Icon: enlarge
US President Trump: He doesn't want anything from us, except that we pay attention to him
Photo: Evan Vucci / AP
The recent video of the American President is admirable - if you look at it from the perspective of political creativity.
Where all outgoing presidents have sought a dignified exit or, as in the case of Richard Nixon, at least a historic-looking photo, Donald Trump has come up with something of his own: He's making it terrible.
He lies, attacks, insinuates and threatens, pardons the worst types and tries in the last few days to take every obvious profit.
In a few minutes he fired, among other things, conspiracy theories and threatened the status of the USA as an open society, in which he de facto questioned the principle of peaceful change of power.
It is as if he had made a bet, because the most embarrassing, blatant and in every way disgusting finish could be made.
In his last days in office, Barack Obama produced a funny video showing him playing cards with former Republican majority leader Joe Boehner - an elegant gesture of non-partisan comedy.
Trump, on the other hand, comes with a head-in-both-palm guarantee.
And so it draws the world's attention because its brand of narcissistic cruelty is unique.
The electors have long since chosen Joe Biden, his fellow party member Mitch McConnell has admitted the defeat of the Republicans and the Supreme Court has dismissed all claims against the election - but to base his judgment on facts does not suit Donald Trump.
He knows his audience: a non-partisan, sensible
elder statesman
named Trump would be bored.
Again he uses the dramatic stylistic devices of professional wrestling.
If a fighter limps into the ring with a bandaged leg and the speaker declares that the opponent will certainly respect the wound, it does not take long before the opponent steps exactly - and as children said "extra" - on the bandaged area with full Stunner.
The audience holds their breath, both horrified and amused.
Icon: enlarge
Obama 2017 in his farewell speech: dignified exit
Photo: JONATHAN ERNST / REUTERS
This staging of meanness is a trademark and not a real attack on humanity, you have to distinguish between them - but it is the symbolic preliminary stage.
Trump has his
proud boys
and not inciting other right-wing troops to commit massacres among their compatriots.
But not much is missing anymore.
And one understands the concern with which observers like Bill Kristol try to interpret the political dynamics in Trump's last remaining month.
You can't be sure that he won't suddenly have people arrested or that others will take his words for instructions on mass murder.
And if, sooner or later, and after further scandals and escalations, he at least disappears from the presidency, his grotesque person will very soon be fused in the world's memory with his entire, huge generation, with a lifestyle and growth model whose time has long since passed .
Even if some readers will yelp now: With his contempt for rules, excessive narcissism and radical consumerism, Trump is a last, albeit politically different, sixty-eight.
Their experience is that the circumstances adapt to their worldview and that they - from marriage to school to the media - do not leave any sociocultural institution as they found it.
The work is still waiting
Trump is also acting in the light of this generational experience: Is the climate collapsing under CO2 emissions?
Trump jets to golf and has the last reserves converted into boreholes.
Power in the world is spread across more regions, do people long for an end to racism?
Trump is racism personified, that's his trademark.
If someone other than a white man were to express his fantasies of subversion, which flirted with violence, all hell would have broken loose.
The federal budget is in trouble because of its absurd tax gifts?
Trump demands more money for everyone and speaks from experience: No matter how much nonsense he could do, he got richer and richer.
Stubbornness, anti-conformism, anarchic energy - these days Trump is burning one last firework of culture-fighting sixty-eight hits, just the right-wing anarchist variant.
Trump is our comprehensive growth ideology under a head of yellow hair.
That is why these last days, the crazy tweets and desperate appearances are still so important: This farewell is full of moments of truth not just about Trump, but about the logic of media attention, about corruption and above all about us, our addiction to growth - once more more money and more stuff, but also for heavier news, simple solutions and a good show.
Like a perpetual political circus that entertains us without asking too much of us.
Trump therefore also exempts: Everyone can feel superior to him, he doesn't want anything from us, except that we pay attention to him.
And to do this, he is gradually jeopardizing everything that made the post-war order of the West so special: free elections, protection of human and civil rights, non-violent transfers of power.
So shortly before Christmas we are again at an extreme point: show or life?
Trump will soon be history, will be a horror story - but unfortunately not yet what he stands for.
This work is still waiting.
Icon: The mirror