By Anne Gearan for The Washington Post | Image from The Washington Post
President Trump’s largely hands-off response to the violent clashes between pro-democracy protesters and authorities in Hong Kong fits a pattern: The president as bystander in chief, an onlooker to world events that previous leaders would almost certainly have decried as assaults on democracy or human rights.
Trump often deflects or plays down U.S. interest in events whose connection to the United States may not seem immediate, as he did this week with Hong Kong.