Obituary on America

Last night Red Baron went to a reading and a talk with Klaus Brinkbäumer, former editor-in-chief of the renowned magazine Der Spiegel. As you may imagine - even though people had to pay an entrance fee - the auditorium was fully packed with listeners eager to learn whether America would become great again despite the dark title of Brinkbäumer's thick book: Nachruf auf Amerika.

In her usual competent and charming way, Friederike Schulte, director of the Carl-Schurz-Haus, introduced the speaker, who had spent many years of his career as a journalist in New York, traveling the States as a correspondent of Der Spiegel.

To whet the appetite of the auditorium, Brinkhäuser started by mentioning that he had interviewed Donald Trump at his NY Tower in 2004. Still, the meeting outcome had been so meager that he renounced writing an article about the real estate mogul.

Then suddenly, in 2008, Brinkbäumer's telephone rang, and Trump was on the other end. He wanted to speak to the young, hopeful journalist from Germany.

This second story was actually the beginning of Brinkhäuser's reading. Still, he went on to discuss the differences and similarities between German and English, citing well-known examples of improper English words in German, such as there are public viewing for watching television in a group or body bag for a lady's purse. He stretched Mark Twain's complaint about the terrible German language and read about neologisms like Handy in German for a cell phone. According to him, Wellness is a German neologism too, i.e., a short form of "well-being" and "fitness."

By that time, some unrest had developed within the audience. Suddenly a distinguished lady got hold of a microphone and told the speaker - as only a distinguished lady can do - that she knew the States well and, in coming here, had expected to be informed about the aftermath of the midterm elections.

Suddenly both the reading and the talk were forgotten, and the speaker and his audience entered a lively discussion. While Brinkbāumer mentioned that Hillary's flying over Wisconsin had been a big mistake*, I could get my message in that Madison was Freiburg's sister city, and Wisconsin now has a Democratic governor.
*Red Baron still remembers watching television in the early morning hours (CET) on November 9, 2016, when the results of Wisconsin finally tipped the balance in favor of Donald Trump.

In his answers to questions from the audience, Brinkbāumer often remained vague and imprecise. When he said that Trump's tax reform privileged the already rich so they may consume even more, he forgot to add that the reform lowered the US corporate tax, inviting American firms to repatriate jobs and money.

 I said that firing special counsel Robert Mueller by Jeff Sessions' successor, Matthew Whitaker, would disturb the US system of checks and balances or - as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer put it - even evoke a major constitutional crisis. When Brinkbäumer answered that the firing of Mueller was not excluded but given the consequences rather unlikely, I, like Faust's famulus, was no wiser than before.

Somewhat disappointed, Red Baron left the auditorium.

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