The Trump-Fear Story

I sat yesterday and read through a piece produced by N-TV (commercial news network of Germany) on a study called "The fears of Germans".

It's a product coming from Professor Manfred G. Schmidt (Ruprecht-Karls University).

What the study came to say in the end....is that roughly 70-percent of all Germans fear Donald Trump (US President).

Ruprechts-Karls University?  It's out of Heidelberg and a public institution (just for the record).

Oddly the fear of refugees?  Well, that falls to 63 percent (not quite the same fear).  Down on the 4th place ranking?  The fear that politicians are not capable of meeting their tasks....that they will 'fail' in some way. 

The problem with this type study is that you could go and find a hundred working-class people on the low-end of society, and they'd tell that they have fears about their job and their ability to survive.  You could ask a hundred environmentalists, and they'd say with 95-percent reliability that they fear global warming and climate change.  So there is no true way to reach the true fear consequence or levels that might exist.

The fear of Trump?  It's an curious item as well.  From the same crowd, you could ask them how President Obama was not a threat, and they'd stammer for while and talk about the Nobel Peace Prize, but then you'd ask how he earned that, and they'd stammer even more. 

Most German want to talk about the tariff threat of Trump, but if you asked them about the German tariffs existing for years.....well, they'd admit they didn't really know about that.  Or you'd bring up the disaster of NAFTA on American jobs, and most admit they've never heard that aspect.

So are fears 'fake'?

Here's some harsh reality.  Fears are fake.

Some idiot can talk about something, and it gets passed around via Twitter or some nightly news group, and suddenly.....you have a 'slice' of society all feared-up.  It happens virtually every single day. 

I've sat and observed Germans for twenty-plus years.  The bulk of them have regular fears.  They worry about their jobs, their economic security, the crappy teachers at the kid's school, the money being there for the summer vacation, and taxation.  They worry about their heating system lasting two more years.  They worry about the transmission in their car.  They worry that their kid will never amount to much.  They worry about the village idiots trying to repave their street and passing a 15,000 Euro 'tax' upon them for their portion of the street.  They worry about crime in their neighborhood, or some pension deal that might make them work two extra years.  Most have bigger fears than Trump.