Summary
In her memoir Freedom, Angela Merkel reflects on her misjudgment of Donald Trump, initially treating him as “completely normal” before realizing his emotional nature and authoritarian inclinations.
She recounts his attempts to humiliate her, his zero-sum worldview, and fascination with autocratic leaders like Vladimir Putin.
Merkel also critiques Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord and his hostility toward Germany.
Addressing her legacy, she discusses tensions with Putin over NATO and acknowledges criticism of her reliance on Russian gas and liberal refugee policies.
Lots of critical comments here. Can we just please applaud a politician who -I know, in huge retrospect- admits to her being wrong about something.
Would I rather have politicians who make no mistakes at all? Yes. I just dispise the amount of politicians who never ever own up to their mistakes and keep on vaguely blaming everyone but themselves. It was Trump that exarbated that method (though it had been in use much longer, he just went in more blatantly.)
Lets please celebrate boring, conscientious politicians that own up to their mistakes and instead hate on the ones that get off scott free by lying their asses off. That’d be great
She deserves the criticism, in 16 years she managed to pause time in Germany which is impressive but also created this illusion that that country can forever remain stuck in the 80s and everything will be fine by just doing things the way they have always been done.
That and maintaining the dependence on dictatorships for their energy infrastructure. And the absolutely vindictive policies against Greece which fucked the country badly.
She deserves respect for opening the borders to refugees, I applaud her for that and I wish there would have been more courageous politicians like her, but that doesn’t mean as a politician she was good for Europe in general.
Yup that’s fair. I don’t mean to say she’s above criticism. My point was that a politician able of introspection and able to even accept the concept of their own failure is delightful.
But that’s mainly criticism of all politicians in general than praise of her.
On that I couldn’t agree more with you. Politics have always been sad but imo nowadays our politicians aren’t only by and large bad people (nothing new here), but they’re also terribly incompetent with no visions, no values, but all the confidence in the world on the other hand…
This, we need to be more willing to forgive people when they say “I fucked up.”
Let’s be fair: “I was wrong about the bad nature of somebody else” is pretty much the lowest, mildest, weakest possible form of self-criticism there is, to the point that it’s quite common for posh manipulator types to use “I was wrong about your ,<proceeds to criticized the other person>” format of discourse to criticize others.
I guess she missed the last 30 years of Trumps antics.
I mean, why would she care? He’s was a US business man and she was a German politician. They would have little to no overlap and even when he became president she had more to do than spend the days of would take going over his list of bullshittery. It’s easy to see immediately that he is a terrible person, realizing that he’s quite literally toxic takes actually investing time into.
That’s why you have advisors, secretaries and other people who are there to help you learn about someone without you having to spend days on it. Especially when said someone is a president of an entire country, and a rather important one.
Agreed, and the passing from the article implies that she was prepped and had an idea that he was shitty then realized how terrible a person he is once he met her. He’s in the news so much over the last 8-9 years but before 2015/2016 most people knew fairly little about him unless you read his biography which his biographer has come out and said it’s very sanitized.
One would expect that any competent national leader would’ve requested an intelligence folder about Trum,p at the lastest when he was elected POTUS, and this being Germany, they have the capability to produce one which is very complete and beyond what we common mortals can deduce about the man’s nature.
Whilst a politician in such a high position in a country isn’t necessarilly more capable of analysing things than a common mortal (though it’s logical to expect they’re significantly better at judging people than most, since that’s a requirement in their profession and to reach such a high position they must be top performers at it), they most certainly have access to much better and deeper information than any of us and to people who can do the analysing for them.
Not really, she’s just being political.
If you say “I always knew he was a raging narcissist.” then you clearly had a bias against him, so whatever you say next is just a further expansion of that bias.
If you say “I thought he was normal, but I learned more.” then you went in this with an open mind and people are more likely to listen to what you learned.
ITT: only one person who understands why Merkel would say that she thought Trump was “completely normal”.
Fuck that, be biased against authoritarian bigots
Basically shitty political dialogue where being honest is the worst fucking thing anyone can do even though everyone knows it is bullshit. Humanity is so fucking stupid.
I’m from a country that borders Germany and I don’t think I had any good idea who Donald Trump was before 2015. I may have heard the name at some point, but no more than that.
He was the laughing stock of NY (where he was from). A know racist too.
Ok but as an American he was just some rich guy on tv outside New York. It makes sense Europeans may not know him or might assume it was an act
Yeah, I don’t understand how people can’t see exactly the type of guy he is within seconds of laying eyes on him. He’s not exactly an enigma, it’s all right there in front of you.
Exactly, anyone just now saying “I didn’t know” or “I thought he was normal” is either stupid or trying to cover their ass.
It’s not ‘now’, it’s at the time that he was first elected.
As a German, I despise everything about her party, and I never voted for her - also, I oppose her economical policies (which are just the ones of her party).
But I can absolutely respect her for
- opening the borders to take in Syrian refugees when no one else would have them - against(!) the racist shitheads that form most of her party
- being a rational, calming voice in the center of Europe, and trying to mediate between the US and Russia, instead of making us depend on one of them
Imagine the fat orange turd’s first presidency had already transitioned into a totalitarian regime, and the US had started a war of aggression against Mexico to curb the drug cartels - but committing massive war crimes there. That’d be a really shitty time to be 100% dependent on US & Saudi oil & gas, as many conservative voices in Germany wanted us to be.
uh, that one’s on you, merkel
HOW???
All the PhDs and yet you are trapped in norms & customs of the daily job.
Well that was pretty fucking stupid.
Can we please have her back instead of Merz?
(Never voted for her or her party, never would. But shit is about to hit the fan here way worse than people imagine.)
Merz is going to form a coalition with the SPD and/or the Greens. We’re going to get another 16 years of stagnation, not the fall of the republic.
In 25. In 29 he’ll shamelessly go with the Nazis, mark my words. He’s already talking like they did 5 years ago.
I also wouldn’t put it past him to copy Voigt, call a vote on certain things and act all surprised when the AfD helps him win against his “partner”.
how tho?
Angela Merkel’s first mistake with Donald Trump, she says in her keenly awaited new memoir, was treating him as if he were “completely normal”, but she quickly learned of his “emotional” nature and soft spot for authoritarians and tyrants.
like everyone else around him. clickbait
Please explain how that makes it clickbait
“Look at that naïve idiot Merkel, she thought trump was normal”. No, she started trying to treat him as normal guy, but quickly found otherwise.
That is at best a misleading title and at worst ragebait.
It isn’t a ragebait just because you are raging for no reason. That line is in the article, it is in the book. It isn’t clickbait by definition.
was treating him as if he were “completely normal”, but she quickly learned of his “emotional” nature and soft spot for authoritarians and tyrants.
According to the first paragraph of the article, the opposite of the headline happened. She never “mistook” him for normal.
