Why Henry Kissinger’s career is a masterclass in diplomacy and statecraft

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Revered by many and loathed by some, Kissinger came to personify American power at its peak, casting the long shadow of Pax Americana across the world and becoming synonymous with Cold War America. (AFP/Getty Images)
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Updated 27 May 2023
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Why Henry Kissinger’s career is a masterclass in diplomacy and statecraft

  • Centennial turns spotlight on the imprint of the German refugee turned America’s chief diplomat on the post-war world war
  • The architect of Pax Americana under Nixon continues to wield influence as an informal adviser to the global great and good

LONDON: Anwar Sadat, Mao Zedong, Richard Nixon, and King Faisal are some of the leaders who defined the 20th century. What their stories and legacies have in common is the impact of the efforts of one diminutive but nevertheless immensely consequential figure: Henry Kissinger. German, American, soldier, intelligence officer, Harvard academic, statesman and businessman rolled into one, this geopolitical oracle turns 100 on May 27.

Revered by many and loathed by some, Kissinger came to personify American power at its peak, casting the long shadow of Pax Americana across the world, at times advocating US values and, at other times, snuffing out revolutionary movements and propping up military juntas.




US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger with meeting with Saudi Arabia's King Faisal in 1973 in Riyadh. (AFP)

Any article would struggle to summarize such a long and eventful life. Born five years after the abdication of Germany’s last emperor, Kissinger’s own archive material is estimated to consist of 30 tons of documents.

Though he became synonymous with Cold War America, the instantly recognizable Bavarian traces to his gravelly voice gave away his origins. Born to German-Jewish parents on the outskirts of Nuremberg, the young Kissinger displayed an audacity that would later come to embody his swagger on the international stage, as he defied local Nazis to attend football matches and rebelled at their restrictions.

His real mettle, however, began to show when, as a refugee in America in the 1930s, he attended school at night and worked in a shaving-brush factory during the day.




US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger meeting with China's Chairman Mao Zedong in Beijing on February 17, 1973. (AFP file)

Continuing to work through his senior studies, Kissinger saw his education cut short by the onset of the Second World War. Seeing action at the Battle of the Bulge, his wartime service culminated with the administration and denazification of liberated German sectors under his control.

Kissinger’s enthusiasm for his adopted country was to grow; he later recalled that the experience made the uprooted young man “feel like an American.”

Kissinger’s career is often looked at in detail following his appointment as the US national security adviser in 1969. However, his post-war years as an academic laid the foundation for his later association with, and application, of realpolitik.




US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in Cairo in May 1974. (AFP)

Kissinger’s worldview, or weltanschauung, has been typified by sound bites such as “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests.” This particular understanding of the world through the prism of empires and great power politics is founded in a 19th century understanding of the world.

It is therefore unsurprising that his Harvard doctoral dissertation was titled “Peace, Legitimacy and the Equilibrium (A Study of the Statesmanship of Castlereagh and Metternich).”

This academic study of the period between 1815 and 1914 is known as the Concert of Europe, when the Great Powers sought to maintain a certain balance of power and supported world peace. Notable for figures like Otto von Bismarck whose political philosophy is frequently inseparable from his own, it is this period that Kissinger sought to mirror, replacing the historical role of Great Britain with the unparalleled superpower of 20th century America.




Henry Kissinger and US President Richard Nixon in 1973. (AFP)

As Kissinger became known to power brokers in Washington, his move toward a political career was inevitable. Unlike his peers, his solid academic foundation furnished him with an ability to act as in-house counsel on the political challenges of the day.

If the jet engine came to symbolize US military and cultural dominance in the post-war era, Kissinger employed international travel to the same effect to overhaul American diplomacy. His appointment to secretary of state in 1973 was in many ways merely the formal ratification of an increasingly international role he had been playing.

That year saw Kissinger at the forefront of efforts at shuttle diplomacy to reshape the world to advance American interests. Having already paved the way for the groundbreaking 1972 summit between Nixon, Zhou Enlai and Chairman Mao, Kissinger brought China in from the cold, leading to the formalization of relations between the two countries, and crucially brokered an anti-Soviet entente between the two powers.




As US President Richard Nixon (2nd left) meets with Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, Henry Kissinger (3rd left) deals with other Israeli officials in Washington on November 1, 1973. (AFP)

As the world looked on following the Yom Kippur War, Kissinger, directly following his involvement in a coup in Chile the previous month, shuttled between Arab capitals while also organizing an unprecedented airlift of weapons to Israel, tipping the regional balance of power to the point that Israel has never faced an Arab invasion since.

With the year culminating in a pact to end the Vietnam war, Kissinger’s hyper-diplomacy was recognized with a Nobel Peace Prize, his international activities becoming a blueprint for American diplomacy to his peers and a stain on his career in the eyes of his detractors.

FAMOUSQUOTES

You can’t make war in the Middle East without Egypt and you can’t make peace without Syria.

Accept everything about yourself — I mean everything, You are you and that is the beginning and the end — no apologies, no regrets.

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.

The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.

Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.

Kissinger is often viewed as having been the unsentimental dispenser of American power in the developing world. Though he succeeded in pursuing its interests, his zero-sum worldview — of a vast global jigsaw puzzle consisting of pieces that needed to be moved to fit America’s emergence as the world’s supreme power — did cause controversy.

Having once stated that “I am not interested in, nor do I know anything about, the southern portion of the world” and “What happens in the south is of no importance,” it is now clear that a certain ignorance of the wider world underpinned the more decisive political and military interventions which he supported to extend America’s reach.




Demonstrators gather at the Place des Nations in Geneva on September 10, 2010 to protest against the presence of former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and his alleged role in the 1973 military coup in Chile. (AFP)

His involvement in the Chilean coup, Bangladesh, Pakistan, East Timor and the bombing of Cambodia continue to be subjects of great debate, summarized in the 2001 treatise by Christopher Hitchens, “The Trial of Henry Kissinger.”

Speaking later in life, Kissinger would argue that the bombing of Cambodia was essential to stopping raids into South Vietnam. Truth be told, the focus on the subsequent widespread US bombing of Khmer Rouge is a lot less controversial now compared with the crimes of the Cambodian regime’s own genocide in the 1970s.

Nevertheless, Kissinger’s intercontinental politicking was true to the Bismarckian mold from which he emerged, faintly masked by his use of the first German chancellor’s famous maxim, “politics is the art of the possible.”




African National Congress President Nelson Mandela (R) greets former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger upon his arrival for their meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa, on April 13, 1994. (AFP)

When all is said and done, it is still remarkable that Kissinger, a man who retired 50 years ago, has remained politically relevant. Leading Kissinger Associates, he has continued to have remarkable influence and reach, as the global great and good’s consigliere par excellence.

Kissinger’s long political goodbye has given him the opportunity to have the final say on many of the important moments of his career, a luxury not enjoyed by his late peers. His relevance, however, persists, his advocacy of coexistence with China and detente with Russia making his expertise much sought after amid efforts by one to disrupt America and by the other to altogether displace it.




Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) welcomes former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger during their meeting at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow on June 06, 2006. (AFP)

However, the constant rebalancing of global power is not where Kissinger’s principal interests lie today. He has spent the last decade warning about the rise of artificial intelligence, which threatens to rewrite the diplomatic rulebook, especially for a man who was born at a time when armies still deployed cavalry.

Warning most recently in a book on the issue last year that the AI arms race is a “totally new problem” “with as yet no plausible theories on how states can prevail,” the centenarian continues to turn heads.

There is no doubt that Kissinger, for his many faults, remains a public figure who shaped an era. He is, however, an infinitely more complete character than the scheming master of realpolitik that his critics make him out to be.




Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger meeting with US President Donald Trump (R) at the White House in Washington on October 10, 2017. (AFP)

This career of immense achievement and relentless controversy was made possible by a talent who was as brilliantly educated as he was discreet, both qualities that are sadly missing from present-day political life.

It is not unlikely that as just Kissinger plotted the extension of American dominance, as a student of imperial history he also expected to observe its decline. But it is unclear whether this is attributable to the speed with which this has taken place or how long Kissinger has lived. In any case, he probably has the answer.

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Zaid M. Belbagi is a political commentator, and an adviser to private clients between London and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Twitter: @Moulay_Zaid

 


Explosions as Kyiv under missile attack, says mayor

Updated 4 sec ago
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Explosions as Kyiv under missile attack, says mayor

  • Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said 3 people were injured so far, and said there was reported wreckage falling in two non-residential sites
  • Last week, a Russian missile struck a residential area in President Zelensky's home city of Kryvyi Rig, killing 18, including 9 children

KYIV, Ukraine: Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the city was under missile attack on Sunday with explosions in the Ukrainian capital, two days after a Russian missile killed 18 people in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown.
Klitschko said paramedics had been sent to two districts in Kyiv, while the Ukrainian air force said missiles had entered the northern Chernihiv region.
“Explosions in the capital. Air defense is in operation,” Klitschko said on Telegram.
“The missile attack on Kyiv continues. Stay in shelters!“
He added that three people were injured so far, and said there was reported wreckage falling in two non-residential sites.
Across Ukraine, air raid alerts were also issued for the Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odesa regions.
The attacks come at a time when US President Donald Trump is pushing for a partial ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, more than three years into Moscow’s full-scale invasion, while seeking a thaw in ties with the Kremlin.

On Saturday, Zelensky slammed the US embassy for what he called a “weak” statement that did not blame Russia for the deadly missile strike on his home city Kryvyi Rig. Nine children were among the 18 fatalities.
In one of the deadliest strikes in recent weeks, a Russian missile struck a residential area near a children’s playground in the central Ukrainian city.
Seventy-two people were wounded, 12 of them children, Dnipropetrovsk regional governor Sergiy Lysak said after emergency operations ended overnight.
In an emotional statement on social media, Zelensky named each of the children killed in the attack, accusing the US embassy of avoiding referring to Russia as the aggressor.
“Unfortunately, the reaction of the American embassy is unpleasantly surprising: such a strong country, such a strong people — and such a weak reaction,” Zelensky wrote.
“They are even afraid to say the word ‘Russian’ when talking about the missile that killed the children.”
The Ukrainian president took aim at the US Ambassador Bridget Brink after she posted a message on X on Friday evening that said: “Horrified that tonight a ballistic missile struck near a playground and restaurant.”
Brink, who was appointed by Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden and has been ambassador since May 2022, added that “this is why the war must end.”
Zelensky wrote on Saturday: “Yes, the war must end. But in order to end it, we must not be afraid to call a spade a spade.”
“It is wrong and dangerous to keep silent about the fact that it is Russia that is killing children with ballistic missiles,” Zelensky reiterated in his evening address.
“It only incites the scum in Moscow to continue the war and further ignore diplomacy.”

The Ukrainian leader was born in the industrial city of Kryvyi Rig, which had a pre-war population of around 600,000 people.
Zelensky said the children killed by the latest attack ranged in age from a three-year-old boy, Tymofiy, to a 17-year-old teenage boy, Nikita.
Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of Kryvyi Rig’s military administration, said three days of mourning had been declared on April 7, 8 and 9.
“This is nothing less than a mass murder of civilians,” he said.
Pictures circulated by rescue services showed several bodies, one stretched out near a playground swing.
Russia’s defense ministry said it “delivered a precision strike” in the city “where commanders of formations and Western instructors were meeting.”
The General Staff of the Ukrainian army retorted that Moscow was “trying to cover up its cynical crime” and “spreading false information.” It accused Russia of “war crimes.”
Trump, who said during his re-election campaign he could end the three-year conflict within days, is pushing the two sides to agree to a ceasefire but his administration has failed to broker an accord acceptable to both.
Zelensky said the missile attack showed Russia had no interest in stopping its full-scale invasion, launched in February 2022.
The president hailed “tangible progress” after meeting British and French military chiefs in Kyiv on Friday to discuss a plan by London and Paris to send a “reassurance” force to Ukraine if and when a deal on ending the conflict is reached.
Zelensky wrote on social media that the meeting with British Chief of the Defense Staff Tony Radakin and French counterpart Thierry Burkhard agreed “the first details on how the security contingent of partners can be deployed.”
This is one of the latest efforts by European leaders to agree on a coordinated policy after Trump sidelined them and opened direct talks with the Kremlin.
 


US to revoke all South Sudan visas over failure to accept repatriation of citizens: Rubio

Updated 12 min 18 sec ago
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US to revoke all South Sudan visas over failure to accept repatriation of citizens: Rubio

  • South Sudan had failed to respect the principle that every country must accept the return of its citizens in a timely manner, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said
  • Washington “will be prepared to review these actions when South Sudan is in full cooperation,” he added

WASHINGTON: The US said on Saturday it would revoke all visas held by South Sudanese passport holders over South Sudan’s failure to accept the return of its repatriated citizens, at a time when many in Africa fear that country could return to civil war.
US President Donald Trump’s administration has taken aggressive measures to ramp up immigration enforcement, including the repatriation of people deemed to be in the US illegally.
The administration has warned that countries that do not swiftly take back their citizens will face consequences, including visa sanctions or tariffs.
South Sudan had failed to respect the principle that every country must accept the return of its citizens in a timely manner when another country, including the US, seeks to remove them, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.
“Effective immediately, the United States Department of State is taking actions to revoke all visas held by South Sudanese passport holders and prevent further issuance to prevent entry into the United States by South Sudanese passport holders,” Rubio said.
“We will be prepared to review these actions when South Sudan is in full cooperation,” Rubio said.
It is time for South Sudan’s transitional government to “stop taking advantage of the United States,” he said.
South Sudan’s embassy in Washington did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
African Union mediators arrived in South Sudan’s capital Juba this week for talks aimed at averting a new civil war in the country after its First Vice President Riek Machar was placed under house arrest last week.
South Sudan President Salva Kiir’s government has accused Machar, a longtime rival who led rebel forces during a 2013-18 war that killed hundreds of thousands, of trying to stir up a new rebellion.

Machar’s detention followed weeks of fighting in the northern Upper Nile state between the military and the White Army militia. Machar’s forces were allied with the White Army during the civil war but deny any current links.
The 2013-18 war was contested largely along ethnic lines, with fighters from the Dinka, the country’s largest group, lining up behind Kiir, and those from the Nuer, the second-largest group, supporting Machar.

 


Panama wants ‘respectful’ ties with US amid canal threats

Updated 06 April 2025
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Panama wants ‘respectful’ ties with US amid canal threats

  • The United States and China are the two biggest users of the Panama Canal, which handles five percent of global maritime trade, giving it vital economic and geostrategic importance

PANAMA CITY: Panama hopes to maintain a “respectful” relationship with the United States, even as President Donald Trump has repeated threats to retake the Panama Canal, Foreign Minister Javier Martinez-Acha said Saturday.
His comments came ahead of a visit next week by US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a trip made more urgent against the backdrop of Trump’s threats and his allegations of Chinese interference in the canal.
“We discussed illegal migration, organized crime, drug trafficking and (other issues),” Martinez-Acha wrote on X of a call Friday with US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau. “It was a cordial and constructive exchange.”
“I reiterated that all cooperation from Panama will take place under the framework of our constitution, our laws, and the Canal Neutrality Treaty,” he wrote. “Relations with the US must remain respectful, transparent and mutually beneficial.”
The US State Department said Landau had “expressed gratitude for Panama’s cooperation in halting illegal immigration and working with the United States to secure a nearly 98 percent decrease in illegal immigration through the Darien jungle,” an arduous path northward followed by many migrants.
The two officials also discussed the sale last month by the Hong Kong company CK Hutchison to giant US asset manager BlackRock of its concession in ports at either end of the Panama Canal, Martinez-Acha added.
Panama’s comptroller has been conducting an audit of Hutchison since January.
Landau “recognized Panama’s actions in curbing malign Chinese Communist Party influence,” the State Department said.
The deal was set to close on April 2 but has been held up as Chinese regulators pursue an investigation.
The United States and China are the two biggest users of the Panama Canal, which handles five percent of global maritime trade, giving it vital economic and geostrategic importance. It was inaugurated by the United States in 1914 and has been in Panamanian hands since 1999.


Tens of thousands of Spaniards march across the country to protest the growing housing crisis

Updated 06 April 2025
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Tens of thousands of Spaniards march across the country to protest the growing housing crisis

  • The housing crisis has hit particularly hard in Spain, where there is a strong tradition of home ownership and scant public housing for rent

BARCELONA, Spain: Tens of thousands of Spaniards marched in protests held across the European country on Saturday in anger over high housing costs with no relief in sight.
Government authorities said that 15,000 marched in Madrid, while organizers said 10 times that many took to the streets of the capital. In Barcelona, the city hall said 12,000 people took part in the protest, while organizers claimed over 100,000 did.
The massive demonstration of social angst that is a major concern for Spain’s left-wing government was organized by housing activists and backed by Spain’s main labor unions.
The housing crisis has hit particularly hard in Spain, where there is a strong tradition of home ownership and scant public housing for rent. Rents have been driven up by increased demand. Buying a home has become unaffordable for many, with market pressures and speculation driving up prices, especially in big cities and coastal areas.
A generation of young people say they have to stay with their parents or spend big just to share an apartment, with little chance of saving enough to one day purchase a home. High housing costs mean even those with traditionally well-paying jobs are struggling to make ends meet.
“I’m living with four people and still, I allocate 30 or 40 percent of my salary to rent,” said Mari Sánchez, a 26-year-old lawyer in Madrid. “That doesn’t allow me to save. That doesn’t allow me to do anything. It doesn’t even allow me to buy a car. That’s my current situation, and the one many young people are living through.”
Housing Minister Isabel Rodríguez said on X that “I share the demand of the numerous people who have marched today: that homes are for living in and not for speculating.”
Lack of public housing
The average rent in Spain has almost doubled in the last 10 years. The price per square meter rose from 7.2 euros ($7.90) in 2014 to 13 euros last year, according to real estate website Idealista. The increase is bigger in Madrid and Barcelona.
Incomes have failed to keep up, especially for younger people in a country with chronically high unemployment.
Spain does not have the public housing that other European nations have invested in to cushion struggling renters from a market that is pricing them out.
Spain is near the bottom end of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries with public housing for rent making up under 2 percent of all available housing. The OECD average is 7 percent. In France it is is 14 percent, Britain 16 percent and the Netherlands 34 percent.
Angry renters point to instances of international hedge funds buying up properties, often with the aim of renting them to foreign tourists. The question has become so politically charged that Barcelona’s city government pledged last year to phase out all its 10,000 permits for short-term rentals, many of them advertised on platforms like Airbnb, by 2028.
Marchers in Madrid on Saturday chanted “Get Airbnb out of our neighborhoods” and held up signs against short-term rentals. In Barcelona, someone carried a sign reading “I am not leaving, vampire,” apparently in a message to would-be real estate speculator seeking to drive him out of his home.
Authorities under pressure
The central government’s biggest initiative for curbing the cost of housing is a rent cap mechanism it has offered to regional authorities, based on a price index established by the housing ministry. The government says the measure has slightly reduced rents in Barcelona, one of the few areas it has been applied.
But government measures have not proven enough to stop protests over the past two years. Experts say the situation likely won’t improve anytime soon.
“This is not the first, nor will it be the last, (housing protest) given the severity of the housing crisis,” Ignasi Martí, professor with the Esade business school and head of its Dignified Housing Observatory, said in an email.
“We saw this with the financial crisis (of 2008-2012) when (a protest movement) lasted until there was a certain economic recovery and a reduction in the social tension,” Marti added.


Protesters tee off against Trump and Musk in ‘Hands Off!’ rallies across the US

Updated 06 April 2025
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Protesters tee off against Trump and Musk in ‘Hands Off!’ rallies across the US

  • Over 1,200 “Hands Off!” demonstrations were planned by more than 150 groups
  • Trump chided for “tearing this country apart” as he goes golfing amid tariff turmoil

Opponents of President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk rallied across the US on Saturday to protest the administration’s actions on government downsizing, the economy, human rights and other issues.
More than 1,200 “Hands Off!” demonstrations were planned by more than 150 groups, including civil rights organizations, labor unions, LBGTQ+ advocates, veterans and elections activists. The protest sites included the National Mall in Washington, D.C., state capitols and other locations in all 50 states.
Protesters assailed the Trump administration’s moves to fire thousands of federal workers, close Social Security Administration field offices, effectively shutter entire agencies, deport immigrants, scale back protections for transgender people and cut federal funding for health programs.
Musk, a Trump adviser who owns Tesla, SpaceX and the social media platform X, has played a key role in government downsizing as the head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency. He says he is saving taxpayers billions of dollars.
Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign advocacy group, spoke at the Washington protest, criticizing the Trump administration’s treatment of the LBGTQ+ community.
“The attacks that we’re seeing, they’re not just political. They are personal, y’all,” she said. “They’re trying to ban our books, they’re slashing HIV prevention funding, they’re criminalizing our doctors, our teachers, our families and our lives. This is Donald Trump’s America and I don’t want it y’all. We don’t want this America, y’all. We want the America we deserve, where dignity, safety and freedom belong not to some of us, but to all of us.”

Thousands of people marched in New York City’s midtown Manhattan. In Massachusetts thousands more gathered on Boston Common holding signs including “Hands off our democracy,” “Hands off our Social Security” and “Diversity equity inclusion makes America strong. Hands off!”
In Ohio, hundreds rallied in the rain at the Statehouse in Columbus.
Roger Broom, 66, a retiree from Delaware County, Ohio, said at the Columbus rally that he used to be a Reagan Republican but has been turned off by Trump.
“He’s tearing this country apart,” Broom said. “It’s just an administration of grievances.”
Hundreds of people also demonstrated in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, a few miles from Trump’s golf course in Jupiter, where he spent the morning at the club’s Senior Club Championship. People lined both sides of PGA Drive, encouraging cars to honk and chanting slogans against Trump.
Archer Moran from Port St. Lucie, Florida, said, “They need to keep their hands off of our Social Security.”
“The list of what they need to keep their hands off of is too long,” Moran said. “And it’s amazing how soon these protests are happening since he’s taken office.”
The president plans to go golfing again Sunday, according to the White House.
Asked about the protests, the White House said in a statement that “President Trump’s position is clear: he will always protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid for eligible beneficiaries. Meanwhile, the Democrats’ stance is giving Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare benefits to illegal aliens, which will bankrupt these programs and crush American seniors.”
Activists have staged nationwide demonstrations against Trump or Musk multiple times since Trump returned to office. But the opposition movement has yet to produce a mass mobilization like the Women’s March in 2017, which brought thousands of women to Washington, D.C., after Trump’s first inauguration, or the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that erupted in multiple cities after George Floyd’s killing in 2020.
In Charlotte, North Carolina, protesters said they were supporting a variety of causes, from Social Security and education to immigration and women’s reproductive rights.
“Regardless of your party, regardless of who you voted for, what’s going on today, what’s happening today is abhorrent,” said Britt Castillo, 35, of Charlotte. “It’s disgusting and as broken as our current system might be, the way that the current administration is going about trying to fix things — it is not the way to do it. They’re not listening to the people.”
“All they’re doing is making sure that they have a parachute for them and their rich friends, and everybody else here that lives here — that makes the gears turn for this country — are just screwed at the end of the day,” she said.