What I like and what I don't like about Trump
Warning: If you hate or adore Trump, you may not want to read this article. You would just get angry. The majority of Western Europeans are against Trump and in favor of Biden. Then there is a small minority of Trump fans. The media in Germany and Europe have a mostly one-sided stance: they are on Biden's side and against Trump. This phenomenon leads a minority of the media to a counter-reaction, siding with Trump because everyone else is against him. It seems impossible to have more nuanced positions on Trump: either people are 100% against him and think he is a demonic creature. Or they are 100% in favor of him and consider him a genius person.
I have been dealing with Trump for many years. During the election campaign four years ago, I spent two months in the United States; I also read all the most important biographies about him. And every day I document watching Fox News and CNN. In Germany, Fox is portrayed as the spokesperson for pro-Trump propaganda. In reality the question is more complex. Trump has complained about the treatment Fox News has given him over and over in recent months. In a speech he gave last week he said that the difference between this and the previous elections is as follows: "We have lost Fox." Certainly Fox News is anything but hostile to Trump (especially its host Sean Hannity), but the position of the network is not as one-sided as CNN or the New York Times which are compactly anti-Trump.
I take the liberty of taking a different stance on Trump, knowing that my ideas will not appeal to anyone who hates Trump or admires him.
What I like about Trump
Trump has done some good things, especially in the area of economic and fiscal policy. Instead of going in the direction of more and more regulation, as Obama has done, he has tended to focus on deregulation and abolished a number of unnecessary regulations. He has also significantly lowered taxes. Both things had positive effects for the US economy: unemployment fell (until the start of the health crisis) and stock markets boomed.
What I've always liked about Trump is that he doesn't care about "politically correct". Politically correct is a threat to freedom, and is even more prevalent in the United States than in Europe. So it is appreciated that person who does not follow the language of the politically correct. Trump's predecessor Obama has dealt with issues such as transgender toilets and even apologized for praising the aesthetic appearance of a female attorney general (he had to apologize after politically correct ones got outraged by the words of him). Many Americans were and still are bothered by this "political correctness," and Trump has benefited greatly from it.
Finally, Trump presents himself as a defender of law and public order and has responded energetically to the violence that arises from forces such as the ANTIFA. Unfortunately, the Democrats remain silent in this area. Anyone who reads the media in Europe does not have a sufficiently correct picture of the extent of this violence taking place in the United States. And Trump resolutely opposes the insane demands of the "defund the police" movement. All of this is what I like about Trump.
What I don't like about Trump
In general, I don't like people who lie. Some Trump fans accept his lies by saying that all politicians sometimes lie. But rarely has a politician lied as often and as blatantly as Trump did.
And I don't like people who talk about things they know nothing about. Trump himself thinks he knows more than anyone else about everything going on in the world. Of course, that's not the case. A person who does not know the limits of him will make more mistakes than a person who has a humbler attitude. By reading Trump's comments on Covid19 (as of February 2020), you can get an idea of what I mean. The fact that most European politicians have countered the health crisis by implementing questionable measures does not reevaluate Trump's behavior.
What I don't like about Trump is his sympathy for dictators. He rarely used hostile words for autocrats and dictators like Putin, Erdogan or Kim Jong-un. Trump has failed in his policy of countering North Korea, just as his predecessors did. But he praised dictator Kim in tones not only unnecessary, but also unworthy of an American president.
In economic and fiscal policy, as I said, he did some right things. But with his work he also continued on the path of massive public debt. And he favored a protectionist policy going against the principles of free trade. These two things (public debt and protectionism) are two aspects of the Trump presidency that I just don't like.
And from a German perspective, what should be the judgment on Trump? The fact that Trump does not like Angela Merkel is not to be judged negatively, on the contrary it is a point in his favor. He may be asking for a greater military and defense effort by the Europeans, and above all by the Germans, but his protectionist trade policy is a danger to our economy.
Regardless, even if I were an American I wouldn't vote for Trump. But I wouldn't vote for Joe Biden either. Biden was brought forward by the Democratic establishment to move away from far left positions. Biden, however, I believe that not only will he continue the bad policies of Barack Obama, of whom he was vice president, but he will also carry out part of the leftist agenda of politicians like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren - and that, if it were to happen, would be a bad for the United States.
