I am watching German News right now. They are reporting on Trump.

[UCmeNdc]

The ZDF German reporters are saying what a terrible time it is for the United States. They are reporting that Moscow has the Trump tapes. They are reporting that Trump may have things to hide and that is why Trump refused to show his Tax forms.

Now they are showing Trump dodging the CNN questions. The Germans watching TV here with me are laughing at Trump. They think he is stupid. They are especially laughing with Trump giving his "you're fired" line as he leaves the press conference.

The reporter is saying Trump is open to extortion. It is not looking good from here.

Well off to my room. Just could not help attempting to describe how the world sees Trump and the United States now.

[riversedge]

1. Thank you so much. Hope you will continue to report in.

[FSogol]

2. Thanks, G-O-Pee, you've made America a weak laughingstock.

Trumpy has always been a laughingstock.

[calimary]

28. G-O-Pee...

Ouch!




Well, that's a whole new way to look at those folks, isn't it!

[bucolic_frolic]

35. Drain the swamp?

'Drain your bladder'

[stage left]

37. It's a great way to look at them.

Piss ants one and all.

[JudyM]

76. Always trying to make a big splash with their friends.

[Fast Walker 52]

77. GOPee-- that's great! At least we can laugh...

for now

[progressoid]

3. The world is laughing at him.

And it's probably a nervous laugh.

[jonno99]

4. Can you please provide a link? nt

[monmouth4]

7. This was on German tv, doubt there is a link.

[2naSalit]

27. Try this...

http://www.dw.com/en/top-stories/s-9097

And in France...

http://www.france24.com/en/

For starters.

[jonno99]

92. Thanks! nt

[UCmeNdc]

90. This was a regular ZDF nightly news program over regular TV. There is no link.

[BigDemVoter]

5. How humiliating that we have this fat asshole as our President Elect.

We will never, never, never, never live this down. And we don't deserve to ever live it down. The country elected this asshat, although it WAS rigged. . . . The rest of the world doesn't see it that way. They only see it as those shallow fucking Americans have done it again and elected the most incompetent person they could possibly find.

[Phoenix61]

6. And we wonder why

they don't like Americans. Sheesh, I'm not real thrilled with us right now.

[milestogo]

8. Even Africa is laughing at us.

[get the red out]

9. Same here

[whathehell]

13. Given Germany's history..

I'm not sure it's in the best position to criticize....

[FSogol]

17. Perhaps, but I might trust Germany circa 2017 over Trumpy and Company.

[whathehell]

18. I'd pretty much trust anyone 2017 over Trump..

[DFW]

20. Yes, they are

They have been to the bottom of the abyss. We have not yet hit the bottom (give is another month).

I live in Germany, married to a German woman. The chances of a Trump being Chancellor are exactly zero.

[whathehell]

52. Only with abbreviated memories,..The fact is, they brought

Last edited Thu Jan 12, 2017, 08:29 AM - Edit history (1)

that 'abyss'' on themselves, not to mention the rest of the world.

The chance of Trump, awful as he is, being able to replicate their horror in America is zero as well.

By the way, I understand that Mein Kampf.has been on the best seller list in Germany for at least two years. Interesting development.
..

[Fast Walker 52]

79. why do you say that-- zero chance?

[DFW]

83. I say that because

I have lived in Germany for years, speak the language fluently, am married to a German and almost all of my best friends are German. I travel expensively throughout the country and talk to people of all political persuasions. It is nearly impossible to find ANYONE who thinks that Trump is any kind of a leader, or is the kind of person they want on their political scene. It is just about impossible to find anyone there who thinks Trump is something positive for the United States, Europe, NATO or the world. Germany has no flyover country. You can go from one end to the other by train, in any direction, leaving at breakfast, and be at the other end of the country before midnight, usually in time for dinner.

Today's Germany is comprised of people who are basically pacifist in political leaning, being obliged, from elementary school on, to learn what happened in the 1930s and 1940s. My girls were born there, grew up as Germans (only exception--we raised them bilingually so they would have no communication issues when visiting the USA), went to the Anne Frank Elementary School, which was purposely so named because the Gestapo had used it as their local building during the Nazi era.

If someone has lived in Germany for as long as I have and speaks the language as well as I do and wants to relate a totally different impression, I'm open to hearing it, but if someone wants to refute my observations with second-hand information, please don't bother. I had relatives who perished in the Holocaust, too, have plenty of Epsteins and Goodmans in the family. If had obsessed with that all my life, I wouldn't have had a 42 year relationship with a beautiful fabulous German woman, two of the coolest daughters a man could wish for, or some of the most loyal friends anyone could have anywhere. Of course, being from Texas, no one has to explain to me what it means to be under a blanket condemnation for nothing more evil than the address on my driver's license.

[Fast Walker 52]

86. I understand that you know germany very well and that's great-- nothing against you

but I still don't understand why you think Trump couldn't take over more power here.

[Crunchy Frog]

68. You mean the historical events that ended over 70 years ago?

And given our own country's history, (slavery, genocide, other shit) have we ever been in a position to criticize either?

[whathehell]

88. No, I'm talking about the lingering effects of such a monstrous 'historical event'

You might want to ask a Holocaust survivor, and his or her children, whose inherited damage has been confirmed, how "over" it is for them.

After that, you might want to ask yourself why Mein Kamp is on Germany's Best Seller list again.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/02/23/hitlers-mein-kampf-is-now-a-best-seller-in-germany/?utm_term=.4bd9dc495749

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/03/world/europe/germanys-latest-best-seller-a-critical-version-of-mein-kampf.html.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35242523

[tblue37]

71. Given Germany's history, they are more alert to and in guard against the rise

of fascism and neo-Nazis than most--certainly more on guard than the US is!

[Fast Walker 52]

78. EXACTLY!

[whathehell]

81. They should be..

but they could also be overensitive in seeing it in America too.

Please remember, and perhaps remind them, that Trump LOST the popular vote by the widest margin of any president elect in our history.

[whathehell]

14. Yes, because they've always make such wise political choices..

Read the history of Europe in the first half of the 20th century. ...

[DFW]

21. Read the history of the world since 1980

Reagan, Cheney, Trump. We don't have a lot of finger-pointing to do.

[raging moderate]

23. Also, some wealthy Americans aided Hitler's rise.

I can't remember exactly where I read this, so it is uncertain, at least in the details. Some American Nazi types are said to have secretly bankrolled him. Some folks at IBM are said to have helped him set up surveillance and data processing systems. I read that at some point a little later some American Nazi types traveled to Germany to rejoice and consult with Hitler about taking over the US, but he rebuffed them in fear that the connection might become widely known.

[LisaM]

29. Not just Americans, British, too.

There was a large contingency working hard to prevent World War II because of their business interests for a long time.

[mitch96]

38. None other than Prescott Bush, Henry Ford and the American Liberty League

They loved hitler because he was pro business... think Krupps Bosch Seimens Benz, VW. Ford helped the nazis with their assembly line production and Prescott Bush helped with the bankroll. These assholes wanted to over throw Roosevelt in a coup and tried to get decorated General Smedly Butler to attack Washington DC with 500,000 troops but Butler did not do it.. I think he spilled the beans to Roosevelt and put these guys backs against the wall and testified to congress about the matter..

Rumor has it that Roosevelt told the members of congress if they did not pass his social security bill he would have them charged and shot for treason and insurrection..
Needless to say Roosevelt turned lemons into lemonade and got Social security passed...
(as Churchill said "never let a good crisis go to waste&quot
From what I've read, all this information.. albeit sanitized by 1930's standards is in the library of congress under the McCormick-Dickstein committee. I first heard about it on a BBC radio program.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007tbs0

As the saying goes, if we don't learn from history we are bound to repeat it..
m

[Crash2Parties]

42. You mean like GW Bush's grandfather?

[Grey Lemercier]

60. Yes, the bank he worked for was like the Goldman Sachs of the 1930's

Brown Brothers Harriman

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Brothers_Harriman_%26_Co.

Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. (BBH) is the oldest and largest private bank in the United States. In 1931, the merger of Brown Brothers & Co. (founded in 1818) and Harriman Brothers & Co. formed the current BBH.

Brown Brothers Harriman is also notable for the number of influential American politicians, government appointees, and Cabinet members who have worked at the company, such as W. Averell Harriman, Prescott Bush, Robert A. Lovett, Richard W. Fisher, Robert Roosa, and Alan Greenspan.

[hedda_foil]

45. Ah the things you will learn here, grasshopper.

The Bush fingerprints are all over the Nazi rise to power. Look up Brown Brothers Harriman, Nazis in Google. But many more industrialists were right in there with them, so keep digging. The piece de resistance is Prescott Bush's indictment for trading with the enemy in wartime, courtesy of DUer Dems Will Win from DU 1 or maybe 2.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132xcoo581610

[area51]

47. There's a book about IBM helping the nazis.

Wiki article on the book.

[Crunchy Frog]

70. The Nazis got their ideas about eugenics from America.

We were enthusiastic proponents in the early 20th C.

[whathehell]

51. I don't have to -- I've lived it.

which is more than many of our younger DUers can say.

[Cha]

53. Germany tried to warn us in January 2016

Donald Trump Is the World's Most Dangerous Man

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/donald-trump-is-the-most-dangerous-man-in-the-world-a-1075060.html

[hadEnuf]

25. We should include the reading of American history of that era too.

Tens of thousands of American casualties trying to rid Germany of their dictator.

Then 71 years later, we elect a man like Trump.

It's understandable why today's Germans are dismayed at us.

[whathehell]

54. You're speaking of the half million Americans who died on European soil

fighting both of their wars in the first half of the 20th century?

Germany's dismay is understandable to the extent they realize that the majority of Americans did NOT vote for him,
and that the margin of his popular loss was y 2.8 million.

[hadEnuf]

73. Yes.

And also that we are possibly allowing what happened to Germans in 1933 to now happen to us in a way.

Given the history of the fist half of the 20th century, how can Americans NOT know better than to put a man like Trump into office?

[LanternWaste]

58. You appear to predicate your entire narrative on one period

You appear to predicate your entire narrative on one period-- a two generation removed, 79 year old conflict which has been wholly resolved. Is one then going to pretend the Franco-Prussian War, the Hundreds Year War, the Crusades, in and of themselves, are a valid reason in the here and now to dismiss a policy?

It is irrational to believe wisdom is denied to a nation due to one instance, else we'd be compelled to apply the same standard to you and the logical fallacy your using. No doubt, your bias requires you to use the fallacy, which may be a wee hint you should re-visit and re-examine your bias.

[whathehell]

59. "a 79 year old 'conflict' 'which has been wholly resolved" ?

Is that how you would describe World War II? One little 'conflict" with a genocide of six million added to the miillions in war casualties?

Ask surviving Holocaust victims AND their children whose inherited damage has been confirmed, how "wholly resolved" it is.

[hadEnuf]

74. Many of the scars from Nazi Germany are still here and will be for a long time.

And Germany of today is still fighting to crush any resurgence of Nazism tooth and nail. America helped teach them to do that.

Again, one can understand Germany's dismay at us letting a person like Trump get presidential power.

[whathehell]

80. Yes they are and, again, their "dismay" is

valid only to the extent that they understand the electoral college and the fact that Americans by a large majority, did NOT vote for him.

[hadEnuf]

84. Do you think Germany has learned from the Nazi years?

I would think they know a dictator when they see one (??)

[Big_K]

16. Hey, Hey, Hey now,

Let's not fat shame. Asshole shaming, however, I endorse with all of my 226 pounds. Or 226 stone. Or 226 kilograms. Or 226 centimeters.

(Learning the metric system for soon-to-be get-the-F-out-of-here sometime after January 20 one-way trip SOMEWHERE).

[calimary]

30. Welcome to DU, both of you - Big_K and hadEnuf!

The Donald has a way of bringing out the worst in people. It continues to be proven.

[HurricaneWarning]

36. I wish there were a like button. I'd click it.

[Crash2Parties]

43. Thank you. I'm tired of us being as bad as Trump & friends when it comes to that stuff.

[BigDemVoter]

85. Good Point-- thanks!

I'm certainly not anybody to be pointing fingers either!

[Tatiana]

72. The world is laughing at us. Or working on stockpiling nukes...

I never thought I'd live to see a day like this. Oh well, I guess you reap what you sow...

[Wellstone ruled]

10. Oh boy,

this is not going to end well for sure if the German media starts to tease the Golden Urinator.

[MontanaMama]

11. Holy hell! Golden Urinator!!!!! Bwaaahaaaahaaa!

That made my whole damned day. Thank you Wellstone ruled.

"I am the best urinator! The BEST! Belieeeeeeve me."

[Wellstone ruled]

12. Got a million of em'

shows at 7 and 9. He he.

[not fooled]

39. My favorite

"Urine big trouble, Don"

saw variants in multiple places so credit goes to others.

[Maynar]

40. I'll be sure to

tip your waitress.

[Wellstone ruled]

41. I did as I went dribbling out the back door.

[alfredo]

15. From der Spiegel

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/donald-trump-angela-merkel-anticipates-frosty-relations-with-u-s-a-1128442.html

Markel has a rather dark opinion of Trump.

[whathehell]

55. I think you mean..

"Merkel".

[alfredo]

82. Merkin?

[whathehell]

87. Try an "L" at the end..

There you go -- Remedial reading course averted.

[alfredo]

89. Merkinl? My spellcheck just tore an ACL

[whathehell]

93. Lame

Bye.

[alfredo]

94. I would just slow you done. I'll do fine out here eating roots and berries until I can travel.

[triron]

19. I don't think this

nation can have much credence anymore as being the beacon of hope
and a 'shining example of democracy'. NOT.

[raccoon]

22. thanks. keep us posted. nt

[Thinkingabout]

24. The comedians has had eight years of drought, now the flood comes. Jokes will be fast

and furious, then the next day all hell breaks loose in tweets, love seeing Trump angry.

[riversedge]

26. Know what you mean. I love seeing people get under Trumpies thin skin.

[world wide wally]

33. Was that a pun?

(Flood of jokes)

[Ligyron]

62. Oh, you're bad

[barbtries]

31. thank you.

will they be sending in rescue parties for the sane among us?

[kimbutgar]

34. I heard him say the foreign countries will respect the US when he is President.

When in fact he has made us a laughing stock and foreign leaders are going to snub him disrectly. The only friend he has is Putin and Netanyahu.

[Doreen]

44. My German boyfriend said his family and friends in

Germany think we did not learn from their mistake and now we have our Hitler. I must agree with them.

[whathehell]

56. Nonsense..

Trump s no Hitler, and awful as he is, it's ridiculous to be jumping that gun as he's not even been inaugurated yet.

By the way,, you might remind your friends we not only "learned" from their mistake, we died helping them correctl it.

[Mc Mike]

63. Nonsense..

He'll certainly do until a 'real' one comes along, your vaporous bald assertion to the contrary notwithstanding.

By the way,, you might want to not be so impolite to someone who's just relaying a personal observation you disagree with.

[NewDealDemocrat]

46. Thank you!

[LittleGirl]

49. Welcome to DU

Wow, one post! I hope you like it here. I love your user name!

[NewDealDemocrat]

65. Thanks for making me welcome!

[yuiyoshida]

48. I like to watch NHK for obvious reasons...

[argyl]

50. I got back from Thailand about two weeks ago from a four week vacation.

The Thais were polite and didn't have much to say about the tub of orange goo unless someone,often me, brought him up, and even then didn't excessively berate him. It's just their nature.

I was there shortly after Dubya was elected and the Western tourists, primarily European,Australian,New Zealanders, and a few South Americans, were really boisterous and carousing with their contempt and overall low opinion of the man and I was only too happy to join in.

This time,however, the mood was quite somber. If Trump's name was brought up at all it was usually by me and the responses were of sheer comptempt,apprehension,and fear. These are Western Europeans,some of our closest allies,and they feared the creature foisted on us as our president.

I don't blame them,I feel the same way. Other than that Thailand was gorgeous,as always.

[Vinca]

57. Tip for everyone: keep your passports current.

[Javaman]

61. we are a cartoon democracy with daffy duck as the president. nt

[hells]

64. I guess it's time

for the Russian propaganda machine to target Germany.

[Crunchy Frog]

66. You're so lucky to be able to get real news.

[dlk]

67. Republicans Have Made the United States the Laughingstock of the World

In their quest to win at all costs and blinded by their zealotry, Republicans have made the United States the laughingstock of the world. Their extremist policies only benefit their billionaire overlords, with the remainder of our citizens are left hung out to dry. Sad to say, their 40-year war on public education, coupled with their ongoing, broad-based propaganda programs have succeeded. We have all lost because of it. It will take generations of work to recover, if ever.

[lark]

69. Sadly, it's worse than even they think.

Just like shrub almost destroyed the economy of the world, Drumpf wants to actually take us down for the benefit of the oligarchs, especially Russian oligarchs. He personally will profit greatly from our destruction, which is the reason he's president in the first place.

[Fast Walker 52]

75. we are so screwed and most people won't realize until it's far too late

[MADem]

91. Please keep the coverage coming.

Any time there's a significant response or "attitude" from a major ally, it's heartening to hear.

Glad to know we're not alone in our disdain for this perverted pretender.

[JoshinUtah]

95. "They think he is stupid."

Who doesn't?