JOEL KOTKIN: IS AMERICA NOW SECOND RATE? And note this:

Xi has played the gullible West with a skill that would have delighted his fellow autocrat, Joseph Stalin, who did much the same in the 1930s. (“Purges? What purges?”) Of course, Xi does not have to worry much about criticism from the media — or anywhere else. Trump may tweet insanely and seek needless fights with the media, but critics of the Chinese Communist Party end up in prison — or worse. To accuse Trump of loving dictators and then embrace Xi seems a trifle dishonest.

It does rather undercut the narrative the left created to save face after Hillary imploded, that Trump is the Manchurian Candidate, when, as Kotkin notes, Jerry Brown is swanning about with the man in who’s actually in control of Manchuria.

Read the whole thing.