“The international climate today is far more permissive of minority-bashing, bashing of human rights — all the nasty stuff you would expect to be called out on by the international community,” said Siddharth Varadarajan, a founding editor of The Wire, an Indian news site.
“The fact that Trump doesn’t care, and hence the U.S. government is not going to care, it does create more room for bigots,” he argued.
For many around the world, this is the most troubling change of the last 100 days. Their reaction to the new president is less fear, anger, or confusion than sadness. Mr. Trump, they say, has dimmed the role the United States has long played as an exemplar for their countries.
“This is the end of the United States as the Northern Star — the star that used to guide democracy,” said Sabina Berman, a Mexican playwright and essayist. “It might be a temporary four-year eclipse, but in the Mexican psyche, that star is gone from the sky.”
