{"id":14695,"date":"2025-09-09T21:53:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T19:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kaizen-blog.org\/?p=14695"},"modified":"2025-09-09T22:10:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T20:10:10","slug":"der-preis-der-verblendung-warum-deutschland-aufpassen-muss-nicht-trump-verhaeltnisse-zu-importieren","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kaizen-blog.org\/en\/der-preis-der-verblendung-warum-deutschland-aufpassen-muss-nicht-trump-verhaeltnisse-zu-importieren\/","title":{"rendered":"The Price of Delusion \u2013 Why Germany Must Be Careful Not to Import Trump Conditions"},"content":{"rendered":"

The numbers speak a brutal language: 62 out of 100 points on the financial distress scale. Texas, Florida, and Louisiana \u2013 precisely those states that present themselves as beacons of conservative politics \u2013 lead the American statistics on evictions, personal bankruptcies, and defaulted loans. Texas in particular is a paradox: with a gross domestic product of over 2.9 trillion dollars, the state is considered the seventh largest economy in the world \u2013 ahead of countries like Canada or South Korea. And yet, according to the US Census Bureau, over 14 percent of Texans live below the poverty line, almost one in five has no health insurance, and the number of people without regular access to health care is higher than in any other US state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The discrepancy could not be greater: on one side, the oil and gas industry is booming, technology and space companies are moving to Austin and Houston, and the governor celebrates a \u201cTexan economic miracle state.\u201d On the other side, millions of people face eviction, struggle with exorbitant power bills, and rural hospitals are closing in droves because they are underfunded. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more than a quarter of Texan children live in households classified as \u201cfood insecure\u201d \u2013 a euphemism for having to skip meals regularly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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2025 \u2013 Dangerous Times for Democracy<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Florida and Louisiana show a similar picture: tourism, until Trump came, and the energy industry generated record profits, but the population pays the price. Rents in Miami have risen by more than 60 percent in the past five years, while median wages have stagnated. In Louisiana, life expectancy is at the level of Albania, child mortality is among the highest in the US. These numbers are not just an American problem \u2013 they are a warning signal for Europe. Anyone in Germany who votes for a party that advocates neoliberal deregulation, tax breaks for corporations, and the dismantling of social safety nets should look closely at what Texas has become: a gigantic economic power built on the backs of millions of people living without protection. A future that draws nearer when one considers the current polling figures: the CDU\/CSU and the AfD are tied at 25.5 percent. What is already reality in America threatens to become the German nightmare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mechanism is always the same: first comes the grand promise. Liberation from the \u201csystem,\u201d a return to supposedly better times, simple solutions for complex problems. In Texas, people were promised prosperity through oil and gas, freedom through less government, security through tougher borders. The result? Families who can no longer pay their power bills while energy companies export billions in profits to Europe. Hospitals on the brink of collapse. A life expectancy among the lowest in the US. The AfD is copying this playbook with frightening precision. No wind turbines, no solar plants, but a return to fossil fuels \u2013 as if the energy crisis of 2022 had already been forgotten, when Putin turned off the gas tap and brought Germany to its knees. It is the same disastrous logic: you make yourself dependent on autocrats and then act surprised when that dependence is used as a weapon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Escalation of Violence<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The excellent BBC graphic on Russian missile and drone attacks is more than just a statistic. It is a seismograph of political consequences. With Trump\u2019s inauguration in January 2025, the numbers explode: from about 2,000 to over 6,000 attacks per month. It is no coincidence that Moscow escalates precisely at the moment when Washington signals that aggression will no longer have consequences. Putin understands this language. He understands that an America under Trump is no longer the guarantor of Western values but an unreliable partner who would drop Ukraine like a hot potato.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And here the circle closes to the AfD. A party that \u201cunderstands\u201d Putin, parrots his propaganda, turns the aggressor into the victim and the invaded country into the culprit. It is the same moral bankruptcy that can be heard from Mar-a-Lago. The same contempt for democratic values, for territorial integrity, for international law. Anyone who votes for such a party is not just voting for a political alternative \u2013 they are voting for capitulation to tyranny. <\/p>\n\n\n\n