Notes

The word “fat” is a slight, and has now been replaced by the vague phrase “plus size.” But plus to what size? By that definition, “size” is the norm, and women (and I say women, because I’ve never heard men being called plus size) who fall outside this “size” range are the exception. The average American woman is a size 16, and it’s confusing that fashion labels and designers continue to use “plus size” to describe what is the rule. If anything, those models on their catwalks should be called “minus size.” (If minus size sounds ridiculous to you, so should plus size.)

In Nigeria, though, fat is just another neutral adjective used in the same manner as short, tall, slim, or dark. In contrast with American culture, women with large hips and thick thighs are celebrated and regarded as the norm. Which is why hip-less women like me—women who are slimmer than the national average—get teased. I’ve been called skinny (lepka, in local parlance) and I’ve had people, mostly women, tell me to put on weight because men prefer women with curves, as if satisfying the male gaze is a legitimate goal I should strive for.

Still, while I’d prefer not to hear such remarks, I know not to raise hell over it, because in the grand scheme of things it’s not worth my time or energy. It doesn’t have an impact on my life, unlike the menace of traditional gender roles.

Speaking of gender roles, the outcry by non-binary people in America who want to be referred to as “ze,” “sie,” “hir,” “co,” or “they” seems misplaced. Surely, we all want to be free from the constraints of gender and be recognised as human beings with individuals with distinct tastes and preferences, but using confusing pronouns or identifiers doesn’t solve the bias. (Imagine the confusion it would cause if, in the aftermath of a terror attack, law enforcement officers use “zie” or “co” to describe the suspect-at-large.) Traditional pronouns exist because human physiognomy is either female or a male. As such, shirking them is unlikely to bring relief, since their implicit meanings and the baggage they bare will still be applied to non-binary people based on how they look.

Another curious word making the rounds in American culture is cultural appropriation. I remember my bemusement at the story about the black women who had confronted a white man over his dreadlocks, accusing him of appropriating black culture. Now, if a white person choose to twist and leave their hair uncombed for years, I don’t see that as a problem, especially since black women have no qualms attaching Peruvian, Indian, and Brazilian hair to their heads.

And if black fashion designers, like British-Ghanaian Ozwald Boateng, can make money off Western-styled clothing, why can’t Marc Jacobs’ white models rock dreadlocks on the catwalk? Granted, white America continues to view blacks with dreadlocks as untidy, weed-smokers, and unprofessional, but decrying whites who want to rock the style is as ineffective in the fight against prejudice as trigger warnings. Most of us wear jeans, but when was the last time any construction worker or person with the same complexion as Levi Straus and Jacob W. Davis cry cultural appropriation?

Like bed bugs, trigger warnings and microaggressions have infested colleges all across America. With professors now duty-bound to warn thin-skinned students about offensive texts before proceeding with their lectures, one has to wonder if this is a conspiracy to create a generation of Trumps, who would protest every slight, both real and perceived, and demand their fragile egos be stroked and coddled at all times.

To my mind, microaggression is the PC term for intolerance. It is a word that lily-livered students have used to bar people with contrary views from speaking on campuses or silence differing opinions in lecture theatres. It is also another meaningless word minimizing the pain and horrors of prejudice because there’s nothing “micro” about prejudice. If something is racist or sexist, whether it’s covert or apparent, call it by its name.

Choosing to see injustice in everything is a mark of low self-esteem and victimhood. Power is choosing not to react in the way the offender intended. It means learning to differentiate between thoughtless jibes and nefarious actions and policies, and knowing where to invest one’s energies. Because senseless indignation is just that: senseless.

Update from another Nigerian reader, Abimbola, who is worried about our safety, not safe spaces:

I currently live in Lagos, Nigeria, and I believe in American democracy because I consider it to be sweet and fair. The Obama administration has been successful in upholding the core values of the States: freedom and unification of all peoples. However, the results of the recent polls have left me traumatized because of all the prejudice and bullying going on (before and after the polls). The ugly meme of bullying was instrumental to the success of the GOP. I fear that bullying and violence will continue to be employed more than ever as a means to a destructive end.

Another reader, Ebuka:

I am proudly Nigerian, not American, and I have personally loved the Clintons since Bill’s Presidency in my childhood. I supported and rooted for Hillary instead of Donald Trump, who I felt was not prepared to lead. The Donald lost all three debates, which I stayed awake to watch, but he managed to nip the electoral college due to the very divisive political rhetoric he championed focused on protectionism and anti-globalisation, thus awakening the angry nature of the majority of the electorate in decisive states.

I have great respect and admiration for President Obama and see him as the most popular icon of the 21st Century and a role model for African leaders, the black race, and the world at large. (I am biased in my assessment of him, as I was one of the beneficiaries of his flagship Young African Leaders Initiative, now the Mandela Washington Fellowship.) He has had a scandal free and largely successful Presidency and I wish him, Michelle, and the kids a beautiful life.

The Obama Presidency definitely affected Africa and Nigeria in very specific ways. (America always affects us.) First, the U.S. purchase of Nigerian crude has become negligible in the last few years, and this has impacted every Nigerian (wealthy, middle and low income) through the adverse effect on our exchange rates to the dollar and the unavailability of the greenback for various transactions which feed our import dependent lifestyle. Obama killed oil prices and Trump may bury it further with increased production (shale) and the increased focus on coal as an alternative.

In the area of defence and security, Nigeria citizens continue to suffer somewhat from the effects of the refusal to sell or authorise the purchase of American arms in the fight against Boko Haram. Trump’s policy in this respect remains largely unknown.

In the run up to the 2015 Nigerian Presidential elections, there was also a tacit feeling amongst Nigerians that the Obama administration supported Nigeria’s incumbent President and eventual winner of that election, even though no direct proof of this exists. Nigerians, however, continue to bear the brunt of an inept government which has failed to provide economic leadership and seems bent on settling old political scores. The killing of Shitte Muslims and pro-Biafra protestors in their hundreds is unprecedented and is beginning to attract condemnation from the U.S. Mission and questions from the ICC which is a departure from the past.

Although the trajectory of a Trump Presidency on Nigeria remains largely unknown and is dependent on his choice of Secretary of State, the United States continues to wield considerable influence on Nigeria and must be seen as a force for good for millions of Nigerians in need of a voice against hunger and repression.

One more reader:

I’m Nigerian, a medical student of the University of Ibadan, and in a weird way the American election has always being more fascinating to me and my group of friends than our local election (maybe I live in a bubble but who knows). Election night we stayed up to see the results, fell asleep, and woke up to a Trump win.

But now, I realise I just don’t care because it doesn’t directly affect me. I don’t think America is the best run country—I’m most likely to choose to live in Europe than to live in the USA—but I did hold the USA up as a paragon of democracy, so I never expected Trump to even win, because his rhetoric is completely undemocratic.

The Trump presidency is likely to worsen the African political landscape by legitimizing autocratic regimes. With the caveat being we don’t know how the Trump presidency will turn out, it could also give certain corrupt practices free rein, based on the way Trump’s family and business interests are linked with his presidency. (Note: I always thought tax declarations and creating a blind trust to run your finances were a requirement.) Nigerians look to the USA for an idea of what is politically acceptable, and well, if Trump, does something wrong ...

The second question is the migrants. While Latin America is pictured as Central America in the U.S. media, the Southern Cone is a net receiver of migrants since the XIX century (most emigrants are middle- and upper-class citizens). Residency and a path to citizenship are a constitutional right granted to all people who want to live and work in our soil.

My grandfather’s family escaped Bulgaria before WWII and were rejected in the U.S. because of quotas, so they came to Argentina. Today Argentina is the destination of migrants who don’t take a northern path to the U.S. and the E.U.—a lot of migrants and refugees from Venezuela, Colombia, Haiti, Senegal, Guinea, Peru, Bolivia, and Paraguay. Will this flow increase if the U.S. closes its borders? I predict that it will, since after the E.U. started their Mediterranean operations, more Africans risked an trans-Atlantic voyage to Brazil’s and our shores.

Even without that, politicians and journalist have noticed the success of fact-free xenophobic discourse that Trump mainstreamed, so now it’s expanding. The Senate majority leader for the PJ, Pichetto, is talking about how Peru is sending all their criminals and riff-raff to our country and that must be stopped. Lanata, a prestigious journalist who uncovered the kickbacks scheme of our previous president, Cristina Kirchner, is now filling his show with attacks to immigrants and how they are bankrupting the nation.

So, even before Trump take office, he has already changed our region for the worse.

Update on 9/21: Josh Marshall is on a blog tear over a major office building in Buenos Aires being constructed by Trump and his Argentine partners:

According to a report out of Argentina, when Argentine President Mauricio Macri called President-Elect Trump to congratulate him on his election, Trump asked Macri to deal with the permitting issues that are currently holding up the project. This comes from one of Argentina’s most prominent journalists, Jorge Lanata, in a recent TV appearance.

Both Macri and Trump are categorically denying it. But here’s a bizarre blast from Trump’s past:

As TPM’s Catherine Thompson noted back in August, Macri’s father Franco had dealings with Trump in the early 1980s when the elder Macri (a construction tycoon) tried to break into the New York real estate business. Indeed, things got so intense between Franco Macri and Trump that when Mauricio (the current President) was kidnapped and thrown into a coffin by unknown kidnappers, Franco Macri at first thought Trump was responsible for the kidnapping.

Yes, I’m not kidding about this.

Gone are the days of No Drama Obama.

My colleague Marina has more on “questions over how Trump will keep his business interests separate from his work as president.”

Bom dia, amigos leitores! Esta é a #CapaDoDia do O POVO. Acesse todo nosso conteúdo em https://t.co/2Iw9Zm5EUP pic.twitter.com/fiQEYLK2qI

— O POVO Online (@opovoonline) November 9, 2016

Traveling a bit north to Brazil, we find another reader, Andre:

These past 12 months have been grueling, os maybe talking it out could be a good thing. I’m Brazilian, and though I have had my share of international experience, I never lived in the U.S. I’ve got many American friends and coworkers, and my first boss when I was a trainee was from the U.S. Being a millennial and having grown up in the Information Age also exposed me pretty early on to American culture and values. So I guess I do have some familiarity in the end despite having only been there as a visitor.

I am somewhat removed from what’s happening over there. And yet I have to say that the shocking events of the past few months in U.S. politics have had a much stronger impact on me than I thought it would and, according to friends, should. The growth of populism in the U.S. (and in Europe, as Brexit shows) has been much more disheartening to me than the recent cycle we had in Brazil (and Latin America as a whole) for the past 14 years. Because while populist cycles have come and gone in Latin America, the harm it caused was mostly to itself. Sadly, the harm populism can cause in the heart of a hegemonic power will be felt far from its borders and long after its time.

I may be an exception amongst the educated in Latin America, many of whom look at the U.S. through ideologically tinted glasses, but I do feel America is the single greatest force for good in the world, despite its failings. Modern liberal democracy owes its very existence to the foresight of people such as James Madison, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Ben Franklin. Their system of checks and balances was cleverly designed precisely to hold populistic waves at bay, lest an eventual majority would compromise the rights of future generations. They understood all too well elections in itself don’t make a democracy, as so many buffoons such as Hugo Chavez insisted. It is of utmost importance to put a check on the tyranny of the majority.

Sadly, this whole system was somehow diluted and weakened over the past few decades due to the overreach of executive power overseen by George W. Bush in the wake of 9/11, and it didn’t see enough restraining from Obama in the following years.

I do understand what put Trump in power was the widening income gap between uneducated blue-collar whites and the urban liberal and cosmopolitan elite. I do understand all to well how income inequality is a fertile ground for populism, having witnessed it first hand in Brazil and Latin America. I get the generational divide and economic tectonic shift that left so many behind in rural America. It’s the story of a popular backlash against an out-of-touch establishment, but then again, so was fascism in Europe in the early XX century. In fact, most historic tragedies can be rationally explained. It doesn't make them justifiable.

I am not insensitive to the blue-collar worker's plight, but if you want to justify this, it’s somewhat easy to justify the rise of ISIS on Syria as well. The grievance is legitimate, but it doesn’t make the reaction valid. And that popular reaction in the U.S. has sadly meant an ugly spectacle: xenophobia, racism, sexism, self-righteous anger, and bigotry.

And finally, the death knell of any democratic regime: the end to reasoned debate. Are Trump supporters necessarily xenophobic and sexist? Certainly no. Some are, but I’d like to believe they are a minority. However, it cannot be denied that Trump succeeded in his campaign despite such vitriol. That such ideas have become something to be glossed over in a president to so many Americans is nothing short of a tragedy. The world is a darker, less safe place than I used to think. Maybe I was naive before, but now it’s hard to miss the historical parallels.

Finally, another disturbing consequence of this election is who actually becomes the world’s most powerful man in the end. I have this nagging feeling it’s not really Trump, but Vladimir Putin—a man who is highly intelligent, but also dangerous, and shares none of the values so many in the West have grown to take for granted. The thought of a world in which Putin can move unchecked on smaller states without any opposition from America is frightening.

I may be in Brazil and somewhat geographically removed from all of that, but I care deeply about liberal values, individual rights, and its advancement the world over. The world doesn’t seem to be heading in that direction anymore.

Like most people, we did not pause to reflect on the human factor involved in elections. We did not consider Trump’s aggressive message against the Washington establishment from a white working-class U.S. citizen point of view. And like all the polls, we underestimated the silent Trump supporters who carried him to the Oval Office.

To put it simply, the U.S. works perfectly in the eyes of young Indians, with its lucrative job and business opportunities for the well-educated, liberal, and “Western” culture that most young Indians try to embrace, and the global leadership role the U.S. plays. We never understood the difficulties of middle-class American families faced in getting their kids to college—a privilege that middle-class Indians took for granted. We failed to comprehend that such a significant portion of our high-paying jobs were originally created for U.S. citizens. The cheap technical expertise of Indian college graduates brought millions of jobs to the country at the cost of U.S. jobs. This is all very much true; Donald Trump is not wrong.

A global community based on U.S. post-WWII military alliances was stunned by the very probable withdrawal of U.S. interventionist foreign policy. A nation that nurtured a bipartisan foreign policy to act as the world’s police for several decades was now crawling behind walls and closing its economic borders. A nation to which Indians looked up, a nation which Indian progressives and liberals wanted India to follow, is now taking a step back from global leadership, from standing as a pillar of nuclear non-proliferation, from leading by example in constitutional rights.

It is a gloomy day for our women to watch the great glass ceiling to go unbroken. My mother—who never followed global news enough to properly name the presidential candidates—was disappointed to watch Hillary give her concession speech. Seeing a women finally clinch the U.S. presidency would have been a moment of great satisfaction and motivation that the world’s female community lost to an isolationist America. When the world expected the U.S. to take a step forward, it took ten steps back.

India shares a lot of the populist lack of trust in the incumbent establishment with the U.S. electorate. We want change badly; our scope of progress hinges on it. And yet, this is somehow not the change that we want to see in our country. We want to see India move forward as a global superpower, and this election is going feed the fear of stepping out in Indian citizens, if they even have such a notion. We also share the diverse culture of the U.S., with a large Muslim population that makes us relate to the need for inclusiveness and religious equality that India is struggling to establish.

I am an electrical engineer, to nobody’s surprise, and I believe in the preservation of our environment. Hillary Clinton’s view of the U.S. being the Clean Energy Superpower would have been a defining moment for India, which still fails to implement even the most basic of carbon footprint control measures. It is horrifying to realize that the president-elect of the United States believes that global warming is a hoax created by the Chinese.

To sum it all up, the U.S. just disappointed half the world, including more than half of its voting population.

Another reader in India, Tarun, goes more into the Modi comparisons:

As an Indian national with generally liberal values, this feels like a play by play of the election of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Narendra Modi in 2014, complete with the decent-with-caveats economic performance of the prior government and the seemingly inexplicable anti-establishment sentiment. I attended grad school in Boston, and even in that liberal bastion it was very hard, until six months ago, to explain how demagogic and un-qualified Modi is for the position. I remember the dean referring in his welcome to the opportunities created by Modi’s election, and I remember feeling like he was describing a country I did not recognise.

Please, please, please emphasise to your leaders our lessons after the fact. Despite three years of policy fumbling (especially in foreign policy which has been flat out chaotic) the major opposition—our Congress—has failed to make a coherent case for why they should come back to power. This is not for a lack of hitting the right “liberal” notes. The Congress’ spokespersons speak of globalism, women’s rights and minority rights fluently.

Their liberal bona fides, however, simply do not allow them to escape the fact that their party is built around the Gandhi family, which is their sole fund-raising apparatus and default provider of Prime Ministerial candidates. Inevitably, it is a relationship seeped in corruption and nepotism. When the Democratic Party effectively stepped aside for Mrs. Clinton’s coronation in the primaries, it showed itself to be a similar party.

There is of course plenty of sexism and racism to go around, but there are also enough voters who instinctively abhor such a mentality. Neither Modi nor Trump have won the popular vote nationally. But when liberal parties fall prey to this dynasty mentality, their core democratic populist appeal suffers in a way that conservative “blood-and-steel” appeal does not.

So, as bleak as this sweep looks, I hope American liberals do what Indian liberals have not: use the next four years to build a bench at the lowest levels of government and have them compete without the interference of the Democratic party machinery. The calls for a Michelle Obama candidacy are short-sighted and hypocritical. They are also a disservice to a very intelligent and qualified woman who will conceivably break herself trying to rescue a party unwilling to rebuild at the grassroots.

Thank you for doing a much more responsible job of reporting this election than the Posts Washington and Huffington. Stay safe and free.

A common European army would make so much more sense politically and be more cost-effective as well. We need to emancipate from the U.S. and shape our own, independent foreign and security policy. A Trump presidency could drive this emancipation. Likewise, the protectionist economic agenda bears the potential for companies moving from the U.S. to Europe. But probably, these beneficial ripple effects will fail to materialize.

In the aftermath of Trump’s victory, right-wing anti-globalisation groups already start gaining momentum. After the elections in France, the Netherlands, and Germany in 2017, the reactionary ideology of returning to a pre-globalisation state and implement closed societies could be up for growing political gains. A President Le Pen would be bitterly opposed to any integration of the armies and is also a proponent of economic and cultural isolation. Same goes for Wilders in the Netherlands and that Hampelmann (Jumping Jack) in Austria, whose name I didn’t bother to remember. Those groups will gain ground and drive the old parties to more quickly embrace parts of these reactionary, dangerous and obsolete ideas to hold on to their dwindling power, as they already have before November 8th.

With Trump’s victory, right-wing demagogues in Europe will gain an upswing. Nothing good can come from a Trump presidency for Europe and Germany at this point. I’m really afraid that future historians will look at back to the year 2016 and say “That’s when the whole mess started”—like they said looking back on 1914 or even 1933 (but let’s not exaggerate until we have a good reason for it).

The U.S. is a deeply divided country, just like most parts of the Western world in this day. The overall positive developments of integrating societies, cultures and economies did not reach a large chunk of people who have been forgotten. This is the case everywhere, from Los Angeles to Kaliningrad. There are many deep dividing lines, along cities and the countryside, among race, wealth, religion and education.

From here, the United States don’t look like a coherent nation state. I think it’s time to rethink the political system. Two parties cannot adequately represent the diversity of opinions and people. They just form a wide compromise that nobody is really happy with. To me it seems completely strange, how the loser of the popular vote regularly moves into the White House. At the time of its foundation, the United States had the most advanced political system of the world, but 300 years later, it requires a major overhaul.

Here’s another reader, Angela (not Merkel):

As a German citizen living in Berlin and a political scientist by trade, I am deeply concerned about Donald Trump’s victory. In the evening hours of November 8 (CET), I watched a short segment on CNN International describing the voter turnout at a polling station in Florida. And when I saw the long line of young women and what I believed to be Cuban- or Mexican-Americans waiting patiently to cast their ballot, I went to bed quietly confident that Hillary Clinton would win. Would any of those young women vote for “Grab-them-by-the-…”-Trump?, I wondered to myself. Most certainly not. Would any of those Cuban- or Mexican-Americans vote for a candidate who promised to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it? Most certainly not. And with so many people turning out to vote, I was sure Hillary Clinton would win. So I thought.

When I got up early in the morning on November 9, I realized I was mistaken. Throughout the day, I felt so frustrated and shocked that I couldn’t even bring myself to turn on the TV or the radio; I was still in denial.

Given what the now president-elect has said and done during his campaign, I am afraid that a Trump administration might adversely affect both Europe and Germany. I am afraid that Trump might undo the system of international organizations and alliances as we know it. He has declared NATO, which is a cornerstone of both German and European security, essentially dispensable, while heaping praise on authoritarian leaders. He doesn’t seem to care a lot about the rules which govern international relations and trade and which have served both the U.S. and Germany quite well for 70 years. And I am also afraid that German-American relations might take a turn for the worse as the president-elect has made no secret of his dislike for Angela Merkel and her immigration policy. And the German chancellor doesn’t seem to like Trump very much, either.

With the British Brexit vote in mind, I am amazed by the fact that the predictions of pollsters have been proven wrong once again. I am also quite amazed by the fact that a populist candidate got elected, after a divisive campaign full of brazen lies and insults—though I believe a similar thing might happen in Germany in 2017, when the federal parliament, the Bundestag, is due to be elected. Until then, the right-wing populists of the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland), who have been busy scaremongering ever since the refugee crisis began in autumn 2015, will do their best to spread even more fear of Muslims and Syrian refugees among the German population. I am pretty sure that they will eventually manage to lie their way into parliament.

It is very saddening to see that many Germans are unable or unwilling to recognize the not-so-hidden authoritarianism, antisemitism, and nationalism lurking beneath the AfD’s surface. And it is equally saddening to see that the United States, our friend and partner, whose troops once freed Western Germany from Nazi tyranny, with a democratic tradition so much longer than ours, now has a president-elect who is applauded by white supremacists and former Klansmen and who essentially declared “I alone can fix it” during his convention speech.

This doesn’t bode well for Europe, where right-wing populism has been on the rise in recent years, and it certainly doesn’t bode well for Germany. Right now, I am deeply worried about the future of Germany, the European Union, and the United States of America.

Here’s one more reader, Jörg, in the Frankfurt area. He’s mostly concerned about the environmental impact of a Trump presidency:

The European right-wing populist movements and “parties” and their ignorant and furious followers will see Mr Trump’s rise as a confirmation of their crude and equally ill-informed and mislead opinions—probably not in Germany (there is a hope left that enough people in this country retain a memory of the 1930s), but in France, Netherlands, Denmark, Greece, and others are a different matter. If they fall into the hands of these right-wing populists, Europe is going to lose all of its achievements in freedom, wealth, and true scientific and social enlightenment—in combination with Climate Change that could mean the end of civilisation as we have only just gotten to know it.

And so I come to something—Climate Change—that has great significance to us and should have much more importance to citizens everywhere, including the U.S. of America. The fact that it didn’t come up in any of the three “presidential debates” just proves how far removed you people in America are from the realities in this world.  Trump has clearly no idea what is happening on this planet. No other single issue is going to affect all of us on this scale. All other decisions need to be based on this fast approaching super-crisis.

For reasons too complicated to mention here, European people (at least on the continent; the U.K. is for other complicated reasons a different matter, similar to U.S.) are more aware and better educated about scientific facts. If Trump disrupts the process of international accord on Climate Change—a fragile thing at best anyway—there is no telling what kind of rise of the average temperature will be possible. Time and speed is of the utmost crucial importance here; even a slowing down of the necessary basic structural changes could have terrible consequences. If Trump wants to stay ignorant of some basic facts of the world in which he lives in, on a personal level that is fine with all of us. But as the deciding force and power he represents now, he must grow up and stop his childish (or maybe senile) behaviour.

Now it is time for Europe (and other parts of the world) to fast become assertive, independent, and perhaps even strong. It seems that some of our politicians have seen this coming. Plans for a European army are emerging—a good start. Economy and finance must follow immediately, and a discussion about better and possibly more democratic structure is on the way.

Yes, we all have learned something about democracy from America (as America once learned from Europe). This election has taught us even (and once) more how a democratic system can be corrupted by groups and individuals egocentric enough and opposed to democracy. Thank you, America, for this. We will reflect deeply and thoroughly on this lesson.

Update from another reader, Eva:

Being a German-American (currently visiting my parents in Germany, and hearing/reading the news of both sides every day), David Frum’s article first interested me a great deal. His analysis of language in Merkel’s brief congratulatory statement the morning after the election hooked me. I am a linguist, well aware with practices used in formal statement. My linguistic background, especially the field of pragmatics, makes me a nerd sometime, plucking apart what people said, what they really said while, say, standing in line at the post office.

I was surprised by Frum’s remarks on perhaps Germany turning the tables, and not clinging to traditional positions of power. That it might be perceived as arrogance, or as patronizing. Just something that the U.S. isn’t used to very much.

While I read Frum’s article I thought huh, this is interesting—someone perceiving Merkel this way, from a tiny speech given under circumstances that were terribly uncomfortable. I do think there is some oversensitivity in Frum’s writing. Merkel is not “downgrading” the American-German relationship just because “its ties are deeper than with any country outside of the European Union.” I perceive this to be neutral, or even positively stressing how deep U.S.-German relations are. Perhaps it’s a German thing to always state the obvious the truth, when for many a “fluffing up” of reality as it really is, would be preferable. It really isn’t insulting. It’s the equivalent to you perhaps saying to a very good friend: “you know, after my mom and dad and grandmother and brother, you really are the closest and most important friend I have outside of immediate family.” It’s honest—not downgrading.

The other issue of concern is Merkel offering collaboration based on certain Western values that America and Germany share. They concern democracy, freedom, respect for the rule of law, and the equality of people of all sexes regardless of origin, skin color, creed, gender, sexual orientation, or political views.

Frum is correct to perceive a “conditional” quality here—the two countries operating together as long as their work is based on those values. What crime is there here in Merkel being the one to point out the conditionality? Is it so terrible that a smaller country does not approve of everything and anything in the big and mighty country? Is it hurt pride?

Merkel doesn’t actually say anything here that should cause an outcry. The values she has just mentioned are at the core of U.S. identity. One would expect them to not be removed or broken, or that would mean the States breaking those commitments, or changing them significantly. Which indeed should cause the U.S. to cry out with shock and confusion.

Frankly, the many fabulous things that the U.S. have done for Germany over the course of history don’t really enter here, but Frum brings them up. A good cooperation, a genuine friendship, help that can never be overemphasized, especially in the years after WW2 and during the Cold War. But you can’t argue: we did all this for you for so long, so now you have to play along with whatever because you owe us and owe us forever. The Germans still have a spine and an inherent moral compass. Trump’s many incredibly offensive remarks about different races, and women, do not belong among those “shared values” between the U.S. and Germany.

I think Merkel is not arrogant or cocky. She simply knows—much as many a person enters a marriage—that certain things are desired but not necessary, some necessary at all costs, and some simply a deal breaker. Which of us entering a serious relationship does not have their deal breakers? Someone’s a smoker? Not religious? Not from same ethnic background? Away on his job too much? There are thousands of things that people view as “deal breakers.” It is good to know them in advance, and to stick by them. That is not cocky behavior. That is simply knowing yourself well, and knowing what you can live with in advance. Merkel is simply aware of the deal breakers. Those would be qualities that go against the shared familiar qualities of the West. Racism? Offensive, nonthinking language all the time? Sexist remarks (or even deeds?) I admire when someone knows their deal breakers and sticks by them.

I wanted so much to read more moderate articles, to believe that Trump is not at all bad. Every day I think about it, but it just doesn’t sit right. I can see certain talents and fortes and experience in him, but then moral issues—those of your inbuilt moral compass—just keep popping back up, and they simply are stronger. This president, may you like it or not, will always be the president who wants to grab women by the pussy. That, among other things, will never disappear. It showed his true colors. There are simply are no valid apologies for some of the things he has said.

I wish I could be nicely divided, in a gray area, but this time it doesn’t work that way. I don’t want my spine to bend. I want to listen to my moral compass. I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror without guilt.

Thanks to the EU, I barely recognise the London I originally came to live in, marry, etc. Elites have flushed out much if not most of the happy, mentally healthy British people who used to live/work/play here—replaced by a soul destroying METROPOLIS type society that’s too expensive to live; too depressing to play; but boy oh boy if work is all you live for, this is a form of heaven.

Similarly the EU has banned so many consumer products, replaced by EU standardised second-rate ones, that you get the distinct feeling you’re being set up to become a globalist servant. There’s literally nothing in it for everyday Brits but the destruction of their excellent culture, while getting denigrated constantly by the media.

Then to top it off, the Westminster government has been reduced to servant status itself, since the EU courts decide everything these days. No one even wants to be the prime minister here since Brexit. It’s one big shambles.

That said, I love the Brits, and if history shows us anything, they will come out of this as hilariously awesome as ever.