I generally avoid spending money on American publications, but The Atlantic remains indispensable. Today, staff writer David A. Graham describes a deeply dangerous individual whose towering arrogance convinces him he understands the world better than anyone alive.

Excerpts:

“Without us, right now you’d all be speaking German,” Donald Trump scolded European leaders at the World Economic Forum this morning. Perhaps the Germans have a word for the experience of watching your country’s leader embarrass himself and the country on the global stage.

Where does one start in summarizing such a speech? The straightforward racism? The economic illiteracy? The determination to alienate allies? The many moments where the president said things that were blatantly, provably false? And because he rambled through more than an hour, he covered a lot of ground. The most anticipated section was about Trump’s ongoing effort to acquire Greenland… Trump delivered a classic mafioso threat to take Greenland by force, saying that U.S. military might was irresistible… Trump seemed determined to alienate allies. He mockingly imitated French President Emmanuel Macron’s accent. He took a swipe at Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. He ridiculed the United Kingdom as too incompetent to extract oil from the North Sea. “Sitting on one of the greatest energy sources in the world, and they don’t use it,” he said. But he continued his administration’s outreach to Europe’s far right, blasting immigration to the continent… Naturally, the president didn’t stay on message. Trump also announced (without offering details) that he would soon prosecute people for a supposedly “rigged” 2020 election. He reprised a racist riff from yesterday’s White House press conference about Somalis having low IQs, and he called Representative Ilhan Omar, a Somali immigrant and Minnesota Democrat, a “fake congressperson.”