Welcome to another week’s sample of the Euro-press election coverage. Links go to GoogleTranslate versions of the non-English sources (clearing cookies and cache can help with messages about malformed requests), while the translations below were done mostly manually.
It’s been an appalling week.
The entire European press corps went into panic mode on Sunday and there has been a tsunami of drivel about pneumonia. I do not choose to dignify such pointless tittle-tattle by sampling it, although I have found a couple of pieces lamenting the stupidity of it all.
And if you’ll excuse me for a moment, I’d like to say that the coverage of these elections afforded by the Spanish and Italian press is woeful, particularly in the biggest papers. Their reporters file infrequently, what they write is mostly hair-on-fire CT spreading, and it’s pretty obvious that most of them lost interest once it became clear that Sanders wasn’t going to be the nominee. Pshaw and fiddlesticks, say I.
And I’m afraid that Contenius is away, so I haven’t got any Russian paranoia to serve up.
On the other hand, a group of European newspapers (LENA) this week launched a collaborative project sending a squad of journalists off to talk to voters and other interesting people. The pieces are mostly agenda-free and exemplify the best in informative reporting: they’re just presenting vignettes to explain why a few particular people in a particular town on a particular day are thinking of voting they way they are in a way which makes sense to a European reader. Frankly, this was what I really started this series in the hope of finding, so I at least am overjoyed at this. (And to be fair to the Spaniards and Italians, they’re producing good pieces for this; it’s their coverage of Hillary and Trump that's mostly useless.)
But let’s begin with an article which says what most of us are feeling. Frida Stranne in Sweden’s Expressen has a righteous rant:
Her health is probably of little significance for her ability to handle the job of president, no matter what the attacks against her try to make out. And in comparison to all of Trump's shameless attacks on different groups, her attacks on parts of his fan base are also not much to talk about. But in American politics and media coverage, it does not matter. Is it possible to make a huge fuss about something? Then do it.
The problem with this is not just that it is extremely tedious to follow or that it increases Trump's chances of winning.
The really serious problem is that the way campaigns are run and what drives the media is completely turning the focus from political issues and from a necessary examination of the candidates' policies.
It is obviously not irrelevant to discuss the presidential candidates' age or health. One might argue that the issue should have come up before the nomination process was completed, but when health problems appear during the final sprint, they must of course be examined. There is however a difference between informative debates about the political consequences of a specific illness or age, and when the discussion ... becomes so speculative that it does not contribute anything important. You almost have to admire the United States population that they even bother to have the TV on.
But Americans deserve better. What they need is far more objective examination of the two presidential candidates’ political programs and less of the news show hosts grinding away on pseudo-issues.
Preach, sister!
Hubert Wetzel in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung takes half a step back to consider the whole transparency fetish:
Now "transparency" is one of those terms that sound good and positive in themselves. Who can be against openness? In truth, however, the boundaries between what voters need to know about a candidate, what they should know and what they might want to know because they are curious, are very fluid.
Clinton's health is in this respect a good example: if a candidate collapses on the roadside, the citizens have every right to get medically sound information about whether this candidate can hold up for four years at the head of government. The rest of Clinton's medical history, however, her thyroid, her thrombosis, are her private matter as long as they do not affect her work.
One could say the same about Donald Trump. Several media are now suing on behalf of the public interest to get the divorce records of the Republican candidate released. But what is this public interest other than gawping? Whether or not Trump is a likeable person is an impression each voter can get from the candidate’s performance. Unless he has done any illegal things in his previous marriage - for which there is no evidence - he should not have to talk about his failed relationships "to the public".
Voters, and journalists even more so, like looking into the private affairs of a candidate for clues as to whether this person will be good as a politician. The disappointing truth is that you can find such clues only very rarely. Bush is a good father to his daughters. Obama is a good father to his daughters. Bill Clinton cheated on his wife. Donald Trump cheated on his wife. You can know everything - and still not know anything about the political views of these men. Transparency only contingently elicits precise knowledge.
I’ll confess to having taken that as a personal slap on the wrist; I know I’ve come up with the odd pathetic argument to justify wanting people to know something about a politician that really isn’t any of their business just because I thought it would embarrass them, but I’m not a responsible professional journalist.
Yes, I know I said the Spanish press are crap, but here’s a piece from La Razon reporting on the return to the campaign trail:
Obama focused his speech on repeating that "the recovery has to reach all" and rejected, though without naming it, the anti-immigrant rhetoric that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has deployed .
"We have to make sure that this recovery reaches all Americans, protect children from the madness of armed violence and make immigration reform a reality in this country," he said, enumerating the challenges still facing the country.
Later, Clinton took the stage, visibly recovered from the pneumonia that has kept her out for three days of the campaign to also attack the billionaire for having not recognized in an interview with the newspaper "The Washington Post" hours earlier that Obama was born on US soil.
The former Secretary of State emphasized the differences in her policies and ideals for the Latino community to Trump’s, and insisted that the November elections are especially key for that minority after the magnate’s "dangerous" rhetoric.
"You are not strangers. You are not intruders. You are our neighbors, our colleagues, our friends, our families. I look at you and am with you," she said at the ceremony.
Clinton recalled that many Latin names, such as activists Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez, will be part of the history books to be studied in American schools, and warned that, despite the division and fear that the Trump campaign wants to instill into people’s minds, there were many Hispanics in the country before it was even founded.
Back to Expressen for their report on the Greensboro event:
She stepped onto the stage, appropriately enough to the sounds of James Brown's hit song "I feel good".
And it was a revenge-seeking Hillary Clinton, who met her supporters.
“It's great to be back in the election campaign again,” she told them.
…
The speech she began to talk about people personal finance, and economic security that everyone should have.
...
She said that a secure economy and access to health care is something that she will be able to give the American people.
...
The speech focused largely on welfare, on access to healthcare and education.
….
She went on to talk security, and how the United States will be more secure.
...
She also touched on the environmental threat and talked about the importance of stopping climate change so that future generations have a clean environment to live in.
….
Here she took the opportunity to give a boot to opposing candidate Donald Trump.
“He disagrees with me on all these points,” said Hillary Clinton and said that Donald Trump threatened to go to war if foreign troops did as little as provoke US troops.
As you can see, they followed their previous correspondent’s advice and covered the policy more than the pneumonia. Expressen doesn’t count as a “serious” paper in Sweden like Dagens Nyheter or Svenska Dagbladet, but their reporting this week has been outstanding.
Since we’re talking policy, we should note that Trump came up with a big speech on the economy. Europe’s business papers quickly latched on to the fact that it will cost a trillion dollars and shrink the US economy by 5%, but did so in language that only avid readers of the financial pages can understand, so we’ll go with David McWilliams in the Irish Independent:
Trump's economics make absolutely no sense, have no coherence and will lead to a massive American budget deficit.
...
Bear in mind that, when fact-checked, the vast majority of what he's claiming about current economic conditions are false. But people don't seem to care, and he keeps going up in the polls.
...
His trade reform ideas are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of basic economics and trade….
When it comes to personal taxes, Trump is just Reagan with terrible hair. His platform is lower taxes for everyone….
So it's anyone's guess what his economics mean. He holds no position on anything and his views change depending on who he is talking to. None of this makes much sense, but no one seems to care because he has turned the election into a reality TV show. Simply being on camera may be enough.
As you can see, McWilliams is a big Trump fan. He acquired another this week in the shape of Alexandra Kraft, New York editor of Stern, who was equally impressed by Trump’s health revelations:
What a farce. After some friendly boys’ banter, and huge, huge amounts of sycophancy from Oz, Trump finally reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket. He pulls out two folded sheets of paper. This is it, the whole truth about the 70-year-old’s state of health. What the whole nation has been waiting for for days. Dr. Oz is as excited as a little child when opening Christmas presents. Gibbers and acts as if he had never expected this surprise. He certainly would not be successful as an actor.
…
Moreover, America now knows for sure that Trump does not engage in sports. His speeches give him enough exercise, so the 70-year-old says. Perhaps because he waves his hands so much? But he plays golf. Of course, so well that he could play on level terms in the pros. No-one can beat a Donald Trump. Above all, his skills on the green are clear evidence of how healthy he is. Someone who putts as well as he does must be mentally and physically in top form. Trump means this nonsense seriously. Those who look closely will notice that what the presidential candidate is throwing about is nothing but smoke grenades.
…
Only one thing is certain: Trump, who has so far presented highly dubious medical reports, has chosen in Dr. Oz an interlocutor who is also not particularly precise with hard facts. He is also a diehard Republican. That is why he is now often referred to in the American media as a Trump clone with a stethoscope. But to underestimate him would be a mistake. The 56-year-old heart surgeon and professor at Columbia University is extremely influential. But Dr. Oz is also what the US called a "Snakeoil salesman", ie one who sells people quack remedies and regimes. His biggest scandal was that he touted a slimming tablet made from green coffee beans as a panacea to burn fat.
We can’t let a review of the thing under the tribble’s activities miss out on a law suit, so here’s Martin Kilian talking about the sad case of the Freedom Girls in the Basler Zeitung.
In January Popick and Trump’s staff had arranged a Freedom Girls show at a campaign event in Florida. Trump’s accountant refused to pay them, but said they could have a sales table where the Freedom Flappers could offer their merchandise - CDs, posters and all sorts of patriotic knick-knacks, trinkets and junk. In addition, they would be getting huge publicity. So the girls appeared. They sang "Freedom's Call".
...but nothing was raised from the sale of patriotic memorabilia: the table was missing and for safety reasons the goods had to stay in the car in the parking lot. There, everything was stolen. But after all, Trump let himself be photographed with the girls.
When the candidate a little later scheduled an event for veterans in the state of Iowa, he asked at short notice if the "USA Freedom Girls" could appear. Sure! All the parents flew from Florida at their own expense to Chicago, then they rented a car for the rest of the journey. While they were on the road a cellphone call gave the news that their presence was no longer desired. There was neither loot nor publicity. And the money for flights and so on was gone.
…
Now he is being sued. And the new CD of "USA Freedom Girls" lacks the song "Freedom's Call". Anyone who buys the CD will therefore not hear that Trump will make America great again. Without this assurance, the CD is not worth a dime. Would you buy a CD without that promise? I wouldn’t.
What a lovely chap that Mr Trump is, don’t you think?
Now let’s go on tour with #EUROPEGOESUS, the project launched by the LENA newspapers from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. I’ve tried to link back to the individual writers’ home publications, partly to share the clicks around and partly so that those with the relevant language skills can jump off from there to the human translations of the others: if you’d prefer to read a piece originally written in Dutch in Italian rather than Googlish, you will probably be able to navigate to them somehow. There are too many to sample all of them, so I’m filtering by what I find intriguing for one reason or another, and I’m only going to give enough to indicate why I think it’s interesting but I’m not going to spoil any surprises. There’s no guarantee that you won't find yourself among Trump supporters, but then again, there’s no guarantee that the interviewees fit whatever stereotype a description of them might suggest. It’s definitely pot luck.
We begin in NYC, with a street theatre company.
Crystal Field, 73, a winner of the Oble Award, the Oscar of street theater, is the director, screenwriter and director of the Theater for the New City, the New York-based theater company in the East Village which this year celebrates its 40th anniversary.
"Election Selection", the musical that they have performed in recent weeks in the five boroughs of New York, is just the latest effort. Yesterday, it was staged in the courtyard of Wise Towers, the tenements of Manhattan, between Columbus and 90th, before an audience of kids and the elderly - mainly black - sitting on plastic crates arranged into seating chairs.
Staying in NYC, a visit to a local landmark:
On 5th Avenue, every window, every building is pile of luxury and ostentation. But in this game, it is difficult to match the Trump Tower. Huge glass structure, iron and marble, it shines like a black candle that reflects its neighbors as if to humiliate them.
Outside, a couple from California residents photograph the entrance on 56th Street. But they came more out of curiosity than admiration for the character. "He divides rather than unites," says Judge Jesse Lomeli. "In Los Angeles, we have a large Latino community. I do not feel targeted by his statements, because I am fortunate to have a degree and a good job. But when he talks of building a wall on the Mexican border or when he dubbed the Latin Americans "Mexicans", many around me are offended.
Now we go upstate to Albany:
The elections never end. And because of this, here in Albany, the oldest Northern Democratic stronghold, the contest between Hillary and Trump is likely to restore strength to the Outsider. All because of election fatigue: even The New York Times has warned: "The city with more public spirit will become exasperated by November" warns an editorial voice. "This burden on the people is a sign of the increasingly serious dysfunction of Albany. Not to mention the waste of public money: $ 50 million could be saved."
On to Niagara Falls:
Who would have thought that the carrot-color-haired Donald Trump would also have broken through among those who in a very politically incorrect time were called Indians. "I like both candidates: Hillary and Trump. And I still have not decided who I will vote for," confesses Robert Hayward strolling in the park overlooking Niagara Falls. "I know them both well. My family has had to deal with them many times."
Because Hayward is not just any native American. Grandson of Elizabeth George, who in the 70s was the last survivor of the tribe of the Pequot, Robert is the brother of Richard Hayward, the man who sued the state of Connecticut and obtained restitution of the land of his ancestors for the tribe.
From where we take off to Colorado Springs:
If one wants to make oneself a really unpopular journalist, then one goes to a gun show in conservative Colorado Springs and asks questions like: "Why do you need a gun?"
The blue eyes almost disappear behind the white eyelashes, so critically does Lon Adams narrow his eyes. The hairs seem to be electrically charged. He snorts. Almost pityingly he replies: "Of course, to protect my family!"
Staying in CS:
"We love Jesus, thank you, Jesus!" comes roaring from the man-sized speakers. Ten young musicians, all very good looking and stylish, throw their hands in the air. Close their eyes, smile and turn around their own axes. And the whole room follows along.
Red curls bobbing with each step, Adam Meliski is in his element. The 28-year-old is one of the priests of the New Life Church. Nine years ago he moved from New York City to Colorado Springs 1800 miles awat. Because he wants to serve right here, in the center of the Protestant Church in the United States.
Up to the mountains to Aspen:
In Aspen billionaires flit in and out. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mariah Carey and Tommy Hilfiger are just three of hundreds of regulars. Even Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump come to the mountain village. Although Aspen has only 7000 inhabitants, both candidates have fund-raised here. Because here is focused money - and power.
Steve Skadron is the antithesis of Aspen’s glamor. As mayor, he is invited to all the events, but he stays grounded. We meet Skadron for interview on the second floor of City Hall. On the wall leans a pair of skis. The Mayor of the richest city in the country sips water from a steel thermos.
I’m just going to give a direct link to a collection of four 30-second street interviews with residents of Denver who don’t like either candidate much. (Spoiler: not all of them will vote for Hillary.)
Time for another third-party candidate. Breda O'Brien in the Irish Times:
Americans are used to terrible choices in candidates. There was a famous campaign by Edwin Edwards, a legendarily corrupt governor of Louisiana who ended up spending two years in prison.
In 1991 he was running for office against David Duke, former leader of the Ku Klux Klan. Edwards cheerfully embraced his reputation, and bumper stickers were circulated with slogans such as “Vote for the lizard, not the wizard”.
Normally in presidential elections, what are called third-party candidates – neither Democrat nor Republican – are not even considered.
The choices are so bad in this election that people are seriously considering voting for a car salesman and professional magician just because he is a centrist candidate and appears to be honest. His name is Mike Maturen of the American Solidarity Party.
In the NZZ, Beat Ammann offers an analysis of the Republican Party:
Many leading Republicans know that the earth is round and Trump should never have become a candidate of a party that prides itself on decorum and fundamental values. The fact that they have let the arsonists in their party even get close to the White House, should disqualify these people. They have, in the words of one bewildered member of the party from the ultraconservative Utah forged a Faustian bargain . They play with the future of America and the free world. According to the economist Paul Krugman they do that in the mere effort to ensure low taxes for the rich.
Oh, look, it’s ridiculous not to mention the pneumonia stuff. So I’m going to finish with with Koen van de Sype’s piece in HLN headlined “Parkinson’s to double: these are the most impressive conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton”:
An undercover doctor follows her everywhere
According to the sites Gateway Pundit and Infowars, Clinton is followed everywhere by a mysterious doctor, administering her medicines when she needs it. That would be Todd Madison, an agent of the secret service who always travels with her. In the newly famous movie of Clinton stumbling into the black van on 9/11, Madison is seen as he opens the door. The above sites are linked to the Drudge Report, which once used an Internet survey by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons - a group that does not believe that HIV causes AIDS - to prove that doctors conspire to keep Clinton’s health covered up.
That’s your lot for this week.