My "Keine Ahnung" Story

I sat this afternoon and was listening to a local Hessen FM network station (public folks, not the commercial side).  They ran some call-in show where you could win something for answering ten questions.  I should note....on public networks....it's generally something like 250 Euro max that you could win.  They aren't getting a lot of cash to do otherwise.

So, this young gal called in and was the participant.  I would guess her age, by her voice....somewhere between 18 and 25 years old.

Question three came up.....who is the newest American president?

For six months, Trump's name has come up almost daily on radio, TV, and been on the front page of most newspapers at least 200 times.  In the past six weeks....it's been emphasized on 8PM national news, and the 9:45PM national news as well.  It's been mostly negative slants, but it's awful hard for anyone to miss this.

The answer from the young gal?  "Keine ahnung." Simply translated?  No idea.  She absolutely didn't know Trump was the new American president.

I brought this up with my German wife (she generally always HAS an opinion on matters).  Yeah, she said....it's that small group of Germans...that don't watch the nightly news...don't read Bild (the daily newspaper)....and only listen to the radio for entertainment purposes.  I noticed about ten years ago at some school event with my son (he was in a German school), that several of the young ladies and young men in the group had more or less zero interest in anything of news beyond entertainment.

Clueless Germans?  I've often noted the same issue in the US, that two or three percent of society (my humble number) really aren't in-tuned with reality around them.  These are the folks who don't follow politics....basically work a hard forty-hour week....couldn't answer basic questions about the capital of their state, who the governor is, or who the vice-president is.

The sad thing about this is that some public TV director might have been listening and now thinks that they need to double up on Trump news (negative of course) because there's way too many clueless Germans out there and it's the moral obligation to make sure Germans aren't clueless.  The clueless Germans?  They'd just like for more music to be played, and lessen all this news stuff.  It's fairly uncomplicated in their life, and they'd like to keep it that way.