The uniquely American impulse to believe in the inherit survivability of democracy is not something we take for granted here in Europe. Trump’s election is sinister for a lot of reasons that I have already mentioned, and perhaps the most troubling aspect of his presidency is what it will mean for global democracy and more specifically the sustainability of the single most important institutional development of the 20th century: the European Union.  Democracy is neither foregone conclusion nor inevitability in Western Europe.  In fact it is nothing short of a miracle that peace, stability and civil society have persisted in a region that has been consistently plagued by violence, sectarianism and ideological extremism. And while the American Experiment is likely alive and well, I would argue that Trump’s election coupled with the Brexit vote and the ongoing Syrian refugee crisis could very likely end the great European Experiment that is the European Union and its Schengen bloc.