77 million people voted for this disturbing president. A number that makes you pause for a moment. Not out of respect. Out of concern. That is roughly as many people as live in all of Germany. Imagine an entire Germany waking up one day and deciding that from now on the man with the orange face and the attention span of a goldfish should make the most important decisions for all of them. That is what it feels like when you say the number out loud.
You really have to ask what went wrong in this country. And above all, what exactly is in the breakfast cereal. It cannot be just corn. There has to be something else in there. Something heavy. Something that slows thinking down to a crawl and then stops it completely. A substance that sits somewhere between marshmallows and a love for strongmen. Maybe Kellogg’s has something on the shelf the FDA has not discovered yet. Democracy flavored Cap’n Crunch. Tastes sweet, but leaves behind 77 million people who make a man president who cannot tell whether he just sank Ukraine or Iran.
It also has to have something to do with the water. Or the television. Or both. Four hours of Fox News a day, a bowl of Lucky Charms, and by the end you are sitting on the couch thinking a 79 year old man with makeup on his eyelids is the savior. The man says he is physically fit for a mission to the moon. The voter says yes, send him up. The man says he sank 159 Ukrainian ships. The voter says great job, keep going. The man confuses the countries where he is waging wars. The voter says that makes him a strong leader.
Maybe it is also the schools. Geography is no longer taught, otherwise the voter would know that Ukraine does not have a sea where 159 ships could sink. History is no longer taught, otherwise he would know what happens when you give too much power to one man while the legislature watches. Logic is no longer taught, otherwise at the sentence I am the healthiest president of all time and at the same time I have never done any sports he might at least raise an eyebrow for a second.
But the eyebrow stays down. The hand stays on the ballot. The mark goes to Trump. And it happens 77 million times in a row, in a country that once took pride in the idea that every citizen could be his own small philosopher. Today every citizen is his own small algorithm. Fed with breakfast cereal, Fox News, and Truth Social posts. Output: a ballot with Trump on it.
What this says about America is not kind. It is not original either. It is the old story of a country so large that it can afford its own problems. A country with the best universities in the world and at the same time an electorate that idolizes a man who cannot pronounce aluminum without schoolchildren laughing. A country with what used to be the best research in the world and at the same time a president who suggested bleach as a cure for COVID and was reelected as if none of that had happened.
77 million. A number too large to understand and too small to justify. Maybe it really was the breakfast cereal. Maybe it was the sugar. Maybe it was the decades long promise that every American can become a millionaire if he just believes hard enough, combined with the bitter realization that in the end it only gets you a pickup truck and a hot tub behind the house. From that mixture comes anger. From anger comes Trump.
And in the end there is a world watching a country eat breakfast and wondering whether it might be better to cancel lunch together. Before breakfast ruins the whole meal.
The moral of the story
It was not only those 77 million who lost the country. 89.3 million stayed silent. That is the real number history will hold on to later. A democracy does not die because of those who vote wrong. It dies because of those who do not show up, because breakfast mattered more than the country. Those who do not vote still vote. Just for the one who wins without asking them. And then there is anger. Anger is not a good campaign worker. Anyone who votes out of anger is not writing down his will, but his pain. And pain has never governed a country, it has only ever broken it.
What comes next
We will keep fighting him. With journalistic means, with legal means, with every word that is not bought and every sentence that does not give in. Not only because it concerns America, but because what is happening there is a signal to Europe. And Europe is slowly beginning to understand. The shift in thinking has begun, cautiously, hesitantly, but it is there.
Now that realization only has to reach the places where it is most urgently needed. Among AfD voters. Among the men and women who have lost themselves in an anger that no one will repay them for. They look at Trump and see strength. They should look closer. What they see is a country where living costs are exploding, rents are becoming unaffordable, inflation is returning, the labor market is shrinking, and a president stands in front of astronauts claiming he is physically fit for the moon. That is not a model. It is a warning. Anyone who does not see it will recognize it at the gas station, in the rent contract, on the paycheck. Then it will be too late to vote, but not too late to regret it.
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