WEITERSDORF, Germany — I mentioned in an earlier blog post that I intended to comment on the interest level among Germans in the U.S. election.
I have a pretty good idea of that interest, based in part on a lovely evening my wife and I spent with our friends and their parents.
Gerhard and Gabi are the parents of Alena, one of our hosts in this village near Nuremberg.
My sense from both of them — particularly from Gerhard — is that, yes, by golly, they are mightily interested in the election we’re about to have back home.
Do they totally endorse Hillary Rodham Clinton? I didn’t get that from them. Do they totally fear the election of Donald J. Trump? Um, yes, I did get that feeling.
Gerhard also believes there might be an anti-woman feeling in play in the United States, which could signal a Trump victory in exactly two months.
I sought to tell him tonight over dinner that I didn’t believe the sexist vote was that prevalent back home, that a majority of Americans who bother to vote are going to choose experience and actual knowledge of government over the rhetoric that’s pouring out of Trump’s mouth.
Gerhard, a lifelong journalist who works in Nuremberg, didn’t quite buy into the notion that Trump is going to lose. Gabi, a homemaker in this lovely and oh, so quiet village — which is about a 10-minute train ride from central Nuremberg — was a bit quieter on the subject.
If these two fine folks are indicative of German sentiment — and they seem to be mainstream folks who have carved out a comfortable mainstream life in this rural village — then at least this portion of the rest of the world is watching with great interest in what American voters decide on Nov. 8.
This is the kind of attention that great nations engender — no matter how many times Donald Trump tries to tell us back home that we are no longer a great nation.
