They don't hate us, they feel sorry for us

In one of the most famous, and funniest, lines of English poetry, Robert Burns draws a powerful lesson about a woman sporting a fancy hat in church one morning, ignoring the laughter prompted among those behind her by the sight of a louse crawling around among its flowers.

"O, wad some Power the giftie gie us," Burns wrote, "To see oursels as others see us." Ah, yes. If only we could "see ourselves as others see us."

I was given that gift last month: one week in France and three weeks in Italy. Not a long time, but long enough to get a good glimpse of how Europeans view the United States these days under Donald Trump. Believe me, it ain't pretty.

Before I left for Europe, several friends warned me: Be prepared to take a lot of personal abuse. Because, after Trump destroyed the mutually beneficial relationships built up over the last 70 years, people hate Americans now.

That was not my experience at all. What I discovered was even worse. On one hand, they're confused. They don't understand how we could let this happen. On the other hand, they're sad. They realize how hard it is for most Americans under Trump. So, they don't hate us. They feel sorry for us.

And they know what's going on. Trump's latest outrages get front-page coverage in most newspapers and cable TV: from the war on Iran, to building a new ballroom, to comparing himself to Jesus, to plastering his face on new passports. I never heard one commentator defend Trump. Most just make fun of him. One day, after Trump had again flip-flopped on the Strait of Hormuz, il Domani featured a front-page political cartoon showing an embarrassed Trump, pants around his ankles, with the caption: "Caught with his pants down."

Of course, nothing stirred up the Italian press and politicians more than Trump's gratuitous attacks on Pope Leo. Conservative and liberals agreed that Leo was not elected, as Trump claims, only because he was an American and therefore close to Trump. He was elected because he'd spent more time in Peru than in the United States, and therefore had no ties to Trump. Elly Schlein, the new leader of Italy's Democratic Party, often called "Italy's AOC," got a standing ovation in Parliament after a fiery speech condemning Trump for his attacks on the pope. It was the only issue, she said, on which she and Prime Minister Georgia Meloni had ever agreed.

In a poll released by Italy's Channel 7, only 11 percent of Italians said they trusted Donald Trump. Vladimir Putin did better, at 16 percent. Meloni, who'd been suffering in the polls since her initial support of Trump, bounced up to 43 percent approval after joining other European leaders in opposition.

Not even tragic events at the White House Correspondents' Dinner brought Trump any sympathy. When I expressed dismay at yet another attempted assassination, Italians I talked to dismissed it as "fake" - just another effort, like the Iran War, to take attention off the Epstein files. Which is a disturbing but not surprising reaction, I guess. After Trump has spread so many lies and conspiracy theories for years, what is the truth? Nobody believes anything anymore.

Of many conversations about Trump, two really struck home. The first, with a university professor who very sincerely wanted to know: We understand how you might have elected this guy the first time, but how could you make the mistake of electing him again? The second, with an education expert who documented schools shut down for millions of impoverished children, especially in Africa, due to Trump's killing of USAID. Why would we destroy the one government program that generated the most goodwill for America around the world? I wish I had a ready answer for both.

The sad fact is that, for good reason, our once longtime friends and allies don't trust the United States anymore and may never trust us again unless we act soon to prove them wrong. Which brings us back to the lady in the hat. In his seldom quoted next line, Robert Burns wisely added that if we did see ourselves as others see us, "It wad frae monie a blunder free us."

"It would from many a blunder free us." How true. We have an opportunity to correct our big blunder and clip Donald Trump's wings in the November midterms. This time, we'd better get it right.

(C)2026 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
 

 The best and the worst of times - in one day!

No wonder we feel dizzy. We live in a roller-coaster world, up one day, down the next. Or often up and down several times in the same day. Like this week, April 1 - no April Fools' joke! - where we experienced both the best of America and the worst.

The best of America was Artemis II, the most powerful rocket ever launched, blasting four astronauts on an historic mission around the far side of the moon and back to earth: a distance of 248,000 miles at a speed of 25,000 mph.

The first lunar mission in 53 years, Artemis II is not only a triumph of American engineering, it also reflects who we are as Americans. The Artemis crew includes the first woman, the first person of color and the first non-American citizen to soar beyond earth's low orbit. It is, in other words, a "DEI" event we can all be proud of - but which somehow escaped Donald Trump's attention. Otherwise, he would have canceled the whole mission.

That same day, the worst of America was on display when Donald Trump showed up at the Supreme Court to support his plan to end birthright citizenship. He's the first president to do so because no other president would do something so blatant or stupid.

Trump decided to attend the court's oral arguments on birthright citizenship for one reason only: to intimidate members of the court, especially the three justices he'd appointed to the bench. What a gigantic, delusional ego! He actually believed that if he showed up in person, conservative justices wouldn't dare vote against him. In fact, his presence may have the exact opposite effect: justices voting to uphold birthright citizenship if only to prove their independence from Trump.

Although one must always be careful about reading too much into oral arguments, from questions raised by even the most conservative justices, it doesn't look like the court will uphold Trump's Executive Order to eliminate birthright citizenship. Nor should they.

Some legal arguments are so complex you need a constitutional scholar to decipher them. But, as CNN's Jeff Tobin told my podcast, you don't need a degree from Harvard Law to understand the issue of birthright citizenship. You just need to know how to read.

Section 1 of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution was adopted in 1868 to ratify the results of the Civil War by affirming that children born of slaves were legal residents of the United States. It only takes one sentence: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." And no sentence could be more clear: If you were born on American soil, you're an American citizen. Period.

On the first day of his second term, Donald Trump signed an Executive Order ending birthright citizenship because, he said, it was designed for slave children only - and not for sons and daughters of immigrants today. Now it's up to the Supreme Court to decide whether a president can single-handedly rewrite or negate parts of the Constitution. For Trump, prospects don't look good. When Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that we couldn't still follow the wording of the 14th Amendment because the world had changed, Chief Justice John Roberts fired back: "It's a new world. It's the same Constitution."

It's unlikely, but were the court to side with Trump, the results could be disastrous. According to the Pew Research Center, there are 1.2 million U.S. citizens who were born to unauthorized immigrant parents. Without the 14th Amendment, all of them could be rounded up and deported, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose Cuban parents were not American citizens when he was born in Miami.

Unfortunately, we saw more of the worst of America that evening when Trump addressed the nation from the White House, speaking as usual from both sides of his mouth. His war against Iran is over, but we're going to bomb them for another two to three weeks. They must open the Strait of Hormuz, but we don't care because we don't need their oil. We don't want regime change, but we killed all their leaders, anyway and we're going to kill even more.

It makes you jealous of the Artemis II astronauts. For the next 10 days, we'll still be stuck on this ridiculous Donald Trump roller coaster, but lucky them. They'll be 248,000 miles away!

(C)2026 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Maybe we should all move to Finland

After every presidential election, many people disappointed by the outcome threaten to move - to Canada. Really? Why? Canada has little to offer but cold weather, high prices, no cultural advantages, hardly any diversity and a country whose national sport is - wait for it - curling!

No wonder so few who talk about moving to Canada actually do so. Because Canada offers so little appeal, especially when there are such better alternatives, as we learned again this year.

Since 2002, the World Happiness Report has used Gallup polling data from more than 150 countries to determine what they call "the world's happiest countries." Their findings are based on six categories: gross domestic product per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make your own life choices, generosity of the general population, and perceptions of internal and external corruption levels.

And now the envelope, please. According to the 2026 World Happiness Report, the planet's happiest country is - for the ninth year in a row - FINLAND! Followed by Iceland and Denmark, #'s 2 and 3; Costa Rica, #4; and Sweden and Norway, #'s 5 and 6. By the way, the United States ranks #24, after Lithuania, Slovenia, the United Arab Emirates, Germany, and the UK.

Only someone as dumb as Donald Trump could miss the obvious lesson here: With the exception of Costa Rica, people who live in Nordic countries are the happiest people on earth. And what do they all have in common? They live in countries that follow the so-called "Nordic Model." You know, it's what Bernie Sanders talks about. Not socialism, but a related form of "democratic socialism," also known as a "capitalist democracy," whose main features are a stable government, robust economy, higher taxes and generous, universal social benefits.

Every one of the Nordic countries is celebrated for 10 key benefits. (1) Strong Social Safety Nets: universal healthcare; tuition-free or very low-cost universities; generous unemployment insurance; and robust public pensions. (2) Work-Life Balance: shorter workweeks; 5-6 weeks required vacation time; and flexible parental leave. (3) Dependable Government: transparency; little corruption; continuity in public policy; and trust in government. (4) Equality: low income inequality; strong gender equality; accessible childcare. (5) High-Quality Public Services: efficient public transit; modern infrastructure; well-maintained parks, libraries, and recreation centers.

Sound good? Wait, that's only half of it. (6) Clean Environment: abundant forests, lakes, mountains, and coastlines, all accessible; strong environmental regulations. (7) Safety: lowest crime rates in the world. (8) Social Trust: people tend to trust neighbors, institutions, even strangers. (9) Strong Education Systems: minimal standardized testing; highly-trained, well-paid, teachers. (10) Political Stability: stable political systems and consensus-driven policy making.

Compare that with the United States. The advantages are we pay lower taxes and, for much of the country, enjoy warmer weather. The disadvantages are we also have the highest health insurance costs and medical bills in the world, as well as the highest college tuition; limited parental leave; longer work weeks and no federally mandated paid vacation; expensive childcare; higher inequality; aging infrastructure; limited public transit outside major cities; higher violent crime rates; a top-sided economy that creates more and more billionaires, while leaving the middle class fall farther and farther behind; and a broken, divisive political system that changes direction every four years.

Now, I'm not suggesting we all pack up and move to Scandinavia. But I am suggesting there's a lot we can learn from Scandinavian countries, starting with the fact that what works best for most people is not the unfettered capitalism most Republicans embrace, but the Nordic mix of a free-market economy with private ownership, coupled with significant state investment in health care, education, and social security. Plus, no matter what Republicans have been preaching and practicing for more than 50 years, there are more important priorities than cutting taxes. Experience shows: cutting taxes helps only those already on top, does nothing for those at the bottom or in the middle, and means consumers pay more for health care, education, and other public services.

For most Americans, paying a little more in taxes (as long as everyone pays their fair share) in return for lower health care costs and lower tuition would be considered a good deal.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not packing for Finland. I'm a proud American. I don't want to live anywhere else. We live in a wonderful country. But we'd be an even better country if we spent less time bragging about how great we are, and a little more time learning from others.

(C)2026 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.