So I've been having this moment of deja vu.

I mean, actually, it should be deja vu, but in fact, it feels quite different.

Let me unpack that for a second.

Almost exactly eight years ago, I found out I was going to be moving from Washington, D.C. to Brussels.

Trump had just won this shocking victory.

Nobody really knew what to make of it.

Meanwhile, I was going to go to Brussels, camp out there,

and cover this kind of stately, very collegial policymaking environment

where things would be normal and calm, and then maybe

head back to the U.S. Well, eight years later, Trump is back. I'm still camping out in Brussels.

But that feeling of living in this bubble of sort of normal politics isn't there this time.

Music bubble of sort of normal politics isn't there this time. The European Parliament is shifting to be much more partisan, and around the continent,

we're seeing leaders win elections who are not so different from Trump.

I mean, look at the chaos happening in Germany.

In France, Putin-friendly leaders on the rise not just in Hungary, but in Slovakia, the Czech

Republic, and now in Romania.

Romania, key NATO member and a vital lifeline for Ukraine, just had the first round of a presidential

election over the weekend, and it was a Putin admirer who calls World War II fascists

heroes who came out on top. It's sending shockwaves through Bougarest and Brussels.

So how seriously should we take what happened in Romania?

Why are voters who live so close to Russia increasingly drawn to Kremlin-friendly candidates?

And with this new round of Trump in the White House, is Europe doomed to deja vu that echoes a different era, spinning into polarization and instability?

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