Welcome to this week’s delve into European coverage of the US elections. Links to non-English sources go to GoogleTranslate versions, whereas the excerpts below have been humanly translated. Messages about malformed requests can be cleared by clearing cache and cookies a lot of the time.
I haven’t touched the latest email stuff, because the debunking came so late on Friday night Euro-time that Saturday’s papers were in full bedwetting mode. So we’ll begin in Winston-Salem, where Mats Larsson for Expressen saw Hillary and Michelle sharing the stage:
It does not get more powerful than this this election year, in terms of women's strength. Hillary and Michelle stood for the first time on stage together last night in Winston-Salem. And it was Michelle Obama who stole the show...
... Hillary is greeted by loud shouts and applause but it is only when Michelle Obama begins to speak that the audience breaks out in: “Hillary! Hillary! Hillary!”
It comes at the beginning of Michelle Obama's speech when she repays the many eulogies she just received. “ We have never had a more qualified candidate than Hillary Clinton, attorney, First Lady, Senator, Secretary of State. She has had more exposure to the White House than any living person, more than me, more than Barack, more than Bill. And she's a woman!”
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And then she lists the qualities she believes need to be held by a president. Someone who unites, not divides, someone who takes the job seriously, someone who can be trusted with the nuclear codes, one that honors women with love and respect.
“I believe with all my heart that Hillary will be the President!” she says.
In a way it is a replay of 2012 - but with roles reversed. At the convention in North Carolina Bill Clinton made the case for Obama better than the president himself managed. Michelle Obama does the same for Hillary Clinton here. Makes the kind of speech that Hillary never comes close to.
There are some nice voxpops at the end from people attending the rally. But let no-one say I don’t do balance. FAZ’s Majid Sattar observes a Trump event in Kinston, NC:
The queue in Kinston had already formed by noon. Equipped with camping chairs and umbrellas, hundreds of followers have put up with long waiting times. That campaign is a business for small people can be seen on this sunny afternoon. A Trump memorabilia trader shouts: "I have hats and flags" - then he adds: "I also have 'Hillary for prison' hats".
A young woman has put on a blonde wig and put on an orange jumpsuit. From her left forearm hangs a handcuff, with the right hand the fake Hillary holds a placard: "Lock her up!" - Send her to prison! But the mood is not aggressive - unlike later on in the hangar. The whole thing has a playful show character. The most tasteless anti-Hillary costume is rewarded with media attention. It does not take long before the camera-girls have discovered the shrill wig-woman.
Some of the memorabilia merchants are part of the local Trump team, others are just businessmen and have printed a few dollars worth of T-shirts - with the likes of "Hillary sucks - but not as well as Monica". The assortment records the political culture of the country, which has reached a low point. People are still outraged by Bill Clinton's affair twenty years ago. Trumps bigoted speeches and outrageous behavior are ignored or dismissed as part of the alleged left conspiracy.
While the queue are mainly white men and women in oversized jeans, the traders are almost exclusively African Americans. Antoine is one of them. He is 34 years old and comes from the neighboring state of South Carolina. It is obviously not the first time he answers the question what brought him to the Trump team. He smiles mildly and says, "I'm simply disappointed by the empty promises." He is referring to Washington in general and Hillary Clinton in particular. "And I also do not like Barack Obama prescribing to me whom I have to vote for just because I'm black."
Let’s pay our first visit to Russia, where the Moscow Echo has a look at the rest of the candidates, some of whom I hadn’t heard of before:
Apart from Clinton and Trump, candidates for the U.S. presidency include a football coach, a priest, and a gay zoo keeper.
There are just ten more days until the U.S. Presidential elections. Of course the only two real candidates are Hilary Clinton (Democrats) and Donald Trump (Republicans). But there are others. They are all outsiders with no chance of reaching the Oval Office.... Amazingly, many of the voters who do not support either Trump or Clinton say they are ready to vote for some of these guys.
Counting only those that are officially registered, there are more than 30 political parties in the United States fielding presidential candidates. More than 3500 people have self-nominated. This does not mean that all of their names will appear on the ballots, although voters may write them in. It is all very confusing. I will highlight the two main ones (who are polling at above 2%), and and a few others who are the most fun.
Gary Johnson is the former governor of New Mexico, known also as the “veto Governor....” According to Fox, he could receive 11 percent of the vote. He is a libertarian, in favor of freedom in the broadest sense of the word. He is for individual rights, and against military campaigns and high taxes. Many people respect him for his program to support small businesses. Gary Johnson, however, is best known for one massive failure....: "And what is Aleppo?"
Jill Stein is a doctor and activist. She is a graduate of Harvard, nominated by the Greens. Accordingly, her program mainly focuses on environmental issues … and financial reform. Stein promises to transform the U.S. to 100% renewable energy. According to Fox she could receive up to 11 percent of the vote. Oh, and she sings. And, she's cool....
Here are some of the odder candidates.
- Dan Vacek represents the party for the legalization of marijuana. His party logo is a "magical and delicious leaf of cannabis." He wants to allow cultivation of marijuana at home, vacate all past convictions for trafficking in marijuana, and abolish drug testing by employers.
- Pastor Terry Jones is famous for burning a Koran in 2014 on the anniversary of 9 September.
- Robert Wells is a former football coach. Interestingly, he worked as the first and only white coach at Savannah University, a historically black college.... When he was 38, Wells decided to enlist in the army and even advised his players to do the same.... Wells wants to raise taxes on big business and bring US troops home.
- And finally, the most enchanting candidate is Exotic Joe (Joseph Maldonado), a man who wears makeup, runs his own zoo with wild cats, is in a gay marriage, and says that he has never worn a business suit. "I'm a candidate for the simple hard workers,” he says. “My goal is to protect property rights and individual freedoms."
Dagens Nyheter has a handy guide to the election for Swedish readers wishing to sound knowledgeable. It covers five areas, and this is the fourth:
4. The insults
Everywhere is claimed that this is the dirtiest election ever, especially after #TrumpTapes and the constant talk about "Crooked Hillary" (or just "Crooked", as Donald Trump now posts on Twitter). The truth is that it is all quite normal for the United States. American political history is chock full of personal attacks, "negative campaigning" and strategically leaked October Surprises. Many of the insults are gathered in the indispensable book "Anything for a vote" by Joseph Cummins, surveying all presidential elections from George Washington (who had no rival candidate) to Obama vs Romney 2012. Here we are reminded that George McClellan called Abraham Lincoln a "well-meaning baboon," that ex-president Harry S Truman in supporting the John F. Kennedy's campaign in 1960 claimed that those who voted for Nixon should "go to hell" - and that the same Truman in his own campaign in 1948 printed up posters with a picture of his opponent Thomas E. Dewey and the slogan "Dewey hates you and your children."
Smart thing to say: "They sure were tough debates this year. But do you remember when Ronald Reagan debated with Jimmy Carter in 1980? Someone stole Carter's debate notes and gave them to Reagan, who then smashed him in the debate. That’s what I call dirty! "
What’s certainly the case is that both campaigns are looking for votes anywhere they can find them. Martin Kilian has some observations:
In his TV spot for Americans of Indian descent, Trump promises that he will "defeat radical Islamic terrorism". In addition, a linguistic miracle occurs in this TV commercial: Trump addresses the American Indians and Indian Americans in Hindi! Yes, in Hindi! He says: "Ab ki baar Trump sarkar." He seems to have mastered this Indo-European language fluently! And what he says means: "This time Trump's government."
It may sound a bit like Pidgin-Hindi, but nevertheless, "This time Trump's government" is a super sound and will certainly appeal to segments that otherwise would not have taken note of Trump. For example, the hard-to-reach communities of indigenous immigrants from Surinam, Guyana and Mauritius!
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Not only Trump, however, is turning over every stone in these last days before the polls, to see if a potential voter is hiding underneath. Hillary's people are indefatigable when it comes to mobilizing even seriously ill and absent voters. Like Alison Kilian, who lives in Vienna and is voting by mail. Almost every day, her father at home in America gets cheeky calls from the Hillary helpers.
They ask whether Alison Kilian has already voted where she is and why she is out of the country. Her annoyed father then assures them that Alison Kilian has already voted by mail, which the callers thank him for, and pretend that Alison Kilian's vote is indispensable for Hillary.
Talking of expatriate voters, Le Monde reports on a Presidential debate held in Paris:
Mr Reen’s dismissal of global warming was not the only reason Salli Swartz, Legal Advisor of the Democrats Abroad organization in France and representative of the Democratic Party during the debate, shook her head. Like Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump during their confrontations, Salli Swartz and Paul Reen spared nothing. They especially emphasized the weaknesses of the candidates, "Hillary Clinton, at least, is human, she confesses her weaknesses, taking distrust of American citizens seriously and is trying to strengthen her credibility," says Ms. Swartz, while Donald Trump is a man who, she says, "lives in a parallel universe and takes no responsibility for the stupidities pouring out of his mouth."
For his part, Paul Reen treated Mrs Clinton as a liar who can not be considered a serious candidate because of conflicts of interest arising from her old position of being Secretary of State and a director of the Clinton Foundation, fostering corruption charges against the Democrat: "the Clinton Foundation is a very suspicious association, said Paul Reen, and a person entangled in dubious cases should not be the next president of the United States. "
Besides global warming and weaknesses of the two presidential candidates, other topics discussed at the debate in Paris were the reduction of US debt, taxes , university fees and the firearms problem.
Le Monde also reports on a diner in Chevy Chase:
Impossible to miss . When one is on Connecticut Avenue, which crosses the upscale Chevy Chase neighborhood of Washington, Jeffrey Gildenhorn’s restaurant cannot go unnoticed. The 1950s design and the blue roof of the American City Diner are in themselves a little curiosity in this street lined with more traditional institutions. Yet in recent months, it is not the Formica tables, red and black leatherette benches, the jukebox from another age or posters of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean who attract attention, but some red letters on the white billboard of the restaurant.
The fear that political commitment displayed openly on the walls of his restaurant could offend customers has not put him off. "It’s a Democrat voting district and it started conversations," says Jeffrey Gildenhorn, sitting in one of the boxes of his restaurant. During the summer, after having supported Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primary, he did not hesitate to stick a giant sign on the restaurant roof, displaying a preference for Hillary Clinton.
When Donald Trump lashed Muslims, promising to deny them access to US territory , his panel immediately proclaimed his support for the Muslim community in the United States: "Standing with American Muslims. " After the Republican candidate’s threats to expel hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants , the answer was hilarious: " Immigration policy: deport Trump. "
The vignettes in English from the #EuropeGoesUs project this week include a surprisingly positive visit to the George W Bush Library, which seems to be a great deal more instructive and useful than W was as President, a chat with a guy from the SPLC at Stone Mountain, a look at how Trump voters in SC are cutting off their own noses because SC’s economy depends massively on free trade, and a bookstore in Asheville, a blue island in the red sea of NC.
Putin has been in the headlines a bit, rather pooh-poohed by Western European articles, but Contenius brings us this from Moskovskii Komsomlets:
It can hardly be said that the West ever ignores Putin, yet it seems as though at the forum in Sochi Putin was speaking into the void. However, there is no need to worry: the "void" will answer Putin. And it will happen within the next few months - maybe even before the end of the year, and by no later than January or February.
During his presentation to the Valdai Club, Putin said: "As for the so-called favorites in the American election, we do not know what to expect from any of the candidates.... We do not know how Mr. Trump will behave. We do not know how Mrs. Clinton will behave, or, if she is elected, what promises she will keep or not keep. Therefore, the election outcome is largely immaterial to us...."
In America, a change of political epochs is coming. And one of the areas where this change will be felt most acutely and consequentially is the relations between Moscow and Washington.... The Kremlin clearly understands the nature of the impending change. In the last months of the Obama presidency Moscow is deliberately worsening of its relations with the West. This is so that Hillary, once inaugurated, will not be able to further raise the stakes in the confrontation with Moscow. If the gas pedal is already pressed to the floor, there is only one option: to hit the brakes.
Putin's speech at the Valdai Forum was another part of this carefully thought-out strategy. After having taken a hard line - breaking nuclear agreements with the United States, building up Russian participation in the Syrian war - Putin is now taking a more moderate – though not soft – line. He is sending the future U.S. President a signal: we understand that you do not love us, and never will, but we are looking forward to your pragmatism. You decide what our attitude will be. We are ready for any variants.
Putin's readiness for any variants is not just theoretical. At the Valdai Club he stated that Russia is ready to expand on the Normandy Format to resolve the Ukrainian crisis, even at the expense of including the U.S. in the discussions. At first glance, this might seem like letting the fox into the hen house.... It is clear that under Clinton, the U.S. will take an even more radically pro-Kiev position than it has under Obama.
But inclusion in the Format also means accepting as binding the agreements reached within this Format. Putin wants to redirect the destructive energy of Clinton in a positive direction, to make her play a role, not as a destroyer but as a creator....
At the Valdai Forum, Vladimir Putin made an interesting proposal to Hillary Clinton. The lack of Western reaction to his speech is only natural. Hillary is not yet president. The time for a response to Putin is only later – once she is at least the President-elect. In other words, let us wait, ladies and gentlemen! President Putin will be answered. It remains to see what the answer will be.
La Razon takes a look at Florida:
The Hispanic vote will be more divided. Those segments that receive greater welfare coverage most likely be inclined to Hillary. That is the case for Puerto Ricans or Dominicans whom the Democratic Party carefully cultivates. A different issue may be the Venezuelans and Cubans. Venezuelans who remember that Clinton abandoned them or consider Obama weak against Maduro give their vote to Trump, but those who see the Republican candidate having the authoritarian reflexes of Hugo Chavez are for the Democrat. The case of the Cuban seems easier to predict. Since the failure of the Bay of Pigs expedition against the Castro regime, a majority have been opposed to the Democratic Party. Trump displeases not a few of them, as he has been critical of Hispanic immigration, but, nevertheless, the majority is inclined to give the vote for several reasons. The first is that, in general, the Cuban voter hates Hillary, who they identify with the Democrats, Obama and the pact with the Castro dictatorship. Any option seems preferable to her. The second is that Cubans enjoy a privileged status in relation to other immigrants. Thanks to the so - called Cuban Adjustment Act, any person of that nationality who treads on US territory immediately gets permanent residence, something other millions of immigrants have been waiting for years. As long as the law remains in force, the words of Trump have little or no effect on them.
This diary series is entirely dependent on foreigners making comments, but not every foreigner thinks that it’s a good idea. In the Irish Independent, Ian O’Doherty has a go at Irish politicians:
Nobody likes nosy neighbours. Yet Irish politicians seem determined to become the diplomatic equivalent of the irksome neighbour - swanning around and making pronouncements on issues which have precisely zero to do with them.
Micheál Martin is the latest offender, with his clumsy and foolish interjection into the US presidential campaign which, one presumes, was done with the sole intention of getting a meeting with Hillary Clinton should she win, as is looking increasingly likely.
According to Martin: "The behaviour of the Republican candidate, Mr Trump, has a frightening amount in common with extreme-right parties in Europe," whereas, "in contrast, Hillary Clinton has been a resolute voice for decency and democratic values...Hillary Clinton is the only choice for people who care for the success of America and its role as the world's leading democracy."
This is a rare example of a politician being truly even-handed - in the sense that he is wrong on both counts. There's always a whiff of 'The Skibbereen Eagle' any time an Irish politician decides to wax pontifical about another country's domestic affairs and Martin's is not an isolated incident. In fact, for a country which pretends to dislike foreign intervention in our own affairs, we're more than happy to dish out unwanted advice.
There was understandable fury amongst many political observers in the UK when Enda Kenny made a thoroughly ham-fisted and farcical jaunt across the Irish Sea in the midst of the Brexit debate to inform our neighbours of how they should vote.
It would be wrong to say that Kenny was the Irish man most influential in securing a Leave vote - that dubious accolade goes to the reliably ridiculous Bob Geldof.
On the other hand, Denis Staunton in the Irish Times sees possibilities that President Clinton will interfere in Irish politics, notably how Brexit could affect the position of Northern Ireland:
Among the aspects of Brexit that will closely interest a Clinton administration is its impact on Ireland, particularly on Northern Ireland. It is difficult to overstate the personal stake held by the Clintons in the success of the peace process or their emotional attachment to Ireland. Clinton and her foreign policy advisers are alert to the threat Brexit poses to the stability of the constitutional arrangements on the island of Ireland and to the economic progress she perceives to be essential for the success of the political process in the North.
This concern is shared by many Democrats on Capitol Hill, notably those Irish-Americans and others who have a decades-long history of engagement with Ireland. Some are planning an event in Congress shortly after the election to examine the implications of Brexit for Ireland and to consider what role the US can play in ensuring that they do not imperil the constitutional arrangements in the North.
A Clinton administration would be sympathetic to calls from Congress to raise the Irish dimension of Brexit with Britain and its EU partners at an early stage in the negotiations. Some EU governments and the European institutions in Brussels will bristle at what they perceive as American interference in European affairs.
If Clinton wins next month, Ireland should move swiftly to encourage her to take as active a role as possible in ensuring that Brexit does not undermine one of her husband’s most important foreign policy achievements.
What has surprised me most while compiling this series is how few articles there are about Hillary herself. To some extent, this is a direct consequence of the campaign’s press strategy. Foreign journalists get to talk to the odd surrogate for a few minutes if they’re lucky, but none have had access to Hillary herself. Given that foreigners don’t vote, this is a perfectly sensible use of resources, but it has the unfortunate side-effect that nobody can be bothered to write stuff about one of the world’s best-known political figures when there’s so much other material of a surprising nature to relate. (Europeans aren’t surprised by the revelations that she’s pretty liberal for an American politician, is a woman, knows everything there is to know about foreign policy, and is, as politicians go, really quite a nice person, so there’s little point in rehearsing it.) If you think that she’s flown under the radar in the US media, she’s been virtually subterranean over here.
So I’m finishing this week’s collection with Ben Judah''s piece in the Independent about why Trump is going to lose:
Behind two bobbing placards – “WOMEN FOR TRUMP” – I saw The Donald speak in Virginia. He didn’t see me. Tired, hoarse, grouchy – as if he was about to step off backstage and begin yelling “why do I even f***ing bother” – he didn’t seem to be enjoying himself.
I had come expecting to see the Apprentice Führer. But Donald Trump, barely able to smile and reading from a teleprompter, had the crinkled face of defeat. As his theme songs played, on repeat – You Can’t Always Get What You Want – he seemed almost wistful, nostalgic for the fun of primaries.
And then he was gone.
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The longer I spent in the crowd, the more I realised they were so at ease with Trump because that which is supposedly so radical about him is, in fact, just Republican tradition.
Ranting about “corrupt” Washington? That builds on decades of attacks on “corrupt big government”. Endless dog-whistle class and dog-whistle race? This goes right back to Richard Nixon. I met with a lot of anti-Hillary ranting, but that is nothing new either. This election is the result of a 25-year Fox TV-driven delegitimisation campaign, where dozens of hacks have made careers convincing audiences that the Clintons could even be murderers.
Back in DC, it started to feel obvious that American conservatives are in denial about two things. First, that Trump represents a natural, logical continuity with decades of Republican rhetoric. Second, that most Trump voters are just like the people I met in Virginia: middle-class white Americans.
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Ronald Reagan, with an electorate 87 per cent white, could campaign with only them in mind. No American president can be elected on that ticket today – some 30 per cent of voters in this year’s election are expected to be non-white.
White America can’t always get what it wants.
But America as a whole can — and will — on November 8. GOTV!