It's done. For fifteen months.....the Germans have been waiting on the next US ambassador. Yesterday, the US Senate finally confirmed the guy....Richard Grenell. N-TV, the commercial news network in Germany picked up most of the story this morning.
Some of the past picks for US ambassador in Germany.....spoke the language....Grenell does not. I don't consider it a big deal.
His background? He's fairly educated: master's degree in Public Administration from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government....a bachelor's degree in Government and Public Administration from Evangel University. He's an expert communicator, and dealt with a number of political folks (George Bush, Mitt Romney). Finally, he is openly gay and a Republican.
What this means now? I think three factors will fall into play.
1. US relations with Germany are mediocre at this point....mostly over the negativity message of the national media after the election. German forums, if they were going hype some US decision or direction....will have to invite Grenell to the group, and he will ably communicate the position to the group....avoiding fake intellectualism.
2. Grenell has often taken very pro-Israel positions, and that tends be a table topic of intellectual discussions on Germany.
3. There is this odd charm of Grenell. He can be direct. He's openly gay.....openly Christian, and often noted as a guy familiar with the Hollywood crowd. He's not hesitant in debates, and logically drives a good conversation. If you really needed to reconstruct the German negativity over Trump....Grenell would be the logical pick.
I won't predict a total retreat by the Germans on their negativity of Trump. But I suspect by the end of 2018.....the public news sector will likely tone-down their hype a notch or two (similar to what they did over the last two years of the Bush era).
3 comments:
I frankly don't think that Grenell's open homosexuality will gel well with his Christian beliefs, and I also wonder what the Christians who voted for Trump will think about him. On the plus side, this can at least get a certain faction of LGBT Democrats to shut their pie holes for once.
Regarding his ability (or lack thereof) to speak German, how will he communicate with the native Germans? I mean, when traveling to another country, learning the local language works wonders; just because English has become an international language doesn't mean everyone can speak it well if at all.
P.S. How can I contact you outside of comments? Is there an e-mail address or similar that your readers can use?
P.P.S. How did you decide to stop accepting Anonymous comments?
On the Ambassador, most of these folks who get selected...will go through some fairly intensive language course for a couple of months, and given the basics. So there's always an interpreter who is in the background and translating for them.
Germans will invite a lot of the Hollywood crowd, technology gurus (Bill Gates is always popular in Germany), and CEOs to sit on public forums to give a different perspective. Few speak German, so it's all translated.
In this case, I would speculate that he'll be invited to least four major public-TV forums by the end of the year, and he'll be more than capable of arguing positions taken by the US, in a debate-type forum.
On the lifestyle and Christian thing...an American would tend to think that. Germans are open to just about everything conceivable. You find a lot of Bavarians are pro-Christian in social and cultural topics. You also find a lot of atheists in Germany (probably one-third of society are now in this category). In highly urbanized regions (Hamburg, Frankfurt, Berlin, etc), I would say that 85-percent are friendly or neutral on gays.
The LGBT trend might be argued by different people as being 'lite' or extremely marginal. I tend to explain this with three observations. First, Germans will surprise you with extreme blunt criticism or direct comments, which would normally flip out most normal Americans...hence why making friends for a German is a bit difficult. They will explain this by saying that they just 'want to be honest' with you, and you needed the blunt truth. Second, there's the multi-party system existing already, and if you tried to use pro-LGBT-talk chatter, you'd threaten a quarter of your party support to leave, and they'd easily find an alternate party. Third, trying to suggest in any public setting that bathrooms are now a target for political battle....in a German work-place, school, or public structure? You would open up a hornet's nest.
I might also suggest that 'mobbing' (bully-tactics in work places and schools) already occurs at a high rate in German culture, and it'd be another reason why the trend doesn't catch on.
As for Anonymous comments, for a number of years...I allowed it. You can go back to the logs of 2009, and see that people tended to be civil. In the last three years....less so. I mandated no anonymous comments back around 2015 for a while, then someone convinced me to reopen it completely. Last year, more spammers started to show up and I questioned the totally open nature. So this was my intent to limit problems to a degree. Maybe in six months, I'll go back and give it a try again.
You have to remember, when I started over a decade ago...it was just that some people had commented that I had more insight into Germany than most people, and I could explain complex issues without a lot of hype or six-page answers. I spend two hours a day pouring over newspapers, the news media, business news, and select two or three stories that I think are worth telling. Occasionally, I'll get on a train and check out some historical site.
Some essays...like the sugar beet story I told this morning...will interest almost no one except agricultural types. Some on the diesel car bans interest a fair number of American readers.
I haven't put up an email address. Some folks who have suggestions for future topics will just write it into the comments area and I'll take it for consideration for a future essay.
My focus is centered mostly on Germany, it's history and culture, Europe itself, trends, and the business sector. I came to realize years ago that Mark Twain came over...spent a fair amount of time surveying the Germans....and didn't start up any conflict or hyped-up German criticism. My goal is simply to repeat that exercise.
The reason I asked about Anonymous commenting was that I initially believed you closed it after I informed you about some of the comments in one particular blog post. If it was meant to prevent spamming, then I can totally understand. I apologize if I caused any trouble.
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