I’m pretty sure Donald Trump has never read a book by Mark Twain. But there is one sentence by Twain that Donald would like: “News about my death is greatly exaggerated.” Trump is being declared dead politically because his candidates did not ignite in the congressional elections, because the Republicans performed weaker than expected because his party friends are writing him off. But that has often been the case, in election campaigns, in impeachment proceedings, after the indignation at the storming of Washington. Trump always came back because anger can be such a powerful tool.
Michelle Obama, who met my RTL colleague Pinar Atalay and I in Washington, also knows this. The ex-first lady makes no secret of the fact that she’s terrified at the thought of a Trump comeback, that she’s still angry with Donald Trump – but she’s also trying to explain how we as a society can stem his anger. If you want to forget Trump, you have to read Obama.
Discussions prior to the World Cup are nothing new: How loudly can you celebrate in Germany, how enthusiastically can you wave the flag, how can you paint it black, red and gold? But the question is completely new: Are you allowed to watch at all? She envisions this World Cup taking place in a very rich, very small, but also very problematic country, where gay rights and women’s rights don’t matter, where forced labor seems normal, where money obviously rules football. Many say: You shouldn’t do that at all. Although the TV ratings will show how seriously many people take it.
In our editorial team we also discussed whether we should boycott this World Cup of money. But is it a solution to pretend it’s not happening? Three colleagues will report from Qatar. Jonas Breng, Christian Ewers and Moritz Herrmann will take a close look at what is going on there and report critically on it. Journalism is most needed when there are stories to tell that the powerful don’t want to read.
Our political chief Nico Fried can sleep well. Without this ability, it would be almost impossible to get through the – often tiring – business in the German capital that Fried has been observing for many years: Angela Merkel and Helmut Kohl were similarly good at sleeping immediately if possible. But when Fried is out with Olaf Scholz, which he does quite often for work-related reasons, he finds no rest. Should that put the chancellor, whose traffic light coalition has just endured a setback with citizens’ income, from sleeping?
Yours sincerely, Gregor Peter Schmitz, Editor-in-Chief
