It's too bad that
Mitt Romney didn't win. If the Republicans had won, we could finally have known
for sure that our suspicion of America's imminent demise is correct. "Four
more years," translated into the German viewpoint means little more than a
"four-year reprieve."
For the
über-watchful among us, the signs of the downfall are obvious. One must only
take a look at the condition of the streets (every fourth bridge is
crumbling!), or the entirely outdated power grid, to come to the conclusion
that this country has its future behind it. A nation that has its utility lines
hanging from poles in the street, instead of burying them in an orderly fashion
underground, cannot really be taken seriously.
With a bit of
luck, the specter across the Atlantic might even take care of itself. It can't
be ruled out. When they are not shooting each other or being fried by dangling
power lines then the Americans might simply pop. Two out of every three US
citizens are overweight, or even obese! Every child in Germany knows the
numbers.
There is hardly an
issue about which Germans as so united as they are by their desire to see
America on its knees. It unites both the left and the right. Wherever they
look, they see decay, a lack of culture and ignorance. "A perverse mixture
of irresponsibility, greed, and religious zealotry," as my adversary,
columnist Jacob Augstein, furiously argued on Monday.
A Blessing to Live
in Germany
What a blessing it
is, one must conclude, to live in Germany, a country where the highways are
regularly repaired and the washing machines use so little water that one could
water the entire Sahara with what is left over. In which citizens' initiatives
are formed against McDonald's, and two-bit crime dramas are considered the
pinnacle of TV entertainment. If the utility poles here were to snap like
toothpicks, then it would be the fault of some natural catastrophe, the likes
of which would make a hurricane seem like a gentle breeze.
I don't want to
sound like a smart aleck, but does anyone remember when, in December 2005, a
surprisingly strong winter storm left 250,000 people in the area surrounding
Münster without power for days? Münster and its environs do not want to rule
the world. But still, it was strange to see the same experts on TV, who two
years prior, during a large power outage on the east coast of the US, had given
their reasons for why something like that could never happen in Germany.
The criticism of
America has always been a bit infantile. One is familiar with the theory from
psychoanalysis, when people talk about transference, or when suppressed
feelings or emotions are overcome by projecting them onto others. It may work
for a while, improving one's feeling of self-worth by devaluing an imagined
adversary. But it always falls short. Which is why the ritual must be
constantly carried out anew.
For as long as I
can remember, America has been on the decline. Already in the 1970s, the
country was doomed, and that was before people like Ronald Reagan or George W.
Bush came to power. In the meantime, Americans brought communism to its knees,
rang in the age of the Internet and revolutionized capitalism several times.
The reality is
that a quarter of global wealth is still created in the United States. They
still have at their command the largest military power on the globe, and will
continue to do so, despite all of the talk of a multi-polar world.
The Infatuation
with Obama
Above all, the
United States remains the largest chosen destination of millions of people in
the world. If they had the choice of where they could live, the majority oddly
enough would not choose the German DIN standard for happiness, but life in New
York or California, where the potholes are as big as gravel pits. That may make
people here want to light as many candles as possible, to pray for the downfall
to finally come.
The childish
excitement over Obama, that once again took hold over Germans during this
election -- fully 93 percent of the country would have voted for him in this
election -- is the flip side of this desire for America's demise. That the
Germans, of all people, should see themselves in a black civil rights attorney
from Chicago can only be explained by the fact that they see him as the
opposite of what they consider to be normal Americans.
Since Obama spoke
to the world in front of the Victory Column in Berlin during his first
presidential campaign in the summer of 2008, he has found a firm place in the
hearts of German citizens. They will always be grateful to him for this honor.
That's why they forgive him for keeping Guantanamo open and for sending out
drones like other people would send postcards.
In the daily Süddeutsche
Zeitung, Andrian Kreye correctly pointed out that for Europe, life with
Republican presidents is usually easier, because the US then takes the
obligations of its alliances seriously.
Obama has no
interest in Europe, and all of his attention goes to Asia. If this president
calls the German chancellor's office, it is only to try to sweet talk her into
finally implementing euro-bonds, so Wall Street can sleep again. But that is
one of those facts that is better to suppress.
Superpowers don't
disappear over the course of years. It takes decades, if not centuries. As
such, the verdict might not arrive for awhile yet. The prophets of doom can continue to hope.
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