Trump apparently plans to move thousands of American troops out of Germany for no reason other than to express his disdain for Europeans in general and the Germans in particular. Why does he feel this way?
Three reasons:
- His grandfather was a German draft dodger. He views his German origins with embarrassment; he even claims to be Swedish on occasion. His contempt for the German government is just another way of denying his roots.
- In his view, the US ultimately lost World War II, because, instead of plundering what was left of Germany and Japan, we welcomed them back as allies and permitted them to become economic competitors. As he sees it, they have been ripping us off for years.
- He despises Angela Merkel. They mix like oil and water. First, she is a woman, and he can’t stand the thought of treating a woman as an equal. Second, she is the superego to his id; she can’t and won’t swagger the way he does. Third, she’s always patronizing and lecturing him about liberal democracy and human rights. He thinks those ideas are just eyewash; that history is made by great men such as himself; that only military and economic power matter in the real world; and that the Europeans use “shared values” as a cover for their mostly successful efforts to steal our wealth and our jobs.
So where would this relationship go in a second term? For that, tune in tomorrow.