Tyminski surprised everyone by making it into the second round of voting. Garnering support from areas hard hit by the dislocations of economic reform, he squared off against the plainspoken, splenetic Walesa.

Tyminski did everything he could to paint his opponent as the consummate insider, a collaborator with the Communist secret police in his youth.  "I have a lot of material and I have it here… and some of it is very serious and of a personal nature," Tyminski told Walesa in a debate on national television, holding that briefcase of his close at hand. Walesa retaliated by accusing him of being a front man for the former communist secret police. Tyminski was forced to admit that his staff did include ex-secret policemen, but he never actually opened that briefcase. Walesa was resoundingly swept into the presidency by an electoral margin of three to one.

Stan Tyminski eventually took his wild conspiracy theories and populist pretensions back to Canada, a political has-been. And yet he was prescient in so many ways (including those charges against Walesa, who probably did collaborate briefly with the secret police). The liberal reforms that Eastern Europe implemented after the transformations of 1989 were supposed to be a one-way journey into a future as prosperous and boring as Scandinavia’s. Tyminski, on the other hand, had conjured up a very different, far grimmer future -- unpredictable, angry, intolerant, paranoid -- the very one that seems to have become our present.

Tyminski’s “children” now govern nearly every country in Eastern Europe, and the United States, too, is in the grip of a Tyminski-like leader. Perhaps these illiberal leaders have reached the peak of their influence -- or have they? The opposite scenario is too dismal to contemplate: that the political climate has irreversibly changed and liberalism has irrevocably weakened in the U.S., in Eastern Europe, everywhere.

All (or at Least a Few) Aboard

Imagine the history of Eastern Europe after 1989 as a train leaving a decrepit station where tasty snacks and interesting reading material aren’t available, the public address system issues garbled announcements, the bathrooms are out of order, and the help desk unstaffed. As the final boarding chimes echo through the station, the passengers pile onto the train.  A lucky few are in a first-class car with access to a surprisingly good cafe and plush sleeping compartments, a somewhat larger group in the reserved second-class seats, and everyone else crowded into totally rundown cars with appalling seats. The ultimate destination all of them have been told is a lovely terminal with well-provisioned stores, clean public restrooms, and a responsive administrative system in a city and country equally well run.

Think of this as the train of “transition.” Everyone on it seems convinced that they’re en route to a stunning market democracy in a post-Cold War world where political differences and ideological struggles have lost their relevance, where as American political theorist Francis Fukuyama famously put it in 1989, the “end of history” is in sight. "Today,” Fukuyama wrote a couple of years later, “we have trouble imagining a world that is radically better than our own, or a future that is not essentially democratic and capitalist."  Pragmatic decisions are all that’s left, and they’re to be chewed over by policymakers and implemented by bureaucrats.

If Eastern Europeans knew what they’d left behind and were fervent about where they were heading, they had little idea about the nature of the journey they were undertaking. German political scientist Ralf Dahrendorf tried to provide a few time stamps for such a transition: six months to create parties and political institutions, six years to establish the basis for a market economy, and 60 years to build a proper civil society. Except for some cranky members of the extreme right and a few Stalinist leftovers, everyone in the region seemed to back this liberal project, seeing it as a ticket into the larger European community.

For the first few years, the train of transition rolled along. There was grumbling in the back cars, but everyone was still on board with the overall plan to reach Western Europe or bust.

As it happened, the first-class passengers were easily transported to the heart of the sunny West. The second-class passengers barely made it across the border. And the rest didn’t get far beyond that original, disheveled station.

Mind the Gap

When I first traveled across Eastern Europe in 1990, the very year of the Polish presidential election, many of the people I interviewed expected to be living like Viennese or Londoners within five years, a decade at the most. If this was a delusion, it was one partially fueled by the outside advisers who flooded the region in 1990. Planners from the U.S. Agency for International Development, for example, put a five-year window on their assistance package.

And for some, the transition did last only a few years because cities like Warsaw in Poland quickly became high-priced locations for international corporate offices and NGOs. So the capital cities of Eastern Europe made the trip west, while smaller cities and towns and, above all, the countryside remained mired in the past.  This urban-rural gap mirrored the one that still persists between Western Europe and Eastern Europe. In 1991, according to the World Bank’s figures, Hungary’s per capita gross domestic product was $3,333, Austria’s $22,356. By 2016, Hungary’s had risen to $27,481, while Austria’s stood at $48,004. In other words, though the gap had been narrowed considerably, as with other Eastern European countries -- Poland ($27,764), Romania ($22,347), Bulgaria ($20,326) -- it had at best been cut in half.

“In 1965, West Germany was already the wealthiest and most productive country in Europe,” Adam Jagusiak, a former peace activist and Polish Foreign Ministry employee, told me in an interview in 2013. “It took them only 20 years. They produced more than France and Britain. They had their Wirtschaftswunder, their economic miracle. What’s most disappointing for most people, not just me, is that after 23 years we cannot close the gap…  Poland would have to grow 10 percent annually to close the gap. That’s a neck-breaking pace, like Japan in the 1950s and 1960s or like South Korea in the 1970s. We grow maybe two or three percent.”

The liberal project succeeded in ushering virtually all of Eastern Europe into the European Union. But in the end, because of the persistent gap between expectations and reality, voters began to look around for something different.

Opportunism Knocks

Stan Tyminski ran for president before unemployment in Poland soared from 6.5% in 1990 to 20% by 2002.In Hungary, Viktor Orbánhad far better timing.

Orbán was a young lawyer in Budapest in 1988 when he helped found a liberal party that you had to be under 35 to join. Fidesz, the Alliance of Young Democrats, won a commendable 21 seats in the 1990 elections, good enough for a sixth-place showing. Four years later, that country’s former Communist Party (renamed the Socialists) came out on top, while Fidesz dropped a couple spots. What disappointed Orbán far more, however, was the way the Alliance of Free Democrats -- the “adult” version of Fidesz -- opted to form a coalition government with the Socialists.

That was the moment when, having second thoughts about liberalism as a vehicle for his own personal ambitions, he began to transform both Fidesz, which dropped its under-35 requirement, and himself. When economic “reform” shocked Hungary as it had Poland, Orbán recast himself as an increasingly illiberal Hungarian nationalist and his once-liberal party became a pillar of the new right. In 2010, he became prime minister for the second time, a position he’s held for the last seven years.

In a remarkable number of ways Orbán anticipated Donald Trump. He reversed his country’s longstanding mistrust of Russia by openly courting its president, Vladimir Putin, and pledging to transform Hungarian politics along the lines of that country’s “illiberal state.” He railed against mainstream journalism, attempted to bend the judiciary (and the constitution) to his will, and rigged the state apparatus to benefit his supporters. In perhaps his most ominous twist, Orbán courted the Hungarian version of the alt-right with relentless anti-immigrant statements and the occasional anti-Semitic gesture.

The Polish right wing was so enamored of Orbán’s success that, in 2011, former Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski announced that “the day will come when we will succeed and we will have Budapest in Warsaw.” Four years later, his Law and Justice Party took power on a mixed platform of populism and conspiracy theories reminiscent of Stan Tyminski’s.

Now, Donald Trump is constructing Budapest in Washington D.C., as he unwittingly follows Tyminski’s and Orbán’s trajectory. The reality TV star cultivated his status as an extreme outsider. During the Obama era, he identified a political opportunity on the right and, in September 2009, switched from the Democratic to the Republican Party. Seven years later, having combined outlandish conspiracy theories (think: birtherism) with an astute critique of liberal elites, he squeaked into power. He surely owes something to native (and nativist) traditions from Huey Long to Ross Perot, but he shares so much more with his compatriots across the Atlantic.

That transatlantic commonality begins with his canny exploitation of the gap between expectation and reality. The United States, like Eastern Europe, was going through its own “economic transition” in the 1990s. Millions of Americans expected the new economy -- the global economy, the digital economy, the service economy, the sharing economy -- to produce new jobs, better jobs.  And it did generate enormous wealth, but mostly, as in Eastern Europe, for a narrow, highly urbanized slice of the population. Income inequality has increased so dramatically that the American world now resembles the nineteenth-century Gilded Age.

In the eras of Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, the liberal project meant government intervention in the economy on behalf of working Americans and the disadvantaged. By the time Bill Clinton took the White House in 1993, the focus of the “new” Democrats was already shifting to global free-trade deals that would only accelerate the country’s loss of manufacturing jobs and a harsh vision of social spending represented most starkly by Clinton’s grim version of welfare reform. Meanwhile, the increasing coziness of the “new” Democratic Party and Wall Street would lead to significant financial deregulation that, in turn, would produce an economic meltdown in 2007-2008.

Although Barack Obama would prove progressive on some issues, he would also embrace Clintonesque positions on trade, social welfare, and Wall Street. As in Eastern Europe, such a liberal project would leave many people behind. So no one should have been surprised that these disappointed voters would eventually seek their revenge at the polls, as traditional Democrats in working-class neighborhoods began to vote Republican.

Aided by “dark money” and his dark mutterings about migrants, Mexicans, and Muslims, Trump rode a wave of Eastern European-style disenchantment to the Oval Office. Now, he’s taking his revenge not just against the neoliberalism of the Clinton and Obama years, but the entire twentieth-century liberal understanding of the state.

Conservative anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist once remarked that his dream was not “to abolish government” but “to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." The question today in both Eastern Europe and the U.S. is: Have Trump, Orbán, and others shrunk liberalism to such a degree that they can now drown it in that bathtub?

The Future of Liberalism

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