With Donald, the Terrible back in power, diplomatic relations between the USA and the EU are set to be in stormy waters.
Europeans, as well as the whole world, know that the last Trump presidency was marked by confusions and frustrations as his reign ended badly, if not deadly. And now, the European Union plus others like the UK are facing Trump 2.0
Tellingly, Trump’s hyper-televised inauguration show has excluded many of those worshipping their messiah. On a cold day in the much-hated Democratic-Party-voting Washington, Trump’s congregation was literally left in the cold.
Beyond that, Trump does not mean that the idea of Western democracy should be buried. Undoubtedly, the authoritarian Trump will damage democracy.
Even before election day in November 2024 and taking of power in January 2025, the whole world – again – was forced to look at Trump.
Unlike the TV-clown Trump, a brief look at Joe Biden is useful to understand Trump’s ascendency. Biden has left – after only one term. It marked the political end of Biden’s 46th presidency.
Unlike the unifier Biden, Trump cultivated right-wing populism based on divide and conquer. Yet, his hyper-grandiose PR-showmanship is affected by his legacy as a rent-collecting intimidator and later as a TV bully.
The balance sheet of Trump’s first presidency was not defined by politeness. Bullies are not polite. All in all, it was a rather chaotic Trump presidency.
The businessman Trump hadn’t even achieved economic success. Trump’s economic failure would have been crucial, if pro-Trump propaganda would not have overlaid hard economic facts.
Yet, Trump is feeling better today than he did four years ago.
This comes as a no surprise. His well-oiled propaganda machinery works better than ever before, particularly in off-line and online media, thanks to Musk’s X (Twitter) as well as in adjacent right-wing filter bubbles.
Despite Trump’s Riefenstahl-fashioned inauguration, many Europeans are still asking, why did US voters honor a convicted criminal, misogynist, bully, and a failed president.
In short, voters did endorse Trump. And they certified his takeover with less than 50% of the popular vote – 49.8% to 48.3% for Harris.
Failing the 50% margin, Trump’s victory came in addition to his appropriation of the Supreme Court and the Congress. Today, Trump’s very own deep state runs all three branches of the government:
- the executive (by being president),
- the judiciary (Trump appointed henchmen in the Supreme Court), and
- the legislature (wining the House and the Senate).
When people were voting and when they went to a local supermarket, they saw Trump was right. Things were more expensive than before.
For everyone who is doing a normal job, there was, at the end of the month, less money. Trump’s propaganda successfully blamed Biden. Blaming others is a core aspect of Donald Trump. It worked.
People simply didn’t want to be told by the Democrats that…
- the economy is growing,
- the world envies the USA for its Biden-overseen return from COVID-19,
- there is a high rate of employment,
- the stock market is booming,
- prices are going down again, and
- even gasoline prices are moderating.
If people go to a store or a restaurant, they feel the opposite from what Democrats have been telling them. Many were even convinced that the Democrats are up to something. Europeans think that this was an essential factor for Trump’s election.
Joe Biden had already justified his first candidacy with the fact that Donald Trump – in his second term – would fundamentally change the character of the USA – forever.
Biden wanted to prevent that. It was one of the political reasons that prompted him to run again. Biden’s plan to stop Trump failed. The opposite happened.
What Americans have now is a decision – by a majority – against Biden and for Trump. This is a sign that voters wanted a radical change.
One of the key questions may not be why did they elect Donald Trump? But, instead, why didn’t they vote for the Democrats?
Voters are fully aware of the fact that everyone knows Donald Trump. It is no longer necessary to inform about who he is.
In terms of character, pussy grabbing Trump ‘apparently’ represents Christian family value. Politically, he is a mixture between toxic-neoliberal delusions and right-wing populism.
The interesting question is, why was it still considered more dangerous to elect a Democrat than this man?
And it is necessary to ask the question, what were the mistakes of the Democrats that did not make them attractive?
This is where you find Trump’s slim majority. One of the reasons is the economy. But then there is also the right-wing’s favorite fear issue: immigration – the so-called open borders.
Biden did next to nothing for three years. Perhaps he was hoping the issue would simply go away. It was a dangerous illusion when your opponent is a right-wing populist.
Then, a sudden order and an ordinance was made by Biden – too little, too late.
Biden’s move was very popular, and it was supported by both sides. However, the political (Democrats) and ideological (Trump) debate had already started long before Biden’s final move.
Democrats and moderate Republicans had already lost the subject – mostly to Trump and the demagogues of Fox News, etc.
Take Brownsville in Texas, for example. From this, one might understand where all this is coming from. The hype about migration has played a big role.
And, one might say, the third big problem is that identity politics has been made into a big issue – starting with women’s politics.
That, too, was a ripe fruit to be picked by the far-right demagogue Donald Trump – a misogynistic man. Many have seen this for themselves during the election campaign.
Mini-macho Trump steers a bizarre form of testosterone-(un)controlled behavior by men.
Self-evidently, and in view of Trump’s Constitutional Court‘s decision on abortion, a Democratic candidate must make abortion an issue. The Democrats ran a women’s election campaign. And a whopping 52% of white women voted for Trump.
From a European perspective, America has a much greater degree of cultural struggle over the question of wokeness compared to Europe. It became a problem for Biden. Many Americans have set up a stop sign.
If one looks at these three factors – economy, immigration, and identity politics (us-vs.-them) – the picture becomes clear. It was an election on Trump’s terms.
He had set the agenda. It was a right-wing populist agenda. And he dominated the airwaves – off-line and online, thanks to Musk.
One might ask that the final assessment of Joe Biden’s performance will depend on how Donald Trump’s second term goes. The Democrats are now in a position where they should no longer ask themselves superficial questions.
In the end, they were roughly 200,000 votes in just three states that made Trump 2.0 possible. Yet, the Democrats’ communication strategy didn’t work out. One can talk about the matter nicely, but one can also try to go to the roots.
Much depends on whether the Democrats will be capable – in introspection – to ask themselves hard questions. For many voters, it seemed better to send a convicted criminal who spreads untruths every day back to the White House.
The Democrats must go deep into themselves to regenerate. A look at the political record of the Biden presidency on foreign policy also shows that it turns out mostly positive.
The USA came out of America’s longest war in Afghanistan. Bush had started it, and both Obama and Trump continued.
Unlike the three previous presidents (Bush, Obama, and Trump), Biden at least managed to get out of Afghanistan and strengthened the alliances.
Trump is set to weaken it. Biden supported NATO and did well in Asia. He has strengthened multilateralism, re-entered the Climate Protocol, and re-entered the WHO – so vital in times of a pandemic like COVID-19.
Donald Trump has ended all that – the USA’s global influence is corroding from the inside because of Trump’s decision to leave the world stage – to others.
With Biden, American internationalism became visible again. It could hardly be more positive. He also united the Europeans and NATO, against Putin’s land grab in the Ukraine.
Biden also found innovative ways to support the Ukraine and generate support. Yet, Biden had no idea about the endgame.
With regard to China, Biden’s record is similar. He has removed the aggression that Donald Trump had built up. Instead, Biden brought diplomacy back into fore.
On the other hand, Trump had erected high fences in the investment area and was unclear regarding Taiwan. All in all, Biden’s record is mixed as far as the Ukraine and China are concerned.
Yet, under Trump, worse is to be expected. To Europeans, America’s power and influence are rapidly declining.
With Trump, there are a lot of things we can lose as Europeans – after Biden has left. Biden created or better re-created a role for America. Trump is destroying this.
This might be described not as an American dominance, but as an American leadership without domination. Trump’s leadership will end this to the detriment of the USA. His pretended strength will achieve the exact opposite – the decline of the USA.
Biden’s politics can be described as a kind of a middle position with which Europe was living very well – as an ally. Trump will end this and by doing so, the global stature of the USA is abating.
On his inaugural TV-show – no European leader was invited except for Italy’s neo-fascist Meloni. Europeans will remember that. This, too, will not aid the position of the USA.
Deliberately, Trump did not invite top EU leaders like the commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, the European council president, António Costa, and top diplomat Kaja Kallas.
Instead, a litany of failures turn up: the UK’s botched-up 49-days’ PM Liz Truss – widely regarded as a joke. It got worse with failures like Suella Braverman – known for sheer stupidity. It finished with the scandal-ridden Liam Fox.
And just when one thought it could not get worse, it gets shoddier with Trump. Stooges of Germany’s neo-fascist AfD (Alternative for Germany) joined Trump’s propaganda party with the clueless Chrupalla, and most prominently, Beatrix von Storch who wants to shoot refugees on German borders – Nazi style. A reminder of her Nazi grandfather.
So much for the guest list of the incoming president. Already his visitants testify to the world under Trump. The second Trump presidency might well be defined by attempts to justify a kind of hemispheric imperialism.
Trump plays on Greenland, Mexico, Canada, and Panama. It infuriates allies and aids America’s decline.
After all that, there is also the hegemonic conflict with China that is in the making. Meanwhile, the territorial sovereignty of two NATO allies – Denmark and Canada – are under attack. This, too, will aid America’s decline. The USA is shifting into the reverse.
Meanwhile, Trump also created an essential question which, started with the rejection of Putin’s violent conquest of the Ukraine: who can threaten his own allies in their territory?
That’s why Europe is in an extremely dangerous position with Trump’s wavering, rapid and changing decisions. Not that it would somehow be okay to say, it’s insane. No, it’s very coherent with Trump’s modus operandi.
And it is also coherent in an even more dangerous way. It involves a 19th-century “nation-versus-nation” thinking in which national power is all or nothing. This is what Trump’s “America first” means.
In Greenland, Trump seeks to take something from the territory of NATO. He seems to trust alliances very little, and he “mistakenly” believes that, in an epic conflict, he would get everything he needs from countries like Canada: military support, transit rights, rare earths, raw materials, etc.
In his delusions, there is a fundamental rethinking that is looking back to the 19th century’s country-vs.-country mentality. It resulted in endless wars.
This is also how one might interpret his 5% requirement on beefing up European armament. Trump plugged the number out of thin air. If others agree, Donald Trump probably would say 7% or 9%.
These are, of course, demands taken out of thin air. Yet, they are to be understood within his relationship – or better non-relationship – with the NATO alliance.
Europeans have to prepare for a Trump-Putin Pact. It will come to the detriment of Europe.
Europe’s main concern lies precisely in the fact that here are two people – Putin and Trump – who are play-acting as world leaders, and who are ready to act over the heads of Ukraine and Europeans as well. Europeans might be condemned to listen and while not even sitting at Putin’s infamous table.
Or will he lose patience when it comes to larger issues of a European order? Would all this be the end of the Western community of values? Fortunately, the Western community of values is not dependent on Trump.
The West is not a geographical notion. Instead, it is an association of those who attribute themselves to democracy. Yet, there are several crises. As far as such a crisis goes, Trump might still be one of us.
Yet, the USA is the largest state in our club. Today, this crisis comes with Trump, but also in Austria with the “almost-chancellor” Herbert Kickl.
And then, there are Germany’s neo-fascist AfD and Orban’s Hungary. This list goes on and one no longer needs to elaborate on all this.
Many European countries have a mini-Trump in their own states. European are ill advised to point the finger at the Americans. Arrogance is the wrong recipe.
Yet, Europeans – unlike Trump – are united in the belief that democracy is in the end in-itself. For Trump, it is merely “one” method to get power. Once in power, he has pardoned the anti-democracy January 6th rioters who killed five people.
Being a sizable state in the EU, the next German government will have to deal with Trump’s second term. Germany is in a situation where it neither knows exactly what its future is with Russia nor its future with America.
Worse, there is, as so often, a divided European Union. Beyond that, and on a global scale, the EU still does not know exactly how to deal with the Global South and its corporate globalization model – which gives great prosperity to some but not all – is under fire.
In addition, the EU doesn’t know how to deal with a rising China – once Trump has irritated his own allies.
Worse, foreign politics is no longer between democratic political parties. But gradually, the right-wing populist edge is taking over. This differs fundamentally from the old model.
There are going to be big foreign policy debates between the EU, the USA, Russia, and China. Worse, Germany has a political party – the BSW – which made anti-Americanism its election program at its recent party congress. With Trump as president, this will work in favor of the BSW.
Today, Germany sees increasing differences among its political parties that Germans did not know before.
Democracy is not in crisis solely because of Donald Trump. It is severely challenged by right-wing populism and neo-fascism. Today, many ask, can democracy be saved?
The longing for freedom is one of the great human political needs. Trump has exploited this for his authoritarianism. The protection of minorities separates Trump’s authoritarianism from true democracy.
Trump will give rights only to the majority – the slim and white majority who voted for him. To Trump, democracy is like a business deal: you vote for me and I give you something. It is vote-buying Musk– style.
Trump also feasts on the knowledge that many people no longer trust that democracy delivers. Democracy is blamed – not capitalism.
Many have focused very strongly on the input that legitimizes democracy. But can democracy deliver? Nobody has focused on the output that democracy must deliver to civil society.
Democracy will be restricted by Donald Trump because he is, after all, a majoritarian – hired by the slim majority. He wants to rule, and he has the backing of the majority. It is what Viktor Orban already has. That will be Trump’s argument.
It represents the elevation of democratically elected representatives. Donald Trump will find that he actually deserves a third term because he had a break in between. His Supreme Court might comply.
With Trump 2.0 – the world will suffer, and the decline of the USA will continue.
Born close to Germany’s Castle Frankenstein, Thomas Klikauer writes on managerialism, has over 1,000 publications, and a recent book on Alternative für Deutschland: The AfD.
