“Nazism is democracy’s anti-matter,” Katherine Cross writes. “There is nothing about the ideology or its practice that is anything but corrosive to democratic institutions.”

“President Donald Trump threatened in a phone call with his Mexican counterpart to send U.S. troops to stop ‘bad hombres down there’ unless the Mexican military does more to control them,” Vivian Salama and Mark Stevenson of Associated Press report.

“Germany … continues to exploit other countries in the EU as well as the US with an ‘implicit Deutsche Mark’ that is grossly undervalued,” Peter Navarro—a top trade adviser to Donald Trump—has told the Financial Times, according to Andrew Rettman of the EU Observer.

Frances Stead Sellers and David Fahrenthold of the Sydney Morning Herald has written an informative—and frightening—article about the man now one of Trump’s closest advisors and a permanent member of the United States National Security Council.

“Dutch authorities will count by hand all the votes cast in next month’s general elections, ditching ‘vulnerable’ computer software to thwart any cyber hacking bid,” the Guardian writes.

“I cannot rule out that state actors may try to benefit from influencing political decisions and public opinion in the Netherlands,” Interior Minister Ronald Plasterk says.

“As new revelations provide more embarrassment and old allies begin to turn on him it is looking increasingly likely that François Fillon the one time shoo-in for the presidency will have to step aside,” The Local reports.

BuzzFeed has yummy pictures.

“A pregnant woman’s husband will have the power to stop her from having an abortion, even in cases of spousal rape, under a new law introduced in the US state of Arkansas,” Charlotte England of the Independent reports.

They say it’s for the protection of unburned children, but it’s really a war on women already born.

On the White House website, there’s a petition demanding that the Netherlands becomes second.

“A recent dig in the Jiangsu province of China has unearthed a large collection of objects believed to be around 2000 years old,” Bobby Rae of Pink News reports.

President Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner helped kill a proposed executive order that would have scrapped Obama-era gay protections, Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman of the New York Times report.

Economically, I’m more of a Fillion supporter, but his fondness for Putin’s Russia is big turn-off. So, all things considered, I’m hopping Emmanuel Macron will win the French presidency. Joseph Bamat of France 24 writes:

Centrist French politician Emmanuel Macron seized upon the growing momentum surrounding his presidential bid on Saturday, using a major campaign speech in Lyon to challenge rival candidates for the spring election.

Macron, a 39-year-old former economy minister, struck a patriotic tone as he addressed supporters in a sports arena filled to capacity in the city centre. At least 8,000 people waved flags and chanted “Macron, president!” inside the venue, while hundreds more watched the event on a large screen set up outside.

He launched a full-scale attack on far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, who is also set to give a major campaign speech in Lyon over the weekend. “They are not speaking in the name of the people,” he said of Le Pen’s anti-EU National Front, calling her party the antithesis of the French values of liberty, equality and fraternity. “They are speaking in the name of a France that never existed.”

The French fascist intends to reintroduce border controls, go back to the Franc, and leave NATO. She loves Putin’s Russia, opposes free trade, and plans on having a referendum to leave the European Union. If that’s the toned down version, it’s very bad.

Lisa Louis of Deutsche Welle has more.

Norwegian Police Security Service compare the attack against Labour to the hack of the Democratic National Committee that American intelligence agencies say was carried out by Russia in an effort to influence the outcome of the American election, The Local reports.

“A new poll has shown a surprising proportion of religious Americans support the legalisation of same-sex marriage,” Joseph Patrick McCormick of Pink News reports.

This passage tomb was erected during the Neolithic Stone Age about 5,300 years ago. It was once a burial chamber for an important person, but now it stands empty in a field at Södra Åkarp, a few kilometres south of Malmö.

Rose Trigg of The Local has outlined Le Pen’s vision for France, and it includes everything I’m opposed. I want a stronger, more federal Europe. I want open borders within the EU, and I want the euro to be successful and result in more common decisions in betterment of the continent as a whole. Nationalism is not bad in itself, but the kind of protectionist isolationism and xenophobia Le Pen represents is a venom. The EU has given Europe unprecedented peacetime and it has served France well. Le Pen is too ignorant to realise this, but hopefully the French voters are not.

With President Trump moving to curb immigration and the American IT industry in open revolt, Vancouver may become the new “Silicon Valley”.

“During the interview, Wilders also said Islam is ‘possibly worse than Nazism’ and likened mosques to ‘Nazi temples’,” Robin Pascoe of Dutch News reports.

The frightening thing is that some 18% of the Dutch electorate are considering voting for this man in the coming general election in March.

Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post writes about a bizarre answer from a bizarre president.

“Today, tomorrow and every day hence, be confident that the United States is now and will always be your greatest ally,” Pence said at the summit i Munich. “Be assured: President Trump and the American people are fully devoted to our transatlantic union.”

Not exactly what President Trump has said in the recent past.

“citizens are calling for peace and possibility, which is why the EU should work to bring citizens closer to the EU, empower liberals, distance itself from nationalists and uncover the corrupt who stall reforms and undermine progress,” Jeton Zulfaj writes in an article published by EU Observer.

I second that.

“The Swedish government on Sunday demanded that the White House clarifies what US President Donald Trump meant while speaking at a Florida rally on Saturday during which he referred to what appeared to be a serious incident ‘last night in Sweden’,” The Local writes. “The only twist was that nothing spectacular happened in Sweden on Friday.”

I realise that I haven’t updated by web diary in days. It’s not that there are no things to write about, it’s just that everything that is happening nowadays is so twisted. Trump and his gang is the new normal in world politics, which is so depressing that I contemplate a life in rural solitude without any news from the outside world. Whenever I listen to a radio programme or read a newspaper, it’s all Trump, Trump, Trump mixed with more xenophobic stupidity from Brexit England (they say Britain, but let’s be honest—it’s England only) and Islamophobia from populist morons in France and the Netherlands. World politics is in a depressing state.

On Friday, I’m travelling to Vienna. Austria recently picked a sane president over a far-right candidate. The election was tight and it scares me that so many in Hitler’s homeland are prepared to vote for a new racist so similar to the old one. But I look forward to visiting the country nonetheless. Vienna is a beautiful city with many historic sites. I especially look forward to my first ever visit to the opera house, which is one of the best in the world.