The Global Reaction To Trump

The Cadet

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http://www.vox.com/2016/5/5/11590870/trump-world-reaction

"The craziest US presidential election campaign begins," Germany's Die Welt daily wrote. "The unthinkable has come to pass."

You've seen similar coverage from the foreign press throughout Trump's rise, the tone of which has been a mixture of panic, terror, and gallows humor.

France's Channel 2 once aired a debate titled, "That Donald Trump could become president of the United States: should we laugh or cry?" In January, the leading German magazine Der Spiegel published an issue titled, "Madness: American Agitator Donald Trump."

[...]

"If a communist propaganda ministry had commissioned a gifted cartoonist to draw a typically-American rogue, he would have invented a figure like 'The Donald,'" Mounk writes in the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. "A man who embodies the wealthy, boorish philistine, from his self-important attitude to the way his hair is folded this way and that, and someone for whom nothing is sacred — other than money, bosoms, success and power."

Germans, Mounk writes, see Trump as "a symptom of a distinctly American disease":

In no other democracy in the world, it is said, could voters be so openly motivated by greed, show so little concern for less-privileged fellow citizens and be so politically ignorant. Only in hate-filled, under-educated 'Ami-land' could someone like Trump be successful.​
Mounk describes Trump as fitting stereotypes of Americans held not just in Germany but in places around the world. A 2005 Pew survey of people in 16 nations found that majorities in most countries described Americans as "greedy" and "violent." A 2005 study in the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology looked at data from 48 non-American samples, finding that they described the typical American as (among other things) "arrogant" and "achievement-oriented."

[...]

Now, most non-Americans don't only see the bad in America — and a lot of the time, these stereotypes are fodder for jokes rather than taken seriously.

But in Trump, they see the bad parts of America swamping the parts of it they admire. That's not just in personality, but also the policies he proposes. Trump's personal qualities would become the ones that define American governance.

"For [some], Trump's mere existence confirms their worst suspicions of the United States," Joyce Karam, the Washington bureau chief for the Arabic daily Al-Hayat, writes. "In a region already predisposed to anti-Americanism, Trump’s Islamophobic and racially charged message is reinforcing long-held suspicions that America is a racist, imperialist nation that wants to exploit and subjugate the Arab world."​


I feel the need to point out that many of the countries that are freaking out about Trump are ostensibly allies. France, Germany, Israel, South Korea... These are all allies and trade partners. It's not like Russia or China or ISIS is looking at this and worrying (in fact, Putin seems pretty happy about the whole thing). The entire world, essentially, is looking at America and shaking their heads in awestruck disappointment. Like, "Wow, we were mostly joking when we said you were a bunch of fat, arrogant blowhards obsessed with money above all else, but now we're not so sure it's funny any more."

That is, if anyone cares about an outside perspective. It can be very useful. I sure know that if a whole bunch of my most trusted and well-off friends told me, "What you're doing is crazy, you're hurting yourself, please stop", I'd at least take a moment to consider that what they're saying has some merit.
 

Armoured

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And hey, if anyone can recognise a really, really bad idea about to be elected democratically, it's them...
Yeah, seriously, half of the German constitution can be captioned with "THIS IS HERE BECAUSE NOT HAVING IT THERE HELPED ENABLE HITLER".
 
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pakicetus

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I don't suppose too many Trump supporters care the slightest about what those dirty foreigners think.
Even though one of Trump's claims is that the rest of the world will respect him.
 
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Oafman

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Even though one of Trump's claims is that the rest of the world will respect him.
Of all his outlandish claims, that might be the least likely to come true. With the notable exception of Putin, the world holds Trump in complete contempt.
 
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GoldenBoy89

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Of all his outlandish claims, that might be the least likely to come true. With the notable exception of Putin, the world holds Trump in complete contempt.
As they should.
 
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Armoured

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Yeah, seriously, half of the German constitution can be captioned with "THIS IS HERE BECAUSE NOT HAVING IT THERE HELPED ENABLE HITLER".
Let the record show I only implied Godwin, you were the one to mention the H name...
 
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http://www.vox.com/2016/5/5/11590870/trump-world-reaction

"The craziest US presidential election campaign begins," Germany's Die Welt daily wrote. "The unthinkable has come to pass."

You've seen similar coverage from the foreign press throughout Trump's rise, the tone of which has been a mixture of panic, terror, and gallows humor.

France's Channel 2 once aired a debate titled, "That Donald Trump could become president of the United States: should we laugh or cry?" In January, the leading German magazine Der Spiegel published an issue titled, "Madness: American Agitator Donald Trump."

[...]

"If a communist propaganda ministry had commissioned a gifted cartoonist to draw a typically-American rogue, he would have invented a figure like 'The Donald,'" Mounk writes in the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. "A man who embodies the wealthy, boorish philistine, from his self-important attitude to the way his hair is folded this way and that. someone for whom nothing is sacred — other than money, bosoms, success and power."

Germans, Mounk writes, see Trump as "a symptom of a distinctly American disease":

In no other democracy in the world, it is said, could voters be so openly motivated by greed, show so little concern for less-privileged fellow citizens and be so politically ignorant. Only in hate-filled, under-educated 'Ami-land' could someone like Trump be successful.​
Mounk describes Trump as fitting stereotypes of Americans held not just in Germany but in places around the world. A 2005 Pew survey of people in 16 nations found that majorities in most countries described Americans as "greedy" and "violent." A 2005 study in the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology looked at data from 48 non-American samples, finding that they described the typical American as (among other things) "arrogant" and "achievement-oriented."

[...]

Now, most non-Americans don't only see the bad in America — and a lot of the time, these stereotypes are fodder for jokes rather than taken seriously.

But in Trump, they see the bad parts of America swamping the parts of it they admire. That's not just in personality, but also the policies he proposes. Trump's personal qualities would become the ones that define American governance.

"For [some], Trump's mere existence confirms their worst suspicions of the United States," Joyce Karam, the Washington bureau chief for the Arabic daily Al-Hayat, writes. "In a region already predisposed to anti-Americanism, Trump’s Islamophobic and racially charged message is reinforcing long-held suspicions that America is a racist, imperialist nation that wants to exploit and subjugate the Arab world."​
I feel the need to point out that many of the countries that are freaking out about Trump are ostensibly allies. France, Germany, Israel, South Korea... These are all allies and trade partners. It's not like Russia or China or ISIS is looking at this and worrying (in fact, Putin seems pretty happy about the whole thing). The entire world, essentially, is looking at America and shaking their heads in awestruck disappointment. Like, "Wow, we were mostly joking when we said you were a bunch of fat, arrogant blowhards obsessed with money above all else, but now we're not so sure it's funny any more."

That is, if anyone cares about an outside perspective. It can be very useful. I sure know that if a whole bunch of my most trusted and well-off friends told me, "What you're doing is crazy, you're hurting yourself, please stop", I'd at least take a moment to consider that what they're saying has some merit.

It would matter if it wasn't coming from people who think that every American is an obese, undereducated hillbilly who lives off a strict Mcdonalds cheeseburger diet. These are the same self righteous people who pass judgement on others and view themselves as superior. Superficial blowhards they are themselves.
 
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Oafman

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It would matter if it wasn't coming from people who think that every American is an obese, undereducated hillbilly who lives off a strict Mcdonalds cheeseburger diet. These are the same self riteous people who pass judgement on people and view themselves as superior. Superficial blowhards they are themselves.
Nonsense. The world is full of people who like Americans but loathe Trump.
 
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Landon Caeli

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Oh, yes believe me. Ive heard their mouths increase in volume when they criticize Americans as they eat their salmon topped bagels. Anyone who eats fish at 6 o'clock in the morning is just showing off.
 
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Paidiske

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Seriously, even from people who don't think that every American is an obese, undereducated hillbilly who subsists on McDonalds...

Trump. Really? A serious contender for president?

Why??

- A wall between America and Mexico? (Because that worked so well in other places... oh wait... )
- More military presence in the South China Sea to intimidate China? (Because that's really going to make them want to come to the negotiating table)
- No gun control (Sorry guys, but the rest of the world thinks America is nuts about its guns)
- He does say something about needing to improve mental health care (good) but I notice no detail and on how hit will be achieved. And given that at the same time he wants to repeal the Affordable Health Care act, I'm guessing there'll be plenty of potential gun criminals who won't have the health insurance needed to access that improved mental health care (even if they would have chosen to). I mention that because he has the section on improved mental health care under his position on second amendment rights, as if he thinks better mental health care will mean less deaths.
- Detention of refugees? (Concentration camps for those trying to flee oppression and violence. Awesome display of humanity there. And yeah, I know, Australia already has mandatory detention, and it's pretty damned awful. Don't go there).

And so on. Seriously, I'm not even talking superficial stuff like the fact that the guy seems to worship his own ego. He doesn't have much in the way of policy that's at all admirable.

So why is America even taking him seriously? Do they really think he wants this for any other reason than self-aggrandisement?
 
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Goonie

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Oh, yes believe me. Ive heard their mouths increase in volume when they criticize Americans as they eat their salmon topped bagels. Anyone who eats fish at 6 o'clock in the morning is just showing off.
When obviously it should be a McDonald's egg mcmuffin:doh:
 
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It sounds like a lot of foreign governments and people are alarmed at the possibility that "Uncle Sap" will cease to be the free cookie jar for the rest of the world at the expense of its own people.
 
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Oafman

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It sounds like a lot of foreign governments and people are alarmed at the possibility that "Uncle Sap" will cease to be the free cookie jar for the rest of the world at the expense of its own people.
Maybe.

Or it could be something to do with the fact that the world's only superpower might be about to elect a fascist demagogue as president.
 
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Albion

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Maybe.

Or it could be something to do with the fact that the world's only superpower might be about to elect a fascist demagogue as president.
I don't think they're that stupid. They're just afraid of the USA not allowing itself to be taken advantage of indefinitely.
 
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Landon Caeli

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Seriously, even from people who don't think that every American is an obese, undereducated hillbilly who subsists on McDonalds...

Trump. Really? A serious contender for president?

Why??

- A wall between America and Mexico? (Because that worked so well in other places... oh wait... )
- More military presence in the South China Sea to intimidate China? (Because that's really going to make them want to come to the negotiating table)
- No gun control (Sorry guys, but the rest of the world thinks America is nuts about its guns)
- He does say something about needing to improve mental health care (good) but I notice no detail and on how hit will be achieved. And given that at the same time he wants to repeal the Affordable Health Care act, I'm guessing there'll be plenty of potential gun criminals who won't have the health insurance needed to access that improved mental health care (even if they would have chosen to). I mention that because he has the section on improved mental health care under his position on second amendment rights, as if he thinks better mental health care will mean less deaths.
- Detention of refugees? (Concentration camps for those trying to flee oppression and violence. Awesome display of humanity there. And yeah, I know, Australia already has mandatory detention, and it's pretty damned awful. Don't go there).

And so on. Seriously, I'm not even talking superficial stuff like the fact that the guy seems to worship his own ego. He doesn't have much in the way of policy that's at all admirable.

So why is America even taking him seriously? Do they really think he wants this for any other reason than self-aggrandisement?

See, you're just wanting what's best for Mexico, Central and South America, China and other "refugees". And people expect American citizens to do the same? Really?

...what about American citizens, and the future of this country?
 
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Landon Caeli

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I get it that it's currently trendy to criticize any leader who wants to help his country above others. I know it's 'cool' to call that person a fascist. It's popular to compare him to Hitler or some other God aweful Nationalist like Stalin or Mussolini, or some other European monster.
 
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