A Lesson from Berlin Writer Kurt Tucholsky
'Really listen!... There is nothing there….'
BERLIN – The ever anti-intellectual US presidential candidate, Donald Trump — now a Florida Republican, despite having been based in New York his entire adulthood — has long been off-the-leash.
Refusing to appear publicly for direct questions (except when he sits for required interviews from Justice authorities), Trump routinely opens his mouth to caress, embellish and further amplify what’s now his political party’s Big Lie — his own ‘special’ version of history — that the violence to the US Capitol was not only defensible, but justified. To most observers, the man is clearly delusional.
Europe has been perennially confounded by the popularity of Mr. Trump, boosted by US-based chaos-loving social media platforms, despite [or because of] his amplification (virtual screaming) of Nationalist and white-supremecist memes. Remarkable that a candidate for ANY federal office is someone who persists in listing government officials and institutions — both federal and state — among his enemies. (It’s an arbitrary list that has, over time, included the FBI, American intelligence, all foreign countries, journalists, the Justice Department, Democrats, Republicans, and powerful women, generally….)
One day, the reactionary Donald Trump will be history. In the mean time, however, Americans near and far - his enemies and allies alike - will be forced to waste precious time/energy in a constant game of ‘damage control.’
He has almost no understanding of democratic American government — neither the idea, nor the ideal, nor its functional reality since 1900. Lacking intellect and intelligence, Trump has always imagined himself as a political CEO. In a word, a boss; a “strong man,” or a dictator. We, in Europe, are painfully aware of our own historical dictators and their ultimate cost. In overcoming them — also at great cost — Europeans can be proud. There is also room enough for pride among those who sent much-needed help and solidarity, during that awful time, from the United States as well as from the former Russian-led Soviet Union.
Like so many Americans and Donald Trump today, too many Germans of the 1930s embraced the “alternative truth” of the then-Führer, Adolf Hitler. By doing so, they did great damage to the German language itself, which remains the chief defining trait of “being German.” Like Trump, the insurrectionist Hitler and his rhetoric were overestimated; the Führer was little more than a deranged showman. (As a young man, Adolf Hitler hated school, hated his father and — worst of all — hated Berlin, where there is little love for him today.)
Before too many years, the reactionary Donald Trump will be history. Unfortunately, as history teaches us, Americans near and far — his enemies and allies alike — will be forced to waste precious time/energy in a constant game of “damage control” and, ultimately, of recovery.
It seems like a good moment to remind American Trump-watchers about the work of German political writer Kurt Tucholsky (1890–1935). A smart satirist, Tucholsky moved to Sweden during the rise of Hitler and the Nazis as they fed Germans with a steady ‘diet’ of media disinformation, served up with ongoing police- and military violence.