WEITERSDORF, Germany — It turns out, based on some preliminary conversations with friends, that Germans and Americans are of like minds as it regards the U.S. presidential election.
Hillary Clinton has some baggage.
But it’s light as a feather compared to what Donald J. Trump is lugging around.
Our friends are having trouble understanding — just as many Americans are experiencing — how it is that Trump has managed to score the presidential nomination of a major American political party.
Trump, the Republican nominee, frightens our friend Martin — a journalist who works in Nuremberg. The same can be said of his wife, Alena, who’s also scared at the prospect of a Trump election to the presidency.
Martin asked my wife and me almost immediately upon our arrival to predict the outcome of the presidential election.
“Hillary is going to be elected,” I said, barely drawing a breath.
My friend isn’t so sure. He seems to believe Trump could get elected. I haven’t quite said so out loud, but my own view is that hell would have to freeze over and that the sun would have rise in the west for that to happen.
Martin also wonders whether there is a latent sexist strain among American voters who just do not want a woman to become head of state. “We have Angela Merkel as chancellor,” he said, adding that she’s “universally loathed here,” but said she’s “still the chancellor.” He wonders if Americans are ready to elect a woman.
I said that appears to be a still-largely unspoken element in the U.S. presidential campaign.
Alena echoes her husband’s view regarding Clinton and Trump. She has a bit more hands-on political experience, as she works for a member of the German parliament, helping him write laws and answering constituents’ needs in his office.
I’m going to be visiting during the next few days here with locals, presuming they’re willing to talk to me.
I’ll report to you what I hear from this part of the world about what’s happening back home. Rest assured, as near as I can tell, that Germans seem to be watching with great interest in what’s about to happen in the New World.
Moreover, as Martin said, late-night comics in Germany are having as much fun as our guys are having back home. He mentioned how one of them joked how a President Trump would blast Denmark off the map if the Danes said the wrong thing.
I know, that’s not really a funny thing to consider. Then again …
