Products of a more genteel culture, on the surface, Europeans generally don’t get the ruff-and-tumble of U.S. democracy, where people pick the president, not a parliament or more authoritarian regimes where prime ministers or presidents have no term limits. Every four years, at a cost of billions of dollars, voters pick a new president or stick with the old one but only for a maximum of eight years. U.S. senators have more longevity with six-year terms with House members having two-year terms but without term limits. Europe, of course, doesn’t like criticism, something 74-year-old President Donald Trump wasn’t shy about dishing out, especially when it came to NATO’s mutual defense treaty, where EU countries didn’t pony up to Trump’s liking. Members of the British parliament weren’t too happy with Trump backing the Brexit movement, to vote to remove the U.K. from the European Union.
Trump’s been unlike any other U.S. president because he comes from the private business background, where things get done behind closed doors with colorful language, something appreciated by many of Trump’s loyal followers. Trump’s fans like his brashness, something seen as a cherished American value, swashbuckling and bold, often viewed as obnoxious by Europeans. No where on the planet was Trump reviled more than in the U.S. media, who felt humiliated when he was elected in 2016, after they all endorsed his challenger former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. When Trump won in 2016, it started a ongoing war with the press, working in overdrive to see Trump removed from office. U.S. mainstream press made a secret pact with Democrats to oust Trump from office. Lying, cheating, distorting, fabricating anything possible to toss Trump from office.
Trump endured four years of FBI investigations all based on fake evidence, manufactured by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele to help Hillary beat Trump in 2016. Accused of being a Russian asset, the media, and House Democrats tried to hound Trump out of office. Nowhere in the world other than the most corrupt regimes are politicians framed by their press with no evidence, just writing gossip, innuendo, flat out lies, the most vicious disinformation and propaganda in the world today. No where except the most repressive regimes, where there is no Free Press, does the press censor compelling information about a presidential candidate. U.S. press in the 2020 election censored compelling information about former Vice President Joe Biden and his family’s corrupt business deals in China, Russia and Ukraine. Yet Biden stands almost victorious today unseating Trump.
Europeans have strong opinions about Trump because he doesn’t mince words, tells it like it is and calls out politicians for corruption and disastrous domestic and foreign policies. Trump, at least for four years, broke the costly U.S. cycle of funding and participating in endless Mideast wars. Biden, now minutes away from declaring victory, was responsible, together with his boss former President Barack Obama, for toppling Col Muammar Gaddafi and backing a nine-year-old Saudi-funded proxy war to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Al-Assad is a president like North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, a ruthless dictator responsible for genocide in their countries. Yet Obama and Biden drove 15 million Syrians into refugees, killing 500,000, creating the worst humanitarian crisis since WW II. Obama and Biden’s foreign policy pushed the U.K. into Brexit, practically breaking the EU.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas urged both sides in the U.S. to resolve the election peacefully. “America is more than a none-man show. Anyone who continues to pour oil on the fire in a situation like this sis acting irresponsibly,” Maas said, referring to Trump. But Maas really doesn’t get U.S. politics, for better or worse, works out its problems one way or another. Trump has a right to question whether voter fraud by the Democrat Party ousted him from office. From Trump’s perspective, when he spoke to supporters at the White House early more Nov. 4, he was well ahead, looking like he was coasting to a second term. Then, suddenly, his fortunes changed, with Biden making up ground and overtaking him in Wisconsin and Michigan, then making inroads in Pennsylvania where Trump held a commanding 14-point lead. That lead is now under two percent, with more votes counted.
Foreigners, especially Europeans, don’t understand American democracy, including the rough-and-tumble of elections. With Biden closing in on 270 Electoral Votes, all the chatter coming across the pond will start to fade, while today’s foreign press reports make it look like the U.S. is close to civil war. “Now is the time to keep a cool head until an independently determined result is available,” Maas said, telling his European counterparts to trust the process. EU officials would of course prefer to see Biden president, getting back to more traditional diplomacy, tossed out the window when Trump became president. Biden, like his boss Obama, will get back to global diplomacy, with the U.S. taking more collective action, rather than Trump “America First” approach. Trump’s legal battles should be of no concern to anyone, knowing that when Biden hits 270 Electoral votes, it’s a done deal.
