No matter what happens, I believe the author is correct. Europe will not trust the US in a long time. Trump actually has managed to destroy the image of America in the entire world, in a few months.
No matter what happens, I believe the author is correct. Europe will not trust the US in a long time. Trump actually has managed to destroy the image of America in the entire world, in a few months.
The real reason is that German unification was done poorly and it benefited West Germany in a very disproportionate manner.
Most people and jobs migrated to west Germany and East Germany was left to rot.
Couple that with the fact that communism/socialism became a big taboo in Europe and capitalism’s faults were completely ignored, even when it was visibly failing.
When you ban and stigmatize the left so much, people will turn to the only side that actually acknowledges something is wrong, and in this case, only the far right has done so.
Maybe East Germans didn’t realize how much they were behind?
Obviously the task was to pull East Germany up to western standards. And the investments to do so were very significant.
BUT the old East Germany was more equal, and I don’t think east Germans like the inequality of what they probably perceive as a capitalist problem.
Inequality is a problem throughout Europe, and those that are supposed to be good at it, like the Scandinavian countries, have been going the wrong way for decades now.
But of course AfD is destined to make the problem worse instead of better. Just like Trump obviously is in USA. And for the same reason, namely that they lack empathy.