| THE MAJOR BLIND SPOT |
ANDURIL UNVEILS AN UNMANNED FIGHTER JET as Palmer Luckey’s tech-led defense startup Anduril makes waves for winning the Pentagon’s lucrative defense contract to build America’s next-generation Collaborative Combat Aircraft (aka CCAs) alongside General Atomics.
COMMENT: Palmer Luckey has every reason to be proud. Anduril’s software-first, product-centered business model make it the only truly modern success in the defense contractor world. Its commitment to cost-efficiency and scalable production fills a critical gap in the Western arsenal.
But, while Anduril’s business model is now proven, critical flaws remain at the heart of their military-industrial philosophy. To outpace China, the West must lean into its unique strength: creativity. That means shifting to a creative, production-first doctrine, and not just creating better software or easier-to-make products. In other words, the West needs military Minecraft.
Still, the details of Anduril’s announcement are encouraging. We’ve long argued the West must move past its outdated reliance on luxury military equipment for years now. Fury, Anduril’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), suggests someone in the defense industry is finally paying attention.
Naturally, the mainstream has fixated on Luckey’s support of autonomous, AI-guided weapons. But that is not the most important story. As Luckey points out, a “dumb” weapon like a landmine isn’t inherently better than an autonomous one. Prominent saturation-based military strategies like American bombing strikes or Russian thermobaric rocket salvoes are arguably more destructive than targeted, smart autonomous weapons.
What matters most is how Anduril’s manifesto at Rebuilding The Arsenal clarifies they are following a cutting-edge philosophy whose innovation goes far beyond autonomous weapons. It rejects the West’s obsession with exquisite, expensive capabilities mismatched with our productive capacities. While the United States may be ready for day one, they are not ready for day 30, and certainly not for day 300.
Anduril also points out increasingly pessimistic American war games relating to China’s invasion of Taiwan, which suggests the United States may run out of munitions after the first week of the conflict.
Despite this knowledge, precious little seems to be changing at the Pentagon, Anduril claims. The most egregious examples of this stagnation are the Pentagon’s Fiscal Year budgets for 2023 and 2024, which produced something like 22 tanks, or 24 Tomahawk cruise missiles — infinitesimally small amounts compared to what American troops would doctrinally require for standard engagements. Despite these puny numbers, each of these weapons still cost several million.
From this perspective, Anduril is bang on the money. Their response’s brilliance is two-sided: a ‘products-first’ and ‘software-first’ mindset.
Their better attribute is their products-first model: instead of relying on standard contracts to produce weapons, they fund the weapons’ development themselves. That means they closely study the product’s costs and requirements without getting enmeshed in bureaucratic and procedural norms which can inflate capabilities and budgets.
A standout example: commercial over military tech. The Fury uses commercial-grade landing gear instead of highly expensive and specialized military equipment, for instance. It’s cheaper, more production-friendly, and aligned with tech’s rapid evolution — unlike military systems that tend to peak once and then stagnate.
Their software-first mindset is equally bold. They correctly estimate that updated software is the cornerstone of good military equipment. That’s because good software is much of the difference between a good and a bad piece of tech. And yet, American military infrastructure often places software last. Unlike legacy platforms stitched together by dozens of contractors, Anduril’s systems are integrated and updatable — much like Tesla, which they openly admire.
But this strength masks a weakness. They are also falling prey to Silicon Valley’s crucial blindspot: software worship. This is their Achilles heel because software will not win the next war.
Anduril claims that software is a double-edged sword. Flexible, but ever in need of updates. In reality, software is triple-edged: it’s also easy to copy.
Hardware provides a moat to the innovator because copycats will always face certain frictions. One is the need to procure and study the physical copy of a produced item. Another is the production of tools and processes necessary to replicate them.
Software has no such moat. Smuggling a copy basically involves one dodgy copy-paste. It’s far less arduous than stealing a minute piece of F-35 hardware.
It’s difficult if not impossible to gain a real military edge in software development because any American innovation in software can be quickly copied and matched by the Chinese. Especially when we consider China isn’t lacking in software engineering expertise — quite the opposite.
The West cannot sustain a software edge. And while its edge may be more durable in hardware, the Chinese can —and have — caught up in many respects. Thus, the United States will not outcompete China in soft or hard tech. The United State’s qualitative edge will be withered away by industrial espionage, Chinese engineering talent, or the sheer volume of Chinese military assets.
There is only one Western concept that can beat China, and which would prove much harder to replicate: free, creative thought.
Unlike China, the Western system still promotes independent critical and creative thinking.
This difference can only be exploited by crafting a military doctrine that empowers this creativity. To my mind, this would mean changing the Western military mindset beyond a products-first or software-first approach into a production-first approach instead.
This would represent a complete change in how the bulk Western weapons would be procured: 3D printed at war, designed or modified by the soldiers who use them. Not just on the frontlines, but distributed across every military logistics hub and maintenance point.
This isn’t sci-fi. 3D-printing machines that fit inside container boxes were placed on the Ukrainian frontlines. In 2024, Britain’s Head of Advanced Manufacturing (AdM) Capability Coherence argued that, rather than waiting weeks for the supply chain to deliver components, 3D printing could be used to produce critical spare parts when and where they are needed. And the metrics are in. Custom-made Ukrainian drones on the front often outperform highly expensive military drones provided by the United States and Russia.
These 3D printers aren’t your standard consumer-grade printers. Able to print in a variety of materials, from metal to plastics, in short order and large quantities, they’re the true cutting edge of additive manufacturing.
Despite this, these piecemeal efforts don’t go far enough. Not by a long shot.
A production-first doctrine is needed: where ammunition, weapons, explosives, and spare parts are designed to be printed on the front. It would need a new type of soldier to be educated who will be trained in the art of CAD design and 3d printing.
The benefits are hard to quantify. Not only will units be able to tool out for bespoke challenges in their sector. Supply chain management will also become drastically simpler — you’d only need to supply raw materials to the front, rather than specific parts.
This would empower front-line decision-makers with the capability to furnish custom-made weapons to deal with immediate threats as they come. Delegating the manufacturing of weapons would ensure the West can use its only proprietary asset: independent and creative thinking.
We’ve seen this before. While Germany is often viewed as an inflexible, rules-based country, the Prussian military tradition always prided itself on operational flexibility. This meant that in the Second World War, unlike the American or Soviet armies which forced underlings to follow their superiors’ orders word-for-word, the German officer and soldier were always allowed to take the initiative and bend orders to front-line conditions. German troops were able to follow the spirit of the order rather than its letter.
This meant those with the greatest knowledge of the front lines were ultimately in charge of decision-making, ensuring Germany’s outstanding performance in that conflict relative to their inferior numbers & supplies.
This so impressed the Americans they tried to implement this command flexibility into their AirLand Battle doctrines of the 1980s, whose core concepts remain highly relevant to today’s U.S. Military.
In short, it means empowering the Western mind rather than the Western factory.
| OTHER POLITICS BLIND SPOTS |
TRUMP CONTINUED TO SOUNDBOARD A THIRD PRESIDENTIAL TERM at a US Army base in Qatar, when he claimed he would “have to think” about running in a fourth election: “You know, we’ve won three elections. Some people want us to do a fourth. I don’t know, we’ll have to think about it. You saw the Trump 2028 hats. We’re driving the left crazy.”
TRUMP’S GAZA PLAN STILL ONGOING? After months of silence on the topic, two significant pieces of news hinting at the Trump administration’s plan for Gaza have emerged.
The first is that Trump mentioned his intention of turning the embattled enclave into a “freedom zone”, where he will “let the United States get involved” on May 14.
The second is that NBC News has reported that the Trump administration is working on a plan to permanently relocate as many as one million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Libya in exchange for releasing billions of dollars of funds frozen by the United States over a decade ago. The Trump administration denied these reports.
WESTERN LIBYAN STRUGGLE FOR POWER CONTINUES as supporters and opponents of the Tripoli-based internationally recognized administration in western Libya’s Government of National Unity under Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah protested both in favour and against the government on 18 May.
These protests were preceded by a sudden resurgence of violence in the capital, where a Dbeibah-aligned militia, the 444 Brigades, rapidly subjected and decimated the powerful Support and Stability Apparatus militia last week. While the remaining militias have withdrawn from the flashpoint areas and initiated a ceasefire, the power struggle in a divided Libya continues.
Libyan intrigue: The above combined with Libyan news outlets reporting increased and “unusual” NATO and U.S. drone activity above Libya suggests something may be going on in the Mediterranean country.
MILEI CINCHES LEGISLATIVE ELECTIONS IN BUENOS AIRES after the anti-Kirchnerist alliance between Milei and former Argentine right-wing president Macri broke down. Milei’s candidates won the results by a comfortable 30.1 percent, but the left-wing Peronist candidates were hot on his tail with 27.4 percent.
While the victory is secondary, as it only secures seats in the city of Buenos Aires’ legislative chamber rather than the mayoralty, it outlines two crucial developments: Milei continues to be highly popular in Argentina, but if the Argentinian right doesn’t re-unify, the left-wing Peronist camp will continue to pose a serious threat to Milei’s governance.
INDIA OFFERS TRADE DEAL to the United States, after which Trump immediately began a controversy by claiming India had offered a deal with “almost no tariffs” on US goods.
India disputed the “zero tariff” claim, stating that “any judgment on it would be premature” until the deal is signed.
New Delhi is still seen as unlikely to offer concessions in sectors like agriculture, where deep political sensitivities are involved.
INDIA’S ROLE IN AFGHANISTAN WAS LIMITED by a trilateral agreement between China, Pakistan and the Taliban, which have agreed to extend the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
This corridor, a part of the region’s Belt and Road Initiative, would draw Afghanistan further into Beijing and Islamabad’s economic and strategic orbit and further limit Indian and Western involvement in the country.
This may be China’s first response to take advantage of the relatively poor showing of India’s defense capabilities in the Indian-Pakistan conflict.
MORE EUROPEAN COUNTRIES SANCTION DODIK, with Poland and Lithuania imposing sanctions on the renegade leader of the Republica Srpska state of Bosnia Herzegovina and forbidding him from entering their territories.
This follows from the decision of Germany and Austria to ban Dodik from their territories after these countries accused Dodik of threatening the integrity of Bosnia Herzegovina.
But Dodik claims it’s not his fault, claiming the recent crisis was caused by the High Representative of Bosnia Herzegovina, the German ex-Bundestag member Christian Schmid: “A foreigner intervenes in the laws, and the most important institutions in BiH remain silent about the violation of rights” Dodik said.
Amid all this, a new EUFOR commander was sworn in to oversee the European Union Force’s Operation Althea and its estimated 1,500 troops — the Hungarian General Tibor Szabo.
EU LIFTS PAN-EUROPEAN SANCTIONS ON SYRIA following the United States’ lead, after Trump announced the lifting of sanctions on Syria in Riyadh last week.
Not all of the EU’s sanctions will be lifted, however, since individuals and organizations with connections to Assad’s regime, as well as other groups still responsible for certain violations, will remain under sanctions.
FRANCE ASKED ME TO SILENCE ROMANIANS claimed Pavel Durov, the founder of the Telegram messaging app.
Durov explained in a post on X that “this spring at the Salon des Batailles in the Hôtel de Crillon, Nicolas Lerner, head of French intelligence, asked me to ban conservative voices in Romania ahead of elections. I refused.”
These comments come as Durov is still under judicial supervision in France and holed up in a French hotel, around the same time as Romania’s moderate candidate managed a surprise win in the country’s presidential elections.
ROMANIAN COURT BLOCKED GEORGE SIMION’s request to annul the latest Romanian elections in which the centrist Nicusor Dan won in a shock result after a massive lag in the polls right up to election day had led pollsters to predict an easy victory by Simion.
This rejection of Simion’s request comes after Pavel Durov claimed he would be willing to testify at the Romanian Constitutional Court the French intelligence services (DGSE) had attempted to manipulate the Romanian election result.
Izzy says that instead of sticking to the campaign trail back home in the crucial days ahead of the vote, Simion was doing the rounds in Brussels expressing high confidence the election was in the bag. The tour included a stopover in the Politico office where he keenly distributed his gold embossed (on a black background) business cards. A very Trumpian aesthetic.
FAR-RIGHT PORTUGUESE PARTY MAKES HISTORIC ELECTION GAIN this week after the country’s most hard-right-wing party gained a record 22.6 percent.
This is especially substantial considering the party has a short history, having competed in its first election just six years ago, when it won one seat.
| SNEAK PEEK |
— Anduril’s new unmanned aircraft proves that America can still hold the global military edge — but critical flaws remain.
Good morning subscribers!
Dario here.
Another reminder that I’m incredibly excited about the fascinating conversations I’m going to have with many of you in Berlin this July for “Bruce’s 50th Birthday Party”. Here’s the Eventbrite link. Because I know that if you enjoy our newsletters, you’ll regret not attending.
Send tips to [email protected] and [email protected].
Without further ado:
| THE MAJOR BLIND SPOT |
ANDURIL UNVEILS AN UNMANNED FIGHTER JET as Palmer Luckey’s tech-led defense startup Anduril makes waves for winning the Pentagon’s lucrative defense contract to build America’s next-generation Collaborative Combat Aircraft (aka CCAs) alongside General Atomics.
COMMENT: Palmer Luckey has every reason to be proud. Anduril’s software-first, product-centered business model make it the only truly modern success in the defense contractor world. Its commitment to cost-efficiency and scalable production fills a critical gap in the Western arsenal.
But, while Anduril’s business model is now proven, critical flaws remain at the heart of their military-industrial philosophy. To outpace China, the West must lean into its unique strength: creativity. That means shifting to a creative, production-first doctrine, and not just creating better software or easier-to-make products. In other words, the West needs military Minecraft.
Still, the details of Anduril’s announcement are encouraging. We’ve long argued the West must move past its outdated reliance on luxury military equipment for years now. Fury, Anduril’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), suggests someone in the defense industry is finally paying attention.
Naturally, the mainstream has fixated on Luckey’s support of autonomous, AI-guided weapons. But that is not the most important story. As Luckey points out, a “dumb” weapon like a landmine isn’t inherently better than an autonomous one. Prominent saturation-based military strategies like American bombing strikes or Russian thermobaric rocket salvoes are arguably more destructive than targeted, smart autonomous weapons.
What matters most is how Anduril’s manifesto at Rebuilding The Arsenal clarifies they are following a cutting-edge philosophy whose innovation goes far beyond autonomous weapons. It rejects the West’s obsession with exquisite, expensive capabilities mismatched with our productive capacities. While the United States may be ready for day one, they are not ready for day 30, and certainly not for day 300.
Anduril also points out increasingly pessimistic American war games relating to China’s invasion of Taiwan, which suggests the United States may run out of munitions after the first week of the conflict.
Despite this knowledge, precious little seems to be changing at the Pentagon, Anduril claims. The most egregious examples of this stagnation are the Pentagon’s Fiscal Year budgets for 2023 and 2024, which produced something like 22 tanks, or 24 Tomahawk cruise missiles — infinitesimally small amounts compared to what American troops would doctrinally require for standard engagements. Despite these puny numbers, each of these weapons still cost several million.
From this perspective, Anduril is bang on the money. Their response’s brilliance is two-sided: a ‘products-first’ and ‘software-first’ mindset.
Their better attribute is their products-first model: instead of relying on standard contracts to produce weapons, they fund the weapons’ development themselves. That means they closely study the product’s costs and requirements without getting enmeshed in bureaucratic and procedural norms which can inflate capabilities and budgets.
A standout example: commercial over military tech. The Fury uses commercial-grade landing gear instead of highly expensive and specialized military equipment, for instance. It’s cheaper, more production-friendly, and aligned with tech’s rapid evolution — unlike military systems that tend to peak once and then stagnate.
Their software-first mindset is equally bold. They correctly estimate that updated software is the cornerstone of good military equipment. That’s because good software is much of the difference between a good and a bad piece of tech. And yet, American military infrastructure often places software last. Unlike legacy platforms stitched together by dozens of contractors, Anduril’s systems are integrated and updatable — much like Tesla, which they openly admire.
But this strength masks a weakness. They are also falling prey to Silicon Valley’s crucial blindspot: software worship. This is their Achilles heel because software will not win the next war.
Anduril claims that software is a double-edged sword. Flexible, but ever in need of updates. In reality, software is triple-edged: it’s also easy to copy.
Hardware provides a moat to the innovator because copycats will always face certain frictions. One is the need to procure and study the physical copy of a produced item. Another is the production of tools and processes necessary to replicate them.
Software has no such moat. Smuggling a copy basically involves one dodgy copy-paste. It’s far less arduous than stealing a minute piece of F-35 hardware.
It’s difficult if not impossible to gain a real military edge in software development because any American innovation in software can be quickly copied and matched by the Chinese. Especially when we consider China isn’t lacking in software engineering expertise — quite the opposite.
The West cannot sustain a software edge. And while its edge may be more durable in hardware, the Chinese can —and have — caught up in many respects. Thus, the United States will not outcompete China in soft or hard tech. The United State’s qualitative edge will be withered away by industrial espionage, Chinese engineering talent, or the sheer volume of Chinese military assets.
There is only one Western concept that can beat China, and which would prove much harder to replicate: free, creative thought.
Unlike China, the Western system still promotes independent critical and creative thinking.
This difference can only be exploited by crafting a military doctrine that empowers this creativity. To my mind, this would mean changing the Western military mindset beyond a products-first or software-first approach into a production-first approach instead.
This would represent a complete change in how the bulk Western weapons would be procured: 3D printed at war, designed or modified by the soldiers who use them. Not just on the frontlines, but distributed across every military logistics hub and maintenance point.
This isn’t sci-fi. 3D-printing machines that fit inside container boxes were placed on the Ukrainian frontlines. In 2024, Britain’s Head of Advanced Manufacturing (AdM) Capability Coherence argued that, rather than waiting weeks for the supply chain to deliver components, 3D printing could be used to produce critical spare parts when and where they are needed. And the metrics are in. Custom-made Ukrainian drones on the front often outperform highly expensive military drones provided by the United States and Russia.
These 3D printers aren’t your standard consumer-grade printers. Able to print in a variety of materials, from metal to plastics, in short order and large quantities, they’re the true cutting edge of additive manufacturing.
Despite this, these piecemeal efforts don’t go far enough. Not by a long shot.
A production-first doctrine is needed: where ammunition, weapons, explosives, and spare parts are designed to be printed on the front. It would need a new type of soldier to be educated who will be trained in the art of CAD design and 3d printing.
The benefits are hard to quantify. Not only will units be able to tool out for bespoke challenges in their sector. Supply chain management will also become drastically simpler — you’d only need to supply raw materials to the front, rather than specific parts.
This would empower front-line decision-makers with the capability to furnish custom-made weapons to deal with immediate threats as they come. Delegating the manufacturing of weapons would ensure the West can use its only proprietary asset: independent and creative thinking.
We’ve seen this before. While Germany is often viewed as an inflexible, rules-based country, the Prussian military tradition always prided itself on operational flexibility. This meant that in the Second World War, unlike the American or Soviet armies which forced underlings to follow their superiors’ orders word-for-word, the German officer and soldier were always allowed to take the initiative and bend orders to front-line conditions. German troops were able to follow the spirit of the order rather than its letter.
This meant those with the greatest knowledge of the front lines were ultimately in charge of decision-making, ensuring Germany’s outstanding performance in that conflict relative to their inferior numbers & supplies.
This so impressed the Americans they tried to implement this command flexibility into their AirLand Battle doctrines of the 1980s, whose core concepts remain highly relevant to today’s U.S. Military.
In short, it means empowering the Western mind rather than the Western factory.
| OTHER POLITICS BLIND SPOTS |
TRUMP CONTINUED TO SOUNDBOARD A THIRD PRESIDENTIAL TERM at a US Army base in Qatar, when he claimed he would “have to think” about running in a fourth election: “You know, we’ve won three elections. Some people want us to do a fourth. I don’t know, we’ll have to think about it. You saw the Trump 2028 hats. We’re driving the left crazy.”
TRUMP’S GAZA PLAN STILL ONGOING? After months of silence on the topic, two significant pieces of news hinting at the Trump administration’s plan for Gaza have emerged.
The first is that Trump mentioned his intention of turning the embattled enclave into a “freedom zone”, where he will “let the United States get involved” on May 14.
The second is that NBC News has reported that the Trump administration is working on a plan to permanently relocate as many as one million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Libya in exchange for releasing billions of dollars of funds frozen by the United States over a decade ago. The Trump administration denied these reports.
WESTERN LIBYAN STRUGGLE FOR POWER CONTINUES as supporters and opponents of the Tripoli-based internationally recognized administration in western Libya’s Government of National Unity under Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah protested both in favour and against the government on 18 May.
These protests were preceded by a sudden resurgence of violence in the capital, where a Dbeibah-aligned militia, the 444 Brigades, rapidly subjected and decimated the powerful Support and Stability Apparatus militia last week. While the remaining militias have withdrawn from the flashpoint areas and initiated a ceasefire, the power struggle in a divided Libya continues.
Libyan intrigue: The above combined with Libyan news outlets reporting increased and “unusual” NATO and U.S. drone activity above Libya suggests something may be going on in the Mediterranean country.
MILEI CINCHES LEGISLATIVE ELECTIONS IN BUENOS AIRES after the anti-Kirchnerist alliance between Milei and former Argentine right-wing president Macri broke down. Milei’s candidates won the results by a comfortable 30.1 percent, but the left-wing Peronist candidates were hot on his tail with 27.4 percent.
While the victory is secondary, as it only secures seats in the city of Buenos Aires’ legislative chamber rather than the mayoralty, it outlines two crucial developments: Milei continues to be highly popular in Argentina, but if the Argentinian right doesn’t re-unify, the left-wing Peronist camp will continue to pose a serious threat to Milei’s governance.
INDIA OFFERS TRADE DEAL to the United States, after which Trump immediately began a controversy by claiming India had offered a deal with “almost no tariffs” on US goods.
India disputed the “zero tariff” claim, stating that “any judgment on it would be premature” until the deal is signed.
New Delhi is still seen as unlikely to offer concessions in sectors like agriculture, where deep political sensitivities are involved.
INDIA’S ROLE IN AFGHANISTAN WAS LIMITED by a trilateral agreement between China, Pakistan and the Taliban, which have agreed to extend the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
This corridor, a part of the region’s Belt and Road Initiative, would draw Afghanistan further into Beijing and Islamabad’s economic and strategic orbit and further limit Indian and Western involvement in the country.
This may be China’s first response to take advantage of the relatively poor showing of India’s defense capabilities in the Indian-Pakistan conflict.
MORE EUROPEAN COUNTRIES SANCTION DODIK, with Poland and Lithuania imposing sanctions on the renegade leader of the Republica Srpska state of Bosnia Herzegovina and forbidding him from entering their territories.
This follows from the decision of Germany and Austria to ban Dodik from their territories after these countries accused Dodik of threatening the integrity of Bosnia Herzegovina.
But Dodik claims it’s not his fault, claiming the recent crisis was caused by the High Representative of Bosnia Herzegovina, the German ex-Bundestag member Christian Schmid: “A foreigner intervenes in the laws, and the most important institutions in BiH remain silent about the violation of rights” Dodik said.
Amid all this, a new EUFOR commander was sworn in to oversee the European Union Force’s Operation Althea and its estimated 1,500 troops — the Hungarian General Tibor Szabo.
EU LIFTS PAN-EUROPEAN SANCTIONS ON SYRIA following the United States’ lead, after Trump announced the lifting of sanctions on Syria in Riyadh last week.
Not all of the EU’s sanctions will be lifted, however, since individuals and organizations with connections to Assad’s regime, as well as other groups still responsible for certain violations, will remain under sanctions.
FRANCE ASKED ME TO SILENCE ROMANIANS claimed Pavel Durov, the founder of the Telegram messaging app.
Durov explained in a post on X that “this spring at the Salon des Batailles in the Hôtel de Crillon, Nicolas Lerner, head of French intelligence, asked me to ban conservative voices in Romania ahead of elections. I refused.”
These comments come as Durov is still under judicial supervision in France and holed up in a French hotel, around the same time as Romania’s moderate candidate managed a surprise win in the country’s presidential elections.
ROMANIAN COURT BLOCKED GEORGE SIMION’s request to annul the latest Romanian elections in which the centrist Nicusor Dan won in a shock result after a massive lag in the polls right up to election day had led pollsters to predict an easy victory by Simion.
This rejection of Simion’s request comes after Pavel Durov claimed he would be willing to testify at the Romanian Constitutional Court the French intelligence services (DGSE) had attempted to manipulate the Romanian election result.
Izzy says that instead of sticking to the campaign trail back home in the crucial days ahead of the vote, Simion was doing the rounds in Brussels expressing high confidence the election was in the bag. The tour included a stopover in the Politico office where he keenly distributed his gold embossed (on a black background) business cards. A very Trumpian aesthetic.
FAR-RIGHT PORTUGUESE PARTY MAKES HISTORIC ELECTION GAIN this week after the country’s most hard-right-wing party gained a record 22.6 percent.
This is especially substantial considering the party has a short history, having competed in its first election just six years ago, when it won one seat.
