956 180 During US elections the now "normal" personal attacks on politicians showed a growing interest in Trump's hand size. He is now called "Tiny Trump" and comedians and comic artists don't hesitate to emphasize that characteristic. Personally I believe his talent to denigrate, belittle everyone who disagrees with him "Little Donald" is a better name as a symbol for his childish behavior for example every day on twitter.
Meanwhile Europe election season has started.
The new German President Steinmeier was elected in 2017 on February 12th with a vast majority (73.89%). In 2022 he was re-eleced with even a higher number, 78%. Populist Glaser form AfD was iniatlly completely wiped away (3.33%) but now in 2025 AfD is a party that can;t be ignored anymore. Although the election of the new president is a task of the German parliament, it might be an upbeat for the next general elections in October 2017. Far right wing lead and Frauke Petry of the German AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) immediately blowed her music on twitter: "#Bundespräsident sollte direkt gewählt werden!" (President should be elected directly!) but according to all right wing parties (when they lose), democracy should be changed (until they've won, then their power is "absolute" and the rest is "fake news").
In the Netherlands political parties fired up their engines in the last weeks as a prelude for parliament election day, March 15th. Dutch populist Wilders attracted quite a lot attention from the international press at his kickoff meeting. He was anxious to shout into the microphones that he was not a copy of Trump and proved that with repeating frightening and hollow key messages: "Going to be historical elections!" - "Netherlands for the Dutch (3 times in one 'coheren' sentence)". Furthermore in the election program you can read: "Ban the Islam" - "Power to the people"- "Stop spending on development aid, innovation, art, windmills, broadcasting, etc." (etc. ??? WTF! What etc.?) - "Reform tax" - "Invest in military and police" and a few more. I guess the press laughed their butts off. A Trumpette "avant la lettre". In 2024 they didn't anymore. Wilders was the king of the elections and today we're stuck with a government lead by Wilders' party.
Bulgarian parliament election was put forward from 2018 to March 26th of 2017 due to the resignation of pro-european prime minister Borisov because his party colleague Tsetska Tsacheva lost the presidential race at the end of 2016 from pro-russian former air force commander and socialist Rumen Radev. Of course far left is different from far right but obviously in this case their messages are quite similar: "Stop the corruption" - "Be nice to both Russia and the EU" are more specific but "Power to the people (with a possible change to majority voting as a result of the latest referendum)" and "Less immigrants" are more common among Trumpettes. Most likely outcome is another lengthy coalition negotiation with some drama but maybe times have changed.
The first round of the 2017 French presidential election will be held on 23 April 2017. Already "US-style" personal attacking is obviously more important than vision, messages and capabilities. When a candidate like Fillon with all his experience is getting acceptable for a lot of French people, immediately his opponents like Le Pen dug deep into his past and came up with "Penelope-gate", a story where Fillon obviously paid his wife a significant salary for "assistance work". A typical "Trumpette" trick. Of course integrity is a very valuable political asset. It's just another example that voters are constantly getting distracted and at the end of the day can do nothing more that vote with gut feelings looking at a face they like most. It's like voting from teenage girls for the most prettiest face in a new boy band.
And there is Brexit. Already an "inquiry referendum" is taken as an "indisputable vote" and PM Theresa May is just following the atmosphere set by experienced Trumpettes Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage during their campaign last year. Bragging and humiliation was their trademark. British parliament recently voted with a surprising majority for an asap invocation of EU's article 50. Obviously all parliament members forgot that the people's vote was just a thin majority with Labor as an opponent and Scotland and Northern Ireland heavily resisting. Parliament members probably believe that conservative England still "rules" and the rest should keep quiet. Tony Blair, obviously waken up by the sudden withdrawal of Labor, emerged with a good story but was tackled immediately with personal attacks like it is common these Trump-days.
Populists like Wilders (Netherlands), Le Pen (France), Petry (Germany) and Farage (England) do nothing more than as true Trumpettes "retweet" Trump over and over again by selling fear from the outside world and protectionism as the answer. Actually I am glad that the American election came first and, at the expense of the American people, Trump was elected to set an example of the consequences: chaos, no plans, no backup, war with the press and democracy itself and at the end of the day probably torches and pitchforks. Maybe not in the streets but in the House and Senates. Already election polls have changed significantly in the last 2 weeks as a result of the American chaos. After the initial excitement around the "guys on the barricades", people start to wonder if they want to live in a burned down world. None of the Trumpettes have shown that besides a lot of rethoric they had a real plan, a real organization behind them, realistic solutions for problems and a real story a majority could live with for many years.
So "Little Donald and his Trumpettes" perhaps scored a #1 hit but after the desastreous example in the US in the first four years of Trump, hopefully their fans would recognize it's all fake and plagiate. Obvioulsy not !!! Biden had his chance but blew it and now the US and the rest of the world will suffer for another 4 years of Trump. Real music comes from real artists who know what they are doing and bring lasting songs that people will sing during their lives until they die. However populists like Trump, Wilders and Le Pen are more like cover-bands. Not talented enough to write their own music so they just copy popular tunes from which they know people will sing them along.
Sad :(.
Vote with your brain and party with your heart afterwards :))) To be continued . . .
706 
People ask me why I am so mad about Trump: "It's not even your country, it's far away, we have our own problems, do something about that!". Well that's exactly what I am doing. For decades my family and history lessons at school taught me about the Americans who saved us in WOII and are stil protecting us during the cold war and up until today. And for decades I took that for granted. Meanwhile the American dream came to me through TV, movies, music and stories from my friends and colleagues who crossed the ocean to find their personal luck, love and success. And I've even been there too for work and holidays a few times to sniff the air of that dream.
But somehow in the back of my mind there've been always some questions. Big decisions were made for us. In Europe we didn't have the "bombs" at least not in the quantity like the US and Russia so the cold war was mainly a fight between the US and the Soviets with Europe somewhere in between. The last decades or so big wars were started to "defend democracy" and protect us from terrorists. Yes, in Europe we also know democracy and we do have serious problems with terrorists. From everywhere. In the past from the IRA (Irish Republican Army), RAF (Rote Armee Fraktion in Germany), ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, armed Basque nationalists in Spain), quite a few more and recently Islamic fundamentalistic radicals too.
Nevertheless under guidance of the US (and the UK) and under the flags of the UN and NATO "we" have started or kludged a couple of huge wars like in Kuwait, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen and more. No real results (except Kuwait) are delivered, all the war zones are severely instabilized and Europe is suffering from a huge refugee problem as a consequence. Reliable figures are difficult to get but rough estimates say that somewhere between 250.000 and 500.000 people were killed in those wars due to "our efforts". City's, economies, families are completely ruined.
Meanwhile Crimea is taken by Russia again. A Malaysian aircraft with about 300 people was shot by the Russians out of the air above Ukraine. Israel, Turkey, Ukraine, Libia and quite a few countries in the neighborhood of European borders are still a complete mess. And on top of that, the economic downturn, by the way started in the US due to bad legislation in the fincance sector, brought populism in huge numbers. Le Pen in France, Wilders in the Netherlands, the FPÖ in Austria, Boris Johnson in the UK and more everywhere cause instability and protectionism with Brexit as an disastrous example. And with all the above examples in the heart of Europe, nothing is really done.
To me, Trump is just a caricature of the ultimate wrong direction. He says and does everything a sensible European leader or even any human being would or at least should never do. But he is there and even attracts "fans" in Europe with his clownesque behavior. Meanwhile he is the President of the United States, the self proclaimed "leader of the world". And that is just terrifying. Being mad at him is in fact being mad at myself having lived in a bubble of false stories. And I must admit, his strategy is satisfying. Create an enemy, condemn the past and get enough energy from that to tell your own stories. I can only hope my facts are more accurate.
I believe it's time that Europe unites again. The French have "liberté, égalité, fraternité" as their motto and in the heart and constitution of every European country and their people something similar is close by. It's time that we break free of our "big brother": the US. Not that we should run to Russia, on the contrary, but given our long common European history we do have lots of experience collaborating with the far east countries like China, Japan, India and Indonesia and some more in Africa too.
Lets enjoy the turmoil coming from the US (they have some real good comic shows every night :)) and lets take them as an example how we shouldn't create our world. Hopefully common sense will emerge there soon and maybe we can than reboot cooperation between Europe and the US again too. But for the time being, no, we should build to our own strength.
Meanwhile in a few months elections in France, Germany and the Netherlands will set the pace. Fast forwards to a brave new world with promises of prosperity for everyone due to reliable collaboration between all European countries and their partners. Or backwards towards a tired and frightened society with every country on its own.
Vote!
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