Globe Trot: Is Europe’s political center clinically dead?

ITALY: Prime Minister Matteo Renzi resigned after a constitutional referendum he offered failed by more than a 20 percent margin in yesterday’s vote. To be seen: What the defeat means for the populist Five Star Movement and its founder, comedian and actor Beppe Grillo. “An era is going up in flames,” Grillo said after watching Donald Trump’s victory in the United States. “It’s the risk-takers, the stubborn, the barbarians who will carry the world forward.”

AUSTRIA: Voters dealt a blow to populist far-righters, handing a run-off presidential election Sunday to Alexander Van der Bellen, a former leader of the country’s Green Party who ran as an independent. A viral, late-in-the-campaign plea from a Holocaust survivor may have kept Austria from narrowly electing a leader whose party includes Nazi sympathizers, but the election made apparent: “Like many of its neighbouring countries, Austria’s political center ground is clinically dead.”

GERMANY: Angela Merkel will be seeking a fourth term next year—and the rape and murder of Maria Ladenburger by an Afghan refugee is making it hard for her to defend her open-door policy toward migrants.

BRITAIN: Here’s how it actually went down when Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson walked out on a television interview. Of course Johnson can be a wild man, but this was gotcha journalism.

JAPAN: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced he will visit Pearl Harbor, becoming the first sitting Japanese leader to go to the site of Japan’s attack on the United States 75 years ago.

TAIWAN: U.S. media had its 19th nervous breakdown Friday after the Trump transition said the president-elect had taken a congratulatory call from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen—and I kind of agree with The Wall Street Journal’s take more than the hand-wringing over at The New York Times.

CUBA: Fidel Castro yesterday was laid to rest, and Cuba’s people are openly sharing their discontent, while everyone is commenting on the old military jeep and trailer used to take the dictator’s remains through Havana, including New York University economics professor William Easterly:

Cuban soldiers push Fidel's broken-down funeral vehicle -- an Econ teacher's dream-come-true for a metaphor HT @franciscome pic.twitter.com/aMaNCbyLND

— William Easterly (@bill_easterly) December 4, 2016