Michelle Goldberg, a columnist at the New York Times, revealed yet again the growing political bias within this once respectable news agency. On MSNBC’s “Meet the Press Daily,” Goldberg argued with other panelists firmly stating that, “Angela Merkel is the leader of the free world,” and not Donald Trump.

This statement is much more than just some abstract hypothesis. It is actually possible to measure this proposition in multiple objective ways. To start, one can compare the power of the countries that these two national leaders represent, and therefore their proportional direct authority over the “free world”.

The U.S. has the largest economy in the entire world, even when matching up against the entire EU, let alone Germany. The U.S. GDP came in at approximately 19.4 trillion dollars in 2017, compared to the EU at 17.3 trillion, and Germany at 3.7 trillion. Thus, America’s economic output is over five times greater than that of Germany.

A basic comparison of the quantity of citizens has America at a population size of 322 million and Germany at 82 million. Trump therefore leads nearly four times the number of people. This ratio is even more steep when we compare military manpower. America has a total of 2,227,000 military personnel, compared to 205,000 in Germany.

The great divide in military strength goes much further than just the sheer number of soldiers. The U.S. spends 35% of the entire world’s expenditures on military might, compared to 2.5% by Germany. These dramatically different investment levels have far to great an impact on the overall capability of the nations’ military to sum up here in an article. Let it just be understood, these two countries are not playing with an equal quantity of battleship pieces.

By any numerical statistic, It is quite obvious that Trump leads a nation that is far and away the dominant by comparison. To be fair to Ms. Goldberg, she was referring to the entire free world. Perhaps she was alluding to a more political, ideological leadership, rather than leadership of direct influence and might. However, even from this perspective, we find that her idealization of Merkel holds no weight.

Eastern Europe is entirely opposed to Merkel’s platform. Nationalism and strong immigration policy dominates this half of Europe. Hungary has even erected a double layer border fence along its southern border to combat the new Merkel led EU migration policy.

Resistance to the Merkel worldview is even bubbling up within the EU. Italy’s new Prime Minister, Matteo Salvini, has acted with fierce opposition to the EU’s immigration policies in his first 2 months in office. Polls show that all of Western Europe is changing political camps. Merkel’s very own approval rating is as low as it has been in 12 years. The entire western world is shifting towards a Trumpian political philosophy.

So, how is it that Ms. Goldberg came to this conclusion? By every analysis, Trump is surely much more so representative of the leader and protagonist of the free world. Angela Merkel, and her policy platform, if it deserves any major recognition in western politics today, it that of the antagonist and the opposition to a new world order. But really, is it hardly possible that someone who works for such an “esteemed” news outlet like The New York Times to be ignorant to such basic facts.

In truth, Ms. Goldberg must know the state of the world we all live in. Her suggestion that, “Angela Merkel is the leader of the free world,” is not an observation. It is a desired worldview. Like her agency, she desires for the Trumpian model to fail, and for the dying worldview of Angela Merkel to succeed. Angela Merkel is her leader. This is the only reasonable interpretation of what Ms. Goldberg had to say.

Her allegiance, and by extension that of The NY Times, is not to the President of her country. Rather it is to the leader of some other nation, who stands for an agenda in contrast to Trump, and the renewed prosperity of America.