It was the time Xi Jinping orchestrated a grand spectacle of Eurasian power at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Qingdao, China…

…as the Western powers presided over an omnishambles of acrimony and dysfunction at the G7 Summit in Ottawa, Canada.

And it was a time when China's state propaganda and media apparatus successfully trolled the United States…

….contrasting scenes of Trump confronted by America's most loyal allies

…with images of Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin yucking it up in Qingdao as they plotted the creation of a post-American order on the Eurasian continent

And it was a time of two more summits…

…the summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un that the American establishment never wanted

…and the summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin that the American establishment hopes will never take place.

The scariest thing: maybe Trump senses what's going on…and the experts don't.