Explaining Germany’s infantile crush on Obama
Above all, the United States remains the largest chosen destination of millions of people in the world. If they had the choice of where they could live, the majority oddly enough would not choose the German DIN standard for happiness, but life in New York or California, where the potholes are as big as gravel pits. That may make people here want to light as many candles as possible, to pray for the downfall to finally come.
The childish excitement over Obama, that once again took hold over Germans during this election — fully 93 percent of the country would have voted for him in this election — is the flip side of this desire for America’s demise. That the Germans, of all people, should see themselves in a black civil rights attorney from Chicago can only be explained by the fact that they see him as the opposite of what they consider to be normal Americans.
Since Obama spoke to the world in front of the Victory Column in Berlin during his first presidential campaign in the summer of 2008, he has found a firm place in the hearts of German citizens. They will always be grateful to him for this honor. That’s why they forgive him for keeping Guantanamo open and for sending out drones like other people would send postcards.
Blowback
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They’re suckers for a megalomaniac…?
Get right out of town!!!!!
BigWyo on November 10, 2012 at 6:28 PM
I’ll venture a guess: nostalgia for the 1930s?
Joe Mama on November 10, 2012 at 6:28 PM
They’ve always had a thing for left-wing strongmen.
The Count on November 10, 2012 at 6:32 PM
He’s much cooler and more fun to listen to than Romney (especially if you don’t understand the language and thus are impervious to cliches), he represents something much more interesting than Romney, and they don’t have to care about his actual policies and how they would effect them.
Who wouldn’t want Obama to win? I’d want him to win if he was running for PM of Germany. I mean, I would if I didn’t have to listen to him for four years.
HitNRun on November 10, 2012 at 6:33 PM
They’re in to dictators and scapegoating?
RedNewEnglander on November 10, 2012 at 6:34 PM
So does 50% of America so at least they got that right.
They also recognize one of their historical icons in Barky – no, not that nasty little Austrian with the Axelrod ‘stache.
Dr. Mengele.
CorporatePiggy on November 10, 2012 at 6:34 PM
Foreign ones at that. Maybe a self-loathing thing.
forest on November 10, 2012 at 6:44 PM
I thought its because he’s black and cool?
El_Terrible on November 10, 2012 at 6:46 PM
Euro-Leftism is a sickness eating out Europe’s substance like a cancer. Is it any wonder that the future of Europe is an Islamic one?
Charlemagne on November 10, 2012 at 6:52 PM
Ding Ding Ding….we have a winner…
The krauts just looooove to be led & fed….
Tim Zank on November 10, 2012 at 6:52 PM
I think this also explains why some – most? – of the left still sticks with Obama. To wit, he’ll manage American decline and diminish our influence in the world.
As we know, there’s a type of European that has always – from the very beginning of our nation – sneered at America. The Germans personify this view.
SteveMG on November 10, 2012 at 6:56 PM
Meh, I have an infantile crush on German female tango dancers. The way they snap their shapely legs and thighs around mine in the gancho. The way they do foot embellishments with martial staccato precision. The way I never know if they will purr seductively or box my ears . All German females dance the tango like this. I am in submissive ecstasy. One day all the German female tango dancers I know will compare notes and force me to my knees.
I’m sorry, what was this thread about?
Seth Halpern on November 10, 2012 at 7:01 PM
If he had grown a toothbrush mustache he could have gotten 100%.
Bobbertsan on November 10, 2012 at 7:05 PM
Their fascist history aside, and Obama being the result of sex among Mussolini/Lenin and Che…
The Germans would never, ever, ever vote for Obama, in Germany.
That they can have such big mouths, superiority complexes, etc., safely protected by US treasure/blood, entirely escapes the Dummkopfs.
Schadenfreude on November 10, 2012 at 7:13 PM
America saved Germany from the Germans, protected them to become the economic powerhouse they are…and this is the thank you.
It escapes them also that Der Spiegel, a leftist paper, is owned by a billionaire female conservative American woman.
Schadenfreude on November 10, 2012 at 7:16 PM
93%-7%? Those wingnuts in Philadelphia only went for Obama 85%-14%.
forest on November 10, 2012 at 7:23 PM
Who would have ever thought that the Germans would “fall” for a Kenyan/Indonesian/Hawaiian dictator instead of an Austrian one?:)
Clink on November 10, 2012 at 7:23 PM
Mandingo fantasies.
Pork-Chop on November 10, 2012 at 7:26 PM
Yeah, I wonder too about their reaction if their borders were flooded with illegal uneducated, low skill immigrants who dont speak German and aren’t of an Arian complexion. I don’t think they’d, uhhh, be very warmly received.
The Count on November 10, 2012 at 7:32 PM
It just makes me glad that I am no longer a German citizen but American since 2005. Although I’m less glad than I was a week ago.
Xasprtr on November 10, 2012 at 8:19 PM
They have been flooded with radical muslims, mostly from Turkey and aren’t too happy about it.
Alllah Snackbarrrrrrrrrrrrr
CorporatePiggy on November 10, 2012 at 8:22 PM
First of all, shame on any of you who made Nazi references.
Second, before you get all hissy over the first comment, no I’m not a troll, I’m a regular poster at HotAir and a staunch conservative as a short Google search of HotAir would reveal. Stay calm.
Third (and my actual point), having lived in several countries in Europe I can say that there is a certain schadenfreudig sentiment that most Europeans have for America, they also have a great deal of respect for America as well which seems to be greater than just the normal platitudes that you get from someone when you tell them that you’re an American. I never really expected it to be 93-7 for Obama in Germany. In Germany the CDU, now the majority party, isn’t all that bad from a conservative perspective and some days I would take the FDP there over our Republican Party. And for the Germans at least, they are sincere in their disagreement with Guantanamo, torture, & drones; it’s a genuine reaction to their past, not a way to score political points like it is with the Democrats. Apart from the legitimately meant items I mentioned above, they probably just have the same problem as us: The Media.
And finally, for a bonus, for anyone looking into the reasons why Europeans dislike America, I would recommend Anti-Americanism by Jean Francois Revel. Although I haven’t read it myself, I have heard good things about it, and I have read several books by Revel, a former French Marxist turned (classical) liberal, which I can’t recommend enough. His Last Exit to Utopia is highly intellectual but also witty and easy to digest and read with a revealing take on the history of post-Soviet leftism in Europe.
Glenn Jericho on November 10, 2012 at 8:41 PM
Welcome to America! Always glad to have people like you here!
Just curious if you could expand on what your opinion is of what the divide is between Europeans (especially Germans) and America and/or respond to my observations in the comment above.
Glenn Jericho on November 10, 2012 at 8:46 PM
Well, I should say that I have been living here the vast majority of my life; I never lived in Germany as an adult, though I do have contact with a number of family members and try to follow public opinion a little bit. I was just late in deciding to pursue U.S. citizenship. Let’s put it this way – I received my green card in 1976, at the age of five.
Anyway, in response to your comments, I do think you have it pretty much right. This 93-7 thing is stretching it a bit, but you can imagine that the distortions regarding Mitt Romney in the German media, which it seems to me is as left-leaning as ours, are even more severe since there is significantly less information overall. Plus, I believe it is true that the average European’s sense of political center is rather different than ours, for a variety of reasons. It’s easy to make American conservatism look scary, because it is literally quite foreign to them. I think people can love and admire America and carry an internal assumption that conservatives are somehow not a part of what makes America lovable, in which they are obviously wrong, but it takes someone who is willing to dig past the surface to realize that.
That said, talking to Germans doesn’t seem too different from talking to Californians in my experience. You get all types, with a dominant note of socialistic impulses.
To sum up, there is a slightly dissonant but understandable duality. Germans have an innate cultural tendency to believe they know the way things ought to be done and will be very outspoken if you are doing it differently. So a lot of them, particularly on the subject of American foreign policy, come across as believing themselves to be vastly superior. In many ways, however, it is clear when talking to them that they in fact believe American culture to be superior to their own and they believe in American greatness. America, after all, has had a profound and extremely generous and protective influence on creating modern Germany. I imagine it would be different in France.
Xasprtr on November 11, 2012 at 12:23 AM