What a week. I think that really sums up the political events of the past week. First a US presidential election that destroys my sleep rhythm and ends with it a surprise, and 24 hours later, the German government collapses. I will start with the presidential election.
The 2024 US presidential election
Who would have thought it? The polls in the last days and weeks before the election predicted a close race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, but Trump’s clear victory was quite a surprise. Trump not only has a majority in the Electoral College, but he also clearly won the popular vote with 50.5% to 47.8%. All the important swing states such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, which together with Ohio make up the “Rust Belt”, are now in Republican hands and are likely to cause headaches for the Democratic Party. Overall, it was a surprisingly clear vote for Donald Trump, who was also able to win a majority for the GOP in the House of Representatives and Senate. This means that the Republicans can govern for two years without any problems until the midterm elections.
What can we expect from Donald Trump’s second term in office? I assume that Trump and his team will be much better prepared this time. In 2016, they probably didn’t believe they would win at all and were surprised by the result themselves, and this time they want to avoid another chaotic term in office. A decidedly conservative program with MAGA elements will be pursued, but he will not turn the USA into a dictatorship. In terms of foreign policy, things are likely to become much more unpleasant for Iran and I assume that Israel will be given a free hand in the war against Hamas and Iran and will be openly supported. Regarding NATO, it is likely to be much more unpleasant for the European states, which prefer to inflate their welfare state. Especially Germany will get Trump’s “fire and fury”. Given Germany’s so-called defense policy, this is hardly surprising and to be expected. You can’t skimp the Budget for the Bundeswehr for years, outsource the defense to the US and hand out great social gifts during election campaigns.
The Ukraine policy is likely to be a surprise package. Personally, I honestly don’t believe that he will hand Ukraine over to Russia and I dare to predict that he will even extend his support and sell the whole thing to his voters as part of his plan to make America strong again. But we’ll have to wait and see.
I would like to make this clear on this point:
Donald Trump is not a fascist.
I am aware that Trump as a person is very polarizing and that there are many problematic elements in his character, the Events on Capitol Hill in 2021 is a good example. Nevertheless, it is far too alarmist and too much of a good thing to describe him as a dictator or in the vicinity of actual fascists such as Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini. In my view, that is ignorant and simply not right. Rather, the Democratic Party should ask itself why they became so unattractive that Donald Trump was able to win so clearly. Especially the loss of the Rust Belt should be a disaster for a party that represents workers, among others.
The next four years should be interesting.
The collapse of the traffic light coalition
Well. It is nothing new that the traffic light coalition was not in a good state and that the FDP was threatening to end the coalition every 24 hours, but the speed of events was still surprising. The end of the coalition was heralded by the dismissal of Lindner as finance minister, together with a speech by Olaf Scholz that resembled a reckoning with Lindner as a person. Opinions can be divided about Christian Lindner and his role regarding the debt brake, but I found his speech highly unprofessional and very weak from a human perspective. You can be frustrated about the failure of the coalition, but you don’t settle accounts with another person like that in public. If you have nothing good to say about someone, you keep quiet.
And now the discussion is starting about when there should finally be new elections. Scholz is trying to delay the elections until March to gain momentum from the elections in Hamburg in March 2025. Accordingly, he does not want to call a vote of confidence until January – at the same time, he is calling on the opposition to accept laws passed by the red-green minority government. A bad joke.
My prediction: He will call a vote of confidence in November/December because he doesn’t have a majority for his plans, and we will vote in February