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.
I guess she missed the last 30 years of Trumps antics.
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
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.
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 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.