It was a balanced view of the current political situation in the US, which Dr. Christoph von Marschall shared with us last Thursday, looking at the upcoming mid-term elections in the US. The renown political Journalist of “Der Tagesspiegel” has long served as White-House-Correspondent and has direct insights. He refused to join the choir of the German media, being “a bit biased” and “talking too much about impeachment” and the likes, while from his view this is “not reflecting how things are seen in the US”. He said that Trump voters “are not idiots”, but much rather a majority of the people living outside bigger cities, facing other realities than the people in regions with Democratic majority (the bigger cities and city centers). For them, the current government “means significantly more money in the wallet”, which they see as a “big positive”.
So, Marschall said, he would stay away from predictions until the very last moment – because too much has changed in how political opinions form these days and it is too close to call. Also because the Democrats have more seats to defend and less seats to potentially win from the Republicans.
Marschall warned, too, to ignore that the changed political culture is not an American phenomenon only, pointing out that it is now accepted by large voter groups that political leaders are not truthful. He gave the example of Brexit and other populist politics throughout Europe.
He suggested that perhaps, Germans do not understand the world anymore – building a bridge to the title of his new book: “Wir verstehen die Welt nicht mehr: Deutschlands Entfremdung von seinen Freunden”.
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