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"We Europeans are so lucky that Joe Biden has been elected"

In a week's time, the midterm elections will decide what will happen politically in the USA.

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"We Europeans are so lucky that Joe Biden has been elected"

In a week's time, the midterm elections will decide what will happen politically in the USA. A survey by the University of California recently showed that half of Americans assume that there will be a civil war in their country in the coming years. And already seven percent of the population are willing to use violence to pursue a political goal.

Ingo Zamperoni knows the USA well. He is married to an American and has visited the country repeatedly in recent years. In the ARD talk show "Hart aber fair" the journalist reported on Monday about a documentary he made about the political mood in the States. The title: "Trump, Biden, my US family and I". His wife's stepbrother, he said, has recently always had an up-to-date passport in his pocket. "In order to be able to escape?" Asked moderator Frank Plasberg. Zamperoni said yes.

Matthew Karnitschnig, Politico's Europe correspondent, said on the show that populism is on the rise. But he doesn't believe in a civil war: "You have to be careful not to always paint the devil on the wall." The CDU foreign politician Norbert Röttgen also reported on his experiences in the USA. There is nothing in common between the positions taken by supporters of ex-President Donald Trump "and our understanding of the political center," he said.

Zamperoni explained that the divisions in American society are currently so great "as if it were a matter of survival. The other side is seen as an enemy.” For many, the word “compromise” is an expression of weakness. The sociologist Aladin El-Mafaalani saw it in a similar way, according to whom the Americans only care about one question: "Are you for it or against it?"

Because a consensus is hardly possible, parallel worlds arise "in which all sorts of things are politicized," says El-Mafaalani. All positions that exist in the USA are also available in Germany. Here, however, they spread over a larger spectrum, while in the USA they split the population in half.

That is due to the political system, added Zamperoni. He sees a big problem in this: "Even if a decision would be good for me, but it comes from the other side, I'm against it." There is therefore no room for gray tones, only black and white decisions.

El-Mafaalani has observed that populism is spreading. "Almost everywhere, populists have it easier than it was a while ago," he said. The societies of the Western world have opened up, but democrats are also becoming more extreme in their views: "They are becoming more open, more liberal and more progressive."

Populists responded by portraying "the past as the future." "This can only be attractive if the present is full of crises and conflicts and the future is more about horror," concludes the sociologist. It used to be different.

The journalist Susanne Gaschke from the "Neue Zürcher Zeitung" added: "And one problem we still have is moralizing that is bad in public and not at all useful." That's not what the public discourse says: "Your argument is bad ', but: 'You are a bad man'.

Zamperoni emphasized that the divisions in society in the USA were too deep to be easily overcome. In Germany, many would have thought "as soon as Trump is gone, everything will be better," he said. But "Trump was always just a symptom of this division". The fact that Joe Biden, as President, would be able to bring the country together was "increased hope" in Germany.

Opinions differed on how Trump would have acted in the face of Russia's war against Ukraine. "Politico" journalist Karnitschnig said cautiously: "I'm not quite sure that he would have pulled the ripcord here and not supported NATO." In the past few months, Germany has done exactly what Trump always did from Chancellor Angela Merkel demanded: increased the defense budget.

"NZZ" journalist Gaschke, on the other hand, doubted "whether Trump would have met with so much enthusiasm from his supporters if he had supported Ukraine." Röttgen was of the opinion: "We Europeans are so lucky that Joe Biden was elected. “ Under Biden, the USA had once again become the “most important security power”, without which things would look very different in Europe. Trump, Röttgen suspected, in his “America first” logic, would have asked Europe to defend itself independently in the Ukraine war.

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