Gordon Repinski

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“Generally It’s A Mistake To Think That Economics Explains Trump”

January 23, 2017 in Excerpts, Politics | Permalink

In an excellent Spiegel Q&A conducted by Christoph Scheuermann and Gordon Repinski, American historian Anne Applebaum analyzes the uncertainty in the West after Brexit and Trump, assigning the latter’s political ascent more to cultural issues than economic ones. That would certainly seem to be the case, as struggling folks in the Rust Belt certainly don’t account for the nearly 63 million votes the new President received. The “Make America Great White Again” message resonated with a surprising number of our citizens clinging to privilege based on race and gender.

While she holds out some hope for democracy, currently under siege by authoritarian-leaning nationalists in the West and China’s rise in the East, Applebaum offers this chilling and appropriate comment: “Steve Bannon, the White House chief strategist, appears to imagine an alliance between Trump, Le Pen, Geert Wilders and Nigel Farage.” The idea of an American President in bed with Putin is bizarre enough, but for Le Pen to be considered part of an inner circle with the U.S. is an affront to all things decent.

An excerpt:

Spiegel:

What are you most afraid of?

Anne Applebaum:

I don’t want to predict calamity. But I am afraid of a new Russian occupation of parts of Eastern Europe. Also of a new Russian campaign to exert influence in Germany or other parts Europe, aimed at making continental politics less democratic. I am afraid of a US trade war and even a shooting war with China.

Spiegel:

Do you think these are things that can happen in the short term?

Anne Applebaum:

Much depends on who wins the arguments inside the administration. James Mattis, the new defense secretary, said he stands behind NATO, 100 percent. If Obama had said this six months ago, we would have considered this a boring statement. That’s how times have changed.

Spiegel:

Trump distrusts traditional media and has created a new kind of public sphere on Twitter. Does this undermine democracy?

Anne Applebaum:

The problem is broader than that. Trump has learned how to function in a world in which people now live in very separate realities, where they get their news from Facebook recommendations and believe in a particular set of facts. Others, who live in a different reality, know quite a different set of facts. He has never tried to reach out to all the American people, he never uses the language of unity, he doesn’t try to charm or persuade. He just says, thanks to the people who voted for me and the rest of you are losers.

Spiegel:

Do you think there is any common ground left between the Trump voters and his opponents?

Anne Applebaum:

Take one relatively trivial issue, the incident when he mocked the disabled reporter on a campaign rally. He keeps saying: “I did not do that,” and there seem to be people who believe that he did not do it. And yet there is a video clip of him doing it. Although that video clip is available, not everybody has seen it or wants to see it.

Spiegel:

Trump especially convinced working class people to vote for him…

Anne Applebaum:

Yes, though the poorest Americans voted for Clinton, many relatively wealthy people voted for Trump and generally it’s a mistake to think that economics explains Trump. The US is doing relatively well, the economy has significantly recovered since 2008, unemployment rates are low. I would say rather that his appeal to the working class was cultural: “I’ll bring back the kinds of jobs your fathers had,” and, by implication, the whiter, simpler post-war world when America had no real economic competition.•

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“It Was An Appearance That Lacked Everything That One Has Come To Expect From U.S. Presidents”

January 18, 2017 in Excerpts, Politics | Permalink

Let me say this one more time as clearly as possible: A 70-year-old sociopath is not going to change for the better, especially when his most disgraceful behavior hasn’t cost him anything in life, has actually helped him.

As someone who grew up in Queens watching the Lampanelli-Mussolini mash-up that is Donald Trump grow increasingly bizarre, belligerent and bigoted, I cringe every time I read or hear that the gravity of the primary, the general election, the White House, will somehow mitigate this man. He’s beyond palliation–far beyond. I joked at one point that Trump might land in the Oval Office or a prison cell, but I thought both were possible. Seems even more likely at this point. 

In the latest puzzling display of surprise over the continued freak show of the Man With No Brain But Two Mouths, a Spiegel article by Markus Feldenkirchen, Thomas Hüetlin, Nils Minkmar and Gordon Repinski carries this display copy: “The hope that Donald Trump might become more presidential as his inauguration approached have proven misguided.” Such hopes will continue to prove so.

Insufficient Dignity

For months, many have been talking about Trump’s lack of maturity and his insufficient dignity for one of the most powerful and honorable political offices in the world. And yet his press conference on Wednesday left even party allies stunned.

He showed himself to be a man with more faith in Russian President Vladimir Putin than in the findings of America’s own intelligence agencies. A man who reacts aggressively to all forms of critique. A man who sought to intimidate CNN reporter Jim Acosta and refused to answer the reporter’s questions because he doesn’t approve of the broadcaster’s coverage.

It was an appearance that lacked everything that one has come to expect from U.S. presidents: self-control, diplomacy, reserve and restraint. He spent much of the press conference praising himself and his team and there wasn’t a moment of irony or self-doubt. Even in the U.S., where referring to one’s own strengths is much more common than it is elsewhere, such a degree of conceit is unusual.

For many, victory is paired with humility. Trump, by contrast, hasn’t passed up a single opportunity since Nov. 8 to boast about his “big” election victory and he continues to cast insults at his defeated opponent Hillary Clinton. Those who thought that Trump’s almost conciliatory Christmas address meant that the president-elect was changing his tune were quickly disabused of that notion.

On the weekend before last, actress Meryl Streep used her speech at the Golden Globes to criticize Trump for his mocking of a physically disabled New York Times reporter during the campaign. The incident was Trump’s revenge against the reporter, who had exposed one of the GOP nominee’s lies. Trump was quick to strike back at Streep. He claimed that he was not making fun of the reporter’s disabilities, even though videos make it clear that that is exactly what he was doing. He then took to Twitter to call Streep “one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood” and “a Hillary flunky.” It was yet another tweet-storm showing how far removed Trump is from reality.

His reactions have become totally predictable, no matter whether he is responding to a perceived slight from an employee, a reporter, an actress or the intelligence community. There is no nuance in his retribution; it is always excessive.

Trump’s behavior can often be reduced to a simple question: Was somebody nice to me or not? It usually doesn’t get much more complex than that. As such, the key to understanding the new U.S. president lies less in his political pledges or in the hopes of his followers and more in the make-up of his personality.•

 

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“You Know, Countries Often Do Such Things”

January 16, 2017 in Excerpts, Politics | Permalink

Having spent several decades profiting from a corrupt system, Newt Gingrich feels it proper to rail against the “elites.” No, not the elites like him–the other elites. They’re terrible!

Gingrich has been selling the same narrative as many on the right, arguing that Hillary Clinton, that snob, lost because she didn’t listen to “real” Americans, mythical creatures he’s heard about on Fox News, though she managed to earn nearly 2.9 million more votes than her opponent, even with the Wikileaks and FBI shenanigans.

Today, he’s the same morally bankrupt policy salesman as he was during the ’90s, when he overlooked his own dicey domestic situation to castigate Bill Clinton for his infidelities and push the Family Values platform. Gingrich has always been very concerned with the plague of our citizens on welfare–working to punish them with particularly Draconian measures–though he’s never seemed particularly bothered by corporate welfare. The Washington lifer has spent his political career trying to take a little more away from people who have the least.

On the same day the President-Elect deemed NATO “obsolete,” Gordon Repinski of Spiegel published an interview with the Former Speaker of the House in which he confidently claimed the U.S. relationship with NATO under the incoming Administration would not change dramatically. Maybe not, but it might be good if these boys could get on the same page.

In the Q&A, Gingrich makes the Trumpian gambit of defending the Russians hacking our elections by criticizing America. Yes, this is the genius who during the 1980s compared President Ronald Reagan to Neville Chamberlain for merely meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev. So fluid are Gingrich’s politics and so often on the wrong side of history.

An excerpt about Trump’s bromance with Vladimir Putin:

Spiegel:

Let’s talk about Russia again: The American intelligence agencies made a clear assessment about Russian disruptions in the U.S. election campaign. Can Washington tolerate this kind of behavior?

Newt Gingrich:

Well, as you know, Obama was even eavesdropping on your chancellor. You know, countries often do such things. I know of nothing the Russians did which had any effect on the American election.

Spiegel:

The Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain have a totally different view on the information and have called for a strong American reaction.

Newt Gingrich:

I’m a little tired of people who have very big moral positions and very small power in reality. I think the cost for taking on the Russians would be very high. I just want to know how they’re going to do it. I don’t see that we would do more than make noise. I think Putin has already gotten used to the idea of Obama and his secretary of state, John Kerry, making noise — it just doesn’t seem to impress Moscow at all.

Spiegel:

Trump frequently mentions his sympathy for Vladimir Putin. Can you describe why Vladimir Putin seems to be so appealing to Donald Trump?

Newt Gingrich:

No, not really. I think he thinks of Putin as being a strong person, and I think he thinks of himself as being a very strong person. But I don’t think in any way that he thinks of the Putin government as a desirable model.•

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“It’s Complicated”

August 27, 2016 in Excerpts, Politics | Permalink

If you’re Hillary Clinton, do you want Paul Wolfowitz’s endorsement? If fits the narrative of strange bedfellows joining in an effort to defeat Donald Trump, a modern medicine show selling poisons. But it also reminds that you backed the invasion of Iraq, the calamity the former Bush adviser helped enact. It’s not likely to make much difference in voting booths, but it is another indication we have an establishment versus insurgent election, with the mutineer an Ahab, horribly ill-suited to steer the ship.

Gordon Repinski’s has a smart Spiegel interview with Wolfowitz, who largely blames the failings of the intelligence community for the invasion and President Obama’s non-interventionist policies for the fall of Syria and the rise of ISIS. It is a selective view of history. An excerpt:

Question:

Recently, 50 former senior Republican security officials declared Donald Trump to be a security risk. Is he?

Paul Wolfowitz:

Yes, he is.

Question:

Why?

Paul Wolfowitz:

He says he admires Putin, that Saddam Hussein was killing terrorists, that the Chinese were impressive because they were tough on Tiananmen Square. That is pretty disturbing.

Question:

Do you think it’s time for people like you to speak out against Trump?

Paul Wolfowitz:

It’s complicated. Trump says that it is precisely we and our policies that are responsible for the mess in Iraq. But I certainly think it’s important to speak up and say how unacceptable he is. I’m always more than willing to do that.

Question:

Are you afraid of the possible consequences a Trump presidency would have on foreign and security policy?

Paul Wolfowitz:

The only way you can be comfortable about Trump’s foreign policy, is to think he doesn’t really mean anything he says. That’s a pretty uncomfortable place to be in. Our security depends on having good relationships with our allies. Trump mainly shows contempt for them. And he seems to be unconcerned about the Russian aggression in Ukraine. By doing this he tells them that they can go ahead and do what they are doing. That is dangerous. …

Question:

Why wasn’t the Republican Party able to stop Donald Trump?

Paul Wolfowitz:

Obviously, there’s unhappiness among the population. The Bernie Sanders phenomenon shows that it’s not confined to Republicans. There is a general sentiment that the country is on the wrong track. Against that background of pessimism, someone like Trump can be successful in getting the nomination.

Question:

Who are you going to vote for in November?

Paul Wolfowitz:

I wish there were somebody I could be comfortable voting for. I might have to vote for Hillary Clinton, even though I have big reservations about her.•

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“Nasty, Ugly, Horrible”

June 6, 2016 in Excerpts, Politics | Permalink

trumpstage

If you want to know anything about American politics, a cable news TV personality may be the last person to ask.

Jake Tapper, who passes for a relatively serious passenger in Jeff Zucker’s clown car of infotainment known as CNN, sat for a Spiegel Q&A conducted by Gordon Repinski and Holger Stark. When Tapper acknowledges some in the U.S. media who’ve interviewed Donald Trump “have let him get away with murder,” he could be speaking of anchors on his own network or Maureen Dowd or anyone with a microphone looking for low-cost content in a terrible advertising environment for media outlets.

It’s a very good, thoughtful interview, though I wish the Spiegel interlocutors had called out Tapper on his statement that “illegal immigration has a huge impact on the American economy.” The suggestion is that undocumented workers have somehow hurt U.S. citizens in the workforce, though most economists would disagree, believing this cheap labor force has actually boosted our economy.

An excerpt:

Spiegel:

What did the media and the political establishment miss over the last few years?

Jake Tapper:

A lot of substantive things that you have to give Trump his due for. On immigration, there is a degree of nativism involved in the demand to construct the wall, but I do think a lot of what’s driving Trump supporters on the issue of illegal immigration and building a wall is a basic duty of a government to keep the nation’s borders under control. Illegal immigration also has a huge impact on the American economy. And a lot of people think that the government has not taken this issue seriously.

Spiegel:

Which other topics are important?

Jake Tapper:

Terrorism and trade policy are clearly topics where Trump expresses the fears and concerns of many American people. There is a widespread feeling in this country that the government has been too willing to go into trade deals that sent American jobs to Mexico or to China. The affected communities feel left behind. This is what Trump’s supporters and Sanders’ supporters have in common. It is one of the reasons for Trump’s rise.

Spiegel:

It sounds as if people are finally putting their feet down.

Jake Tapper:

That’s part of it, though certainly there are parts of this campaign that have been ugly. I understand all that, and I’m not justifying any of the more offensive behavior this campaign season — I just want to make sure people also understand there are policy issues here as well, years of issues that have been ignored or at least not taken seriously enough by the Republican Party. The Republican Party was out of touch with a large plurality and ultimately a majority of their own voters.

Spiegel:

What kind of showdown between Clinton and Trump do you expect?

Jake Tapper:

Nasty, ugly, horrible.•

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“The Americans Had Developed Concrete Plans For The Use Of Nuclear Weapons In Afghanistan?”

August 31, 2015 in Excerpts, Politics | Permalink

Ah, to be a fly on the wall in the White House in the aftermath of 9/11, once President Bush finally rested his copy of The Pet Goat and returned to the business at hand. If Al-Qaeda’s destruction of the World Trade Center was merely Step 1 of its plan to damage America, it was a scheme ultimately realized on a grand level. Our decisions in response to the large-scale terrorism, for the better part of the decade, did more harm to us than even the initial attack. Of course, in retrospect, there were potential reactions with even more far-reaching implications that went unrealized.

In a Spiegel Q&A, René Pfister and Gordon Repinski ask longtime German diplomat Michael Steiner about an alternative history that might have unfolded in the wake of September 11. An excerpt:

Spiegel:

The attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001 came during your stint as Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s foreign policy advisor. Do you remember that day?

Michael Steiner:

Of course, just like everybody, probably. Schröder was actually supposed to hold a speech that day at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin. My people had prepared a nice text for him, but when he was supposed to head out, he — like all of us — couldn’t wrest himself away from the TV images of the burning Twin Towers. Schröder said: “Michael, you go there and explain to the people that I can’t come today.”

Spiegel:

What was it like in the days following the attacks?

Michael Steiner:

Condoleezza Rice was George W. Bush’s security advisor at the time. I actually had quite a good relationship with her. But after Sept. 11, the entire administration positively dug in. We no longer had access to Rice, much less to the president. It wasn’t just our experience, but also that of the French and British as well. Of course that made us enormously worried.

Spiegel:

Why?

Michael Steiner:

Because we thought that the Americans would overreact in response to the initial shock. For the US, it was a shocking experience to be attacked on their own soil.

Spiegel:

What do you mean, overreact? Were you afraid that Bush would attack Afghanistan with nuclear weapons?

Michael Steiner:

The Americans said at the time that all options were on the table. When I visited Condoleezza Rice in the White House a few days later, I realized that it was more than just a figure of speech.

Spiegel:

The Americans had developed concrete plans for the use of nuclear weapons in Afghanistan?

Michael Steiner:

They really had thought through all scenarios. The papers had been written.•

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