US President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office have been a breathtaking rollercoaster ride – for Americans certainly but for the rest of the world as well.

Watching the last three, very eventful, months from the relative safety of Europe has been fascinating and frustrating. It’s also been exhilarating.

Trump may be the least popular new president in the modern polling era (with an approval rating of just 41 percent) and mainstream American media (not including Fox News or Breibart) may talk disparagingly of the 100 days as the “worst on record” or “100 days of gibberish”, but it has to be said loud and clear: the man has woken all of us up from a complacent slumber.

We have learned that we cannot anymore take values like democracy, human rights and freedom for granted. No more can we believe that racism and bigotry are evils of the past. We cannot any longer be lazy about defending minorities, refugees, the vulnerable and the marginalised.

After years of inertia and complacency about the progress we have made in living together, we now know that everything we have struggled to achieve – liberal democracy, human dignity, tolerance, openness, building inclusive societies - can be taken away from us at any moment.

We have learned about the evil and wickedness in people – the lies they can tell and the insults they can hurl. How “alternative facts” can be more powerful than the truth. We have learned about stupidity and the power of a tweet.

It’s been a steep learning curve. At times, the hatred being emitted by the President and his team against the media, women, Jews, Muslims, African Americans (and others) has been cause for despair.

But it’s also been energising, galvanising and reassuring.

First of all, as Lawrence Douglas writes in the Guardian newspaper, “the first hundred days of the Trump presidency have demonstrated that American institutions and traditions of democratic constitutionalism are not as easily “deconstructed” as Steve Bannon might have hoped”.

Second, civil society, not just in America but across the world, has formed a formidable resistance against the US President. Ordinary citizens, with women in the lead, have taken to the streets in record numbers, started solidarity groups, worked together to oppose Trump’s frontal assault on human rights and democracy.

Also, America’s system of checks and balances in government has gone into full throttle. “So-called” US federal judges, whether in jurisdictions in Massachusetts or in an “island in the Pacific”, have put a stop to Trump’s travel bans and now have barred the administration from penalising sanctuary cities by withholding federal funds.

The media, after having helped create the Trump phenomenon by abdicating their responsibility to question lies, are now back to performing their true function of speaking truth to power and checking facts.

We’ve had a crash course in learning about the highs and lows of “fake news”. Comedians and satirists are thriving. Alec Baldwin, who plays Trump on Saturday Night Live, has revived his career.

Here in Europe, we’ve also been learning fast. Europeans remain unsure and uncertain about what to make of the US president and how to deal with him.

British Prime Minister Theresa May’s cringe-making kow-towing visit to the White House doesn’t appear to have made much of an impression on Trump. He recently underlined that his priority was to do a trade deal with the EU before a similar pact with Britain.

The US leader’s far right acolytes in Europe – Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and Marine Le Pen in France – haven’t been as successful as Trump would have hoped.

Wilders did not secure the crushing victory that many anticipated in the Dutch elections last month. And Marine Le Pen is likely to lose out to Emmanuel Macron, the tolerant and pro-diversity candidate, in the second round of French presidential elections on May 7.

Donald Trump has blown hot and cold on Europe and Nato. His meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel may have taught him a thing or two about how to deal with a woman of substance.

Apparently, after having urged other EU states to follow Britain’s lead by leaving the EU, Trump now believes that Europe is a “good thing”.

Nato appears to have salvaged its reputation as an “obsolete” organisation.

Even as they hanker for an American partner and ally that they could rely on, European leaders are learning, slowly and hesitatingly, to walk alone.

The greatest test of whether Trump’s hold on Europe is truly broken will come when the French vote on May 7.

If, as many expect, Macron does win, Europe’s message to Trump will be clear: populism and bigotry are not universally popular. Not all Europeans want to turn back the clock.

Many have the confidence and the courage to make globalisation work for them. Many believe in an open and progressive Europe. Many want hope.

Macron stands in stark contrast to the divisive ‘us and them’ rhetoric from Trump and the hard-hitting anti-immigration stance taken by the British premier and those pushing for a hard Brexit.

Like Dutch GreenLeft leader Jesse Klaver and Austria’s Alexander Van der Bellen, Macron has stayed on message with his views on tolerance, inclusion and ending discrimination.

True, Trump is still the “most powerful man” in the world who can probably count on other “strongmen” like Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Abdel Fatah El Sisi of Egypt or Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

But Canada’s Justin Trudeau and Europe’s new leaders – and those who have been there for some time like Merkel – are proof that you don’t have to be a nasty hate-mongerer to win elections.

—The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Brussels

Published in Dawn, April 29th, 2017