Führer Trump: A Godsend for the German Intelligentsia

The Trump Era has turned into a triumph for Godwin’s Law, and nowhere more than in Germany, where the Gutmenschen are filled with Schadenfreude over the rise of the American Führer.

Many thanks to JLH for translating this essay from Die Achse des Guten:

Snowflake[1] Speaks Out

by Wolfgang Röhl
February 9, 2017

Not everything has gotten worse since Donald Adolf Trump seized power. Certain media are profiting mightily from the poltergeist in the White House. The left-leaning broadcaster CNN for example, which had limped along behind its rightist counterpart Fox News, all at once is showing rising viewer numbers. And the Trump Effect has brought the New York Times — which had also seen better days — an unexpected and considerable number of new subscriptions.

Trumpophobia is perhaps even more rampant in Germany than in the original homeland of everything and everyone evil. Here, where we have always known all there is to know about how American politics is supposed to work, practically the entire media establishment has spent weeks slaving over the capers of the great decree-maker. Almost forgotten are the immigrant crisis, Dieselgate, the euro schlimazel, or the misdeeds of the AfD. Not one soul is still writing about the Panama Papers or the Soccer Leaks. Trump, Trump and more Trump — nothing else.

It pays off. Spiegel, with years of steadily declining circulation, finally hit it big with Trump on the cover — once as a comet racing towards the earth, once as a blood-spattered slaughterer of freedom. Stern, too, which has recently experienced two historic lows, sold well with Trump. Zeit is rousing emotions among readers and thinkers and doing very well for itself. Even the good old Frankfurter Allgemeine is sucking the last drop out of this repulsive sponge. And according to Breaking News, a couple married 22 years has split because of Trump-induced irreconcilable differences.

Führer Trump is as Good as a Bank

And the official services? Are on Cloud 9. No editor for a tax-supported broadcaster will need to think in coming years about political magazine presentations, satirical offerings or talk show subjects. Führer Trump is a treasure.

Even homeless journalists are getting their chance at 15 minutes of fame through him. An independent author named Mareike Nieberding, who has written articles on fashion and coolness and found answers to thorny life questions for the hipster periodical Neon (“The never-ending back and forth before a date is nerve-wracking”) had her epiphany when The Donald began his run at the end of last year. She decided to become an activist.

Dear Facebook,

Herewith, I am founding a youth movement. I know that you don’t found a movement, but become one, or better yet, are one. But I don’t want to wait. I can no longer look on. I am skipping the BECOME and proclaiming the IS. Like most people in my bubble, in my media, in my world, I am shocked, fearful, panicked, I feel helpless. As a person, as a woman, as a journalist.

Thunderation! Mareike, who lives in the federal capital, founded the “youth movement DEMO.” The name stands for “democracy, demonstration and demolition of demons.” Mareike already has many comrades-in-arms (on Facebook). “Crazy feeling,” “genuinely important,” “there are already meetings” bubbled out of her, as she made her six-minute appearance in the ZDF culture program “Aspekte.”

Where she was of course addressed in the familiar “du” by the hostess.

Keep on Rocking in a DEMO World!

Mareike is really not so new. But the leap from journalist to activist has acted as a fountain of youth. So the 30-year-old is throwing out sentences like a sweet sixteen: “Women, girls, teens and all men who read woman: Julia Knolle and I have talked a little about DEMO and our movement. Keep on rocking in a DEMO world!”

What is it about, err, content-wise? Well, it’s about this demon. He’s got to go, go go! With this agenda in hand, Mareike and her comrades meet for a “Trump brunch” in Berlin or a “save-democracy-camp” in Hamburg. No need at those meetings to go into what exactly Trump is doing wrong. It’s enough that he scares Mareike and Friends s***less.

She counts herself one of Generation Y, but does not belong to Generation Snowflake. The one that consists overwhelmingly of young women who — according to a wiki-nition — “ are unable to tolerate divergent opinions.” So they demand safe spaces, as in some American universities. There are panic rooms, where the sensitive souls are safe from the opinions of dissidents. Trigger warnings about certain reading materials or certain lectures. They warn students about evil contents that could endanger inner peace.

The concept “snowflake” comes from Great Britain and — according to an article in the magazine Spectator — means “censor-mad crybabies,” who can’t hack real life outside of protected institutions.

Every Little Snowflake’s Worst Nightmare

It’s not hard to guess who is the real-life worst nightmare of every snowflake. Definitely the Freddy Krueger of Washington! Against whom only a storm of snowflakes can be of aid. And, because Trump-bashing is as easy as pie, DEMO founder Mareike was quickly invited on a talk show. She could hardly believe her luck. Quickly, she told the world via Instagram:

“Today, as the founder, I’ll be sitting with Maybritt Illner in her talk show (hallelujah, it was really just a little Facebook post). With Peter Altmaier, Jürgen Trittin, Bernhard Mattes and Gabor Steingart. Live from Berlin at 10:15 PM on ZDF. Fingers crossed. Still almost ten hours to go and I’m already nervous.”

And our Mareike really did sit in that illustrious circle around Maybritt’s representative, Mathias Fornoff. Face to face with nothing but winners, who were chewing out that incompetent Trump. For example, the ice ball Jürgen or the Merkel clownfish Peter, who moves from triumph to triumph. Or MorningBriefer, Gabor, who always peers up so saucily from his Handelsblatt column, as if he had a little buzz on. And these great men listened indulgently as Mareike finally came on board and was allowed to speak about the alt-right movement. Which was like the Ku-Klux-Klan, or the Nazis, or something similar.

On TV twice! On Channel One and on ZDF! Can’t get more Warhol than that. Millions know Mareike now. Maybe that much fame will bring a permanent position for the Joan of Arc from Vechta? Hello WDR, NDR, SZ, Zeit?[2] There must at least be some little thing with taz.

At any rate, Mareike owes a lot to the tyrant of D.C. And vice versa! When that crazy monster finally meets his maker, to confess his sins, then he can at least say: Lord, I did a service for the ailing media. And a blond girl from Germany became a star because of me. Or something like that.

Notes:

1.   Schneeflöckchen is the diminutive of Schneeflocken, but is more evocative of Schneewittchen (Snow White).
2.   TV channels and newspapers.
 

10 thoughts on “Führer Trump: A Godsend for the German Intelligentsia

  1. Son of a… that picture, Baron! Now that you mention it, I can clearly see the resemblance, the hair, the greeting, I bet he drinks water from a glass like Hitler too. We are clearly in trouble.

    And Sieg Heil to Mareike. She got her 15 minutes. Just like the rest of the empty headeds, she will find herself ending up the butt of her own joke.

  2. Very funny.

    Bill Kristol thinks that proclaiming”Make America Great Again” is depressing and vulgar. I will look to the savants of the German media to explain that one to me. Surely, correct understanding of this utterance depends upon a foreign perspective which, by definition, is absent locally. At this moment insight is not arriving. That’s for sure.

    But more to the point, such is the state of what loosely be called U.S. “politics,” that a public support for the U.S. Constitution is enough to mark one as an unhinged rabble rouser who sleeps every night in the uniform of an SS Sturmbannfuehrer. Allegiance to the doctrines and leaders of a certain European nation that inexplicably held sway for a 12-year period in the 15,000-year history of human life on Planet Earth must always be assumed in order to arrive at a correct understanding of actions that annoy proper people.

    Hysteria sells while You Know Who solidifies his iron rule in the U.S. and the Son of Satan commands the revanchist, Russian rabble. When the Apple fell on Mr. Newton’s head the end result was apparently not any Enlightenment but an odd, twisted, societal, mental sabbatical lasting for centuries.

  3. This is an entertaining article but unfortunately something much worse, and extremely significant, happened when Trump accepted Flynn’s resignation. Flynn, who was the cornerstone of Trump’s foreign policy is no longer around and this may mean Trump finally caved in to the deep state. It is his Obama moment, recall when Obama hypocritically denounced his friend and pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. Today, Trump revealed his true face.

    More here on this:
    http://thesaker.is/the-neocons-and-the-deep-state-have-neutered-the-trump-presidency-its-over-folks/

    • Here’s an enlightening quote from your article:
      “In order to defeat Trump, the US deep state has had to terribly weaken the US and the AngloZionist Empire…”

      Oops.
      What’s the AngloZionist Empire? Well, it seems to be saying an organized Jewish conspiracy.

      Back to the point, Flynn either lied to VP Pence or misrepresented the situation. Pence made a public statement supporting Flynn and ended up with egg on his face. You don’t do that to your bosses.

      Let’s apply Occam’s Razor. Flynn gives Pence, a key Trump co-executive, misleading information that Pence used publicly and had to walk back publicly. So, did Flynn resign because of a deep, neocon conspiracy, or because Flynn publicly embarrassed his boss?

      • Ah,the voice of reason. I’m so glad you’re here to provide another perspective. I think Flynn simply forgot what he said to Pence vs what he said to whatever Russian he talked to. A forgivable offense in real life, but NEVER in politics.

      • @RonaldB

        As Dymphna says, you are “the voice of reason” so I guess that settles it then, and implies I suppose that my perspective is not reasonable. Kind of funny.

        You wrote, “Well, it seems to be saying an organized Jewish conspiracy.” Really? It had nothing to do you’re your point nevertheless what do you mean by that? And how did you come to that conclusion? Also you then applyied Occam’s razor – a lazy way to throw a wrench around, as if it’s an either-or argument.

        Until lately I was cautiously optimistic about Trump and wished him the best. What I hoped were improved US/Russia relations were dashed with Flynn’s sacking, his surrendering to the deep state. Europeans over here are just as ignorant… and Russophobic, because imagine, Trump actually expecting Russia to hand Crimea over to the Ukraine when it has belonged to them for 300 years. It’s would be like Mexico asking for its territory back. It won’t happen. I don’t claim to draw any definitive conclusions but some parts of Trump’s White House is beginning to look like Obama never left.

    • I pray you’re wrong…Flynn may have taken the hemlock but he will not remain quiet…WaPo broke this CIA-sponsored story and I’m told Bezos (the owner) has some kind of commercial relationship with the CIA, though I don’t know for sure that is the case. This smells.

    • Oh wait. It might not be quite over. Look at THIS 2013 report from The Nation, of all places:

      It’s been a rough couple days for The Washington Post. Word emerged that hackers invaded its internal system—for a few days, no less—all of its staffers had to change their passwords as the company tried to figure out how much data had been compromised.

      Meanwhile, a petition campaign was launched related to news that Amazon, under the Post’s new owner, Jeff Bezos, recently secured a $600 million contract from the CIA. That’s at least twice what Bezos paid for the Post this year. Bezos recently disclosed that the company’s Web-services business is building a “private cloud” for the CIA to use for its data needs.

      Critics charge that, at a minimum, the Post needs to disclose its CIA link whenever it reports on the agency. Over 15,000 have signed the petition this week hosted by RootsAction.

      In a statement released by the Institute for Public Accuracy, media writer/author Robert McChesney observes:

      When the main shareholder in one of the very largest corporations in the world benefits from a massive contract with the CIA on the one hand, and that same billionaire owns the Washington Post on the other hand, there are serious problems. The Post is unquestionably the political paper of record in the United States, and how it covers governance sets the agenda for the balance of the news media. Citizens need to know about this conflict of interest in the columns of the Post itself.

      If some official enemy of the United States had a comparable situation—say the owner of the dominant newspaper in Caracas was getting $600 million in secretive contracts from the Maduro government—the Post itself would lead the howling chorus impaling that newspaper and that government for making a mockery of a free press. It is time for the Post to take a dose of its own medicine.”

      https://www.thenation.com/article/amazon-washington-post-and-600-million-cia-contract/

      So Bezos uses anonymous tips from CIA even now?

      Another link:

      https://consortiumnews.com/2014/02/21/amazons-marriage-to-the-cia/

      Another:

      http://tennesseewatchman.com/2017/02/14/why-the-cia-wants-to-destroy-flynn/

      Want to search it – probably use something other than Google or be prepared to drill down a few pages. But the search terms would be Bezos, Washington Post, CIA, 600 million contract, Mike Flynn.

      Look under all the rocks.

  4. I hope the “low information voters” who are now becoming “informed” don’t ruin all the good work done by LePen and AFD to try and get out of the EU and get rid of Merkel by voting. In the past they were completely oblivious to real issues, now they are badly informed. CNN and ZDF etc are not going to inform these people.

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