In the morning, the smoke cleared. The breakfast food for our guests replenished the electrolytes they badly needed to shake hangovers, but not even a full Midwestern American breakfast could fill the hole Trump’s win left in the European psyche. The conference and setting were awesome, the topics interesting, but disbelief gripped the Europeans. How could the Americans get it so wrong?
I did my best to explain in two languages, and I kept it at a level that executives and kindergartners could understand: 1. The cities went with Hillary, but the Democratic Party and media is so completely out of touch with the people outside of the cities that the pollsters missed she never had a chance. 2. A large portion of the United States has a cultural identity that believes in subsidiarity rather than centralization.
It still made no sense to them, but when your whole life is built on global trade, I guess I can understand their fear. Yet I was completely unnerved at their deep interest in our political process and choices. Would we react in a similar way if the Social Democratic Party in Germany won the majority of votes and unseated Chancellor Angela Merkel? Would our biggest magazines make that the cover? Although media coverage was significant, was Brexit more than a one- or two-day story in the United States?
I sent two of our most talented people to pick our guest of honor, a board member and head of our division, up from his private plane. He glossed over them, thinking them hired drivers (as if I could find multilingual chauffeurs with advanced degrees in international business to drive company cars anywhere). When he arrived, he also began to complain about our ridiculous presidential choice.
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