French President Emmanuel Macron right now is delivering a rare address to a joint session of Congress. And after spending two days with President Donald Trump, including being the honored guest at Trump’s first official State Dinner, Macron just denounced Trumpism.
Repeatedly.
“I am convinced that if we decide to open our eyes wider, we will be stronger. We will overcome the dangers; we will not let the work of extreme nationalism shake a world full of hope for greater prosperity,” President Macron said Wednesday morning.
Donald Trump has built his entire political campaign, “platform,” and base on “extreme nationalism.”
“Make America Great Again.”
“America First.”
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” Trump said in the speech in which he launched his presidential campaign. “They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
“You had a group on one side that was bad and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent,” Trump said after Charlottesville, stressing: “there’s blame on both sides.”
Macron Wednesday repeatedly denounced “extreme nationalism.”
And he also attacked Trumpism later in his speech, saying, “If you ask me, I do not share the fascination for new strong powers, the abandonment of freedom, and the illusion of nationalism.”
And Macron did not stop there.
“It is together that we can resist the rise of aggressive nationalism.”
“We can choose isolationism, withdrawal and nationalism,” he said, adding, “it can be tempting to us as a temporary remedy to our fears. But closing the door to the world will not stop the evolution of the world.”
Some responses via Twitter: