America, Please Return to the International Community!
Make America cool again.
I cannot speak for all Germans, and certainly not for all Europeans, but I am firmly convinced that most people in Europe wish back the America we knew before Donald Trump.
Sure, you were never perfect. You were always a touch too imperialist, too capitalist, and too bigoted. But no country in the world can expect one hundred percent approval everywhere and always. So, no offense, America.
But let’s look at what America has become under Donald Trump from a European point of view. Above all, Europeans no longer felt like an equal partner in international cooperation. Trump regarded Europe, and Germany in particular, as his sole opponent. He wanted to dictate to us how much of our gross domestic product we should invest in armaments, how we should organize our foreign trade, and which states we should punish with sanctions.
Moreover, he missed no opportunity to make the rest of the world understand that America does not need anyone. That’s why he canceled the Paris Climate Protection Agreement, stopped his payments to the WHO, and terminated international trade agreements.
America first became a mantra to show the rest of the world that America wants power and influence, but no one is willing to bear the resulting responsibility.
When I was young, America was cool
American movies and music influenced my generation and the generation before that more than anything else. If a band or movie didn’t come from the USA, it just couldn’t be good.
America brought Rock’n Roll to the world. That alone says it all. Europe, and especially Germany, was in a state of stuffy morals and conservatism after the war until well into the twentieth century’s sixties. First rock’n roll and then America’s flower power movement shook up the German and European youth.
It was suddenly cool to be a rebel, question the traditional, and imagine a golden future that could function according to entirely different, more humane principles.
The screen’s glamorous heroes and the perfection of the American entertainment industry took a boy like me’s breath away whenever I was confronted with them. When I compared American television with German stations’ musty productions, I thought that if I didn’t want to spend my life in monotony and boredom, I had to go to America later.
And again and again the music. If you founded a school band in Germany, you had to sing in English. Otherwise, nobody would have wanted to listen to you. Today there is a lot of good German music, but we learned everything from American artists.
The western world seemed to have a purely American DNA for decades. It’s hard to imagine that this could change one day.
Today, young people in Europe turn to Asian bands and celebrate the artists from their own countries and neighboring European countries. American music still leads the way, but it no longer has the touch of the provocative and progressive for the youth.
Transatlantic Friendship
In particular, we Germans have never forgotten that it was America that helped us get back on our feet after the war, both economically and politically. Of course, America did not do this out of sheer sympathy for the German people. Indeed, strategic and economic considerations played the most prominent part in initiating a Marshall Plan and giving back state sovereignty to Germany.
But that was not the whole story. Had it not been for America’s unshakable belief in democracy, human rights, and the international community, Europe’s history could have been very different.
The transatlantic friendship between America and Western Europe has always been based on shared values, and America practically invented those values.
In my opinion, the USA has betrayed all the values that once made the country great and powerful. Cooperation has been replaced by struggle and freedom and truthfulness by repression and lies.
But the worst thing was turning away from the scientific world view. Western culture is primarily based on the consequences of the scientific revolution and the secularization of the state. Trump, on the other hand, has only mockery and ridicule for science. Science produces insights that come as close as possible to the truth. But the truth is Trump’s enemy.
Why I publish this article only now
Although my words are only read by a few hundred people, I still believe in the principle that as a foreigner, I should not interfere in another nation’s election decision by trying to influence the election with words.
Today, at this hour, most Americans have already cast their votes. So now I can make my point of view known without being accused of interfering in elections that are none of my business.
Nevertheless, I felt the need to say something from a European and German perspective about the most important election ever held in the United States of America.
From the standpoint of climate protection, world peace, and the functioning of international alliances, this election is not only so enormously crucial for America, but even more so for the rest of the world.
I hope that the Americans have chosen wisely, responsibly, and humbly. I wish for America’s return to the international family of nations. Trump would lead this great country further and further into isolation and alienate its partners.
It would be a tragedy for the world if it came to this.
René Junge a published author writing on ILLUMINATION.
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