Icon: enlarge
Celebration after Joe Biden's election victory in Washington, November 7, 2020
Photo: Jacquelyn Martin / AP
Margaret Thatcher once said: "I am in politics because of the struggle between good and bad. And I believe that in the end good will prevail."
A conservative could see it that easily, and it is still correct today.
"Isch over", the American nightmare is over.
So you wake up, shake yourself, straighten the crown, and go on.
This is how one could think after Joe Biden's election as President of the United States.
But for many, especially in this country, this does not seem to be the case.
They are looking for the dark side of such a radiantly bright moment, these black masters of the "yes, but".
Nikolaus Blome, arrow to the right
Photo:
Daniel Reinhardt / DPA
Born in 1963, until October 2019 was deputy editor-in-chief and head of politics of the "Bild" newspaper.
From 2013 to 2015 he headed the SPIEGEL capital city office as a member of the editor-in-chief; previously he was deputy editor-in-chief of "Bild".
Since August 2020 he has headed the politics department at RTL and n-tv.
Yes, but "Trumpism" lives on, they say, the country is deeply divided.
Yes, but, Trump won even more votes than in 2016, including women and Latinos.
Yes, but the Senate may remain Republican.
Yes, but, the claim to leadership has been forfeited, Europe will have to do more (for the 389th time ...) Yes, but, writes Gabor Steingart in all seriousness, more than half of the area of the USA are "no-go zones" for the new President without a country "because Trump got more votes there than Joe Biden.
And an ARD daily commentary puts the crown on the Yes-Aberei: A Trump comeback in 2024 ... cannot be ruled out.
Wow, even Greta Thunberg is in a better mood.
She took Trump with a sensational, almost self-ironic tweet about "Anger Management" hopp ("chill, Donald, chill!"), Which the president once shot down almost word for word at her.
Can we, please, now all look to the future with confidence?
There are reasons.
As many Americans as there have been in ages went to the polls this time.
It was a referendum on Donald Trump.
He lost it.
Point.
Every vote counts, a truism becomes a thriller.
A choice coagulates the result, live, the whole world can watch.
It goes every half hour for days and at the same time with tenacious dignity.
So America is (again) a role model for the world, the Putins and Xis of the planet should fear the radiance of these moments.
An eternally forfeited claim to leadership?
On the left as well as on the right, loyal German anti-Americanism has to come up with something new.
The masters of action on Facebook, Twitter and Fox News may not have become better people overnight, but they have finally understood what is at stake for them.
"Never catch a falling knife!"
Good old (stock market) capitalism taught them reason.
It is just as much a learning and therefore superior system as American democracy itself.
Most importantly, Trumpism is Trump, and it ends with Donald Trump.
It is a movement completely tailored to his person without any structure or superstructure.
Of course, (right-wing) populism is conceivable without him: Trump did not invent or create the polarization of the country, which is now even paramilitary, he just managed it more ruthlessly than anyone before him.
Nevertheless, I don't think Trump was after democracy in itself and structurally, like Putin or Viktor Orban.
He just hates losing, which is part of democracy.
Of course Joe Biden has to try to unite the country.
But each of his predecessors had to do the same, the land of the free was never the land of the peaceful.
More American soldiers died in the American Civil War than in World Wars I and II combined.
So-called "race riots" continue to break out to this day.
The anger in rural "fly over states" against nasal left-wing elitist coastal residents existed and will exist.
"Tea Party" and Bernie Sander's dreams of (real!) Socialism have been uncompromisingly opposed to one another for more than four years.
For better or for worse: The time after Trump will not look much different than the time before Trump.
Friendly conservatives tend to have a certain nostalgia, but more so to refined optimism.
There is little they can do with the curmudgeoners who almost delight in the fact that Donald Trump has inflicted damage to the United States that they absolutely want to consider irreparable.
They have always wanted to see irreparable damage done to America.
Donald Trump has made this small-faith anti-Americanism even more socially acceptable in wide circles, that is true and regrettable.
Defending America was actually not easy during the tenure of this vulgar bully of presidents.
But as much as the godlike veneration of Barack Obama was overdone, so was the myth of the fall of American democracy.
The classic political structure of the USA responded to Donald Trump with a typical representative who, for 50 years, has belonged to that "swamp" that the four-year-old president so hated.
A steam-powered candidate from the last century hit Trump not with his guns, but with his own.
In your face, it has to hurt him twice over, it's just a great day and a reason for cheerful confidence instead of skeptical plausible warnings or swan songs.
From a completely different temporal and political context, one could therefore borrow William Safire's sentence, who spoke of "nattering nabobs of negativism".
From "naggers, envious people, writers", as "Bild" put it on page 1 years ago.
You should just say thank you.
Thank you America.
Icon: The mirror