The other day the Frankfurt daily FAZ had a piece about the talk show "Anne Will" with the ironic title "Das hat es in einer deutschen Talkshow noch nicht gegeben" ("this never happened before in a German talk show"). What was so unusual about this particular show? The topic was foreign policy and there was practically no attacks on the United States:
"Es wird über einen internationalen Konflikt geredet und die Vereinigten Staaten werden nicht erwähnt. Niemand gab einem amerikanischen Präsidenten gute Ratschläge, wie er alles besser machen könnte."
German pundits and journalists in particular don't usually spare an opportunity to comment negatively on U.S. society and politic. Bashing America for bringing peace and prosperity to Germany for the past 75 years has always been popular, and not just in the press. No doubt German anti-Americanism has gotten much worse since Donald Trump became president. As conservative columnist Max Boot points out, Trump is the personification of the "ugly American.":
"It never occurs to Trump that he is confirming every anti-American stereotype on the planet. If you think the United States is a rapacious imperialist bent on despoiling the planet and looting other countries with an army of mercenaries, Trump seems intent on convincing you that you are right. He is the very personification of the Ugly American — and his ugly impact on American standing abroad may take decades to dissipate."
Still, it is one thing to criticize the policies of the Trump administration and another to embrace authoritarian regimes simply because they oppose the United States. I expect the left-wing Die Linke party and the right-wing extremist party to glorify Putin's Russia as an antidote to America power, but I've been amazed at the support totalitarian regimes such as Iran, China, and Venezuela have in mainstream German opinion. This disconnect was noted by the Liberal (FDP) politician Frank Müller-Rosentritt in a recent article he wrote for the NZZ:
"Donald Trump mag mit seiner Mad-Man-Strategie oft für Kopfschütteln und Verunsicherung sorgen. Dennoch ist es kaum nachvollziehbar, warum der Präsident eines liberalen, demokratischen Rechtsstaats für 41 Prozent der befragten Bundesbürger eine grössere Gefahr für den Weltfrieden darstellen soll als Antidemokraten wie Kim Jong Un (17 Prozent), Ali Khamenei (8 Prozent), Wladimir Putin (8 Prozent) und Xi Jinping (gerade einmal 7 Prozent). Und wenn man wissen will, welcher Politiker denn «das Richtige» in weltpolitischen Fragen tue, dann nennen im europäischen Vergleich ungleich mehr Deutsche Wladimir Putin und Xi Jinping."
Do they care that Putin has his critics, investigative journalists and political opponents imprisoned? Or that President Xi Jinping in China has detained over a million Uighurs in "reeducation" camps? So far, the support for the pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong, Lebanon, and elsewhere has seemed muted Germany. Do many Germans now just take democracy and freedom for granted?
"Haben wir schon vergessen, wie sich ein Leben in Unfreiheit in einem Unrechtsstaat anfühlt? Betrachtet man das Bild, das die Deutschen von den USA haben – und in welchem sie durch wichtige Leitmedien regelmässig bestätigt werden –, dann könnte man diesen Eindruck durchaus gewinnen. Dabei sind und bleiben die USA als eine der ältesten Demokratien der Welt unser wichtigster Wertepartner. Kein anderes Land Europas hat den USA so viel zu verdanken. Während anderswo eher die politische Linke antiamerikanisch und das rechte Milieu eher amerikafreundlich eingestellt ist, zieht sich die Ablehnung in Deutschland durch alle sozialen und politischen Gruppen, und das, obwohl wir Deutschen in jüngster Geschichte zwei Regime erlebt haben, in denen Freiheit und Menschenwürde mit Füssen getreten wurden."
("Have we forgotten what it feels like to live under oppression and injustice? If you judge by the image that Germans have of USA - regularly amplified by the mainstream media - one could easily have this impression. But the USA as one of the oldest democracies remains our most important values partner. No other nation in Europe owes so much to the USA. Whereas in other countries the political left is anti-American but the right-wing is more America-friendly, in Germany the rejection of America crosses all political groups, even though we Germans have in recent past experienced two regimes where freedom and human dignity were trampled upon."
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