Europe: In for a Rude Awakening--Will European media have to rethink its U.S. coverage?

Mogens Lykketoft, Denmark’s former Foreign Minister, sometime President of the U.N. General Assembly and a Social Democrat, is a good man to listen to, if one wants to gauge Europe’s reaction to the recent American elections. In the Copenhagen daily, Berlingske, he writes this scathing comment: “For the USA as well as for most of the world it will be an enormous relief to be rid of this shameless narcissistic liar.” He is of course referring to President Trump.

The antipathy against Donald Trump is spread across the political spectrum. Even the foreign policy spokesman of the hard-right Danish People’s Party, Søren Espersen, expressed his hope that Hillary Clinton would win in 2016.

The point about the lying president is widely shared by media all over Western Europe. They seem to have forgotten that for four years they bought into every baseless accusation leveled at the President: the Russia Hoax, claims that he wanted to undermine NATO, his supposed hatred of non-whites and women, his wish to destroy the planet and whatnot.

For over four years, Radio Denmark, the state-owned radio and television outlet, has been pumping out anti-Trump propaganda as has Denmark’s other major TV-channel, TV2. For months on end they peddled the Russia collusion narrative and when that imploded, they quickly dropped the matter and went on to COVID-19, for which they blamed Trump, hardly mentioning that the President has limited possibilities of intervening. And, of course, they had little to say about the mayhem caused by violent Trump haters. Even after the Democrats had been forced to abandon the Russia Hoax, Denmark’s former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Uffe Ellemann-Jensen from the center-right Liberals, kept talking of murky conspiracies involving the President.

Given this avalanche of Trump-hating propaganda, it is no wonder that the vast majority of Danes think Trump is an evil man out to ravage the world. To balance the picture, Danes and other Europeans have had to resort to alternative online media, of which there are fortunately many. But how can citizen journalists with limited resources and no pay compete with the daily stream of uniformly hostile stories about Trump and the Republican Party? Fortunately, most Danes understand English and have access to American media that have tried to give a fair account of recent American politics. The truth is marching, albeit slowly.

The leading article in the daily Politiken (Nov. 7), often considered Denmark’s paper of record, carries the headline: ”The President of Lies”. It doesn’t specify what he is supposed to have lied about. This left-leaning paper just knows that he is a liar – an opinion widely shared by most Danish and European mainstream media. Trump is evil, so who needs evidence? And now he has the audacity to challenge the election because he believes there has been widespread voter fraud. Politiken is livid: ”That he is willing to sink to the depths as to actively do harm to his own country in order to serve his own purposes, is shocking. Trump’s probably only term in office will end precisely where it started. In dishonor.”

Other leading European papers, such as Die Weit and Le Monde, are agreed that there is no evidence of voter fraud. One wonders how they can be so sure before the matter has been thoroughly investigated and the American courts have spoken. But it is payback time for the chattering classes who abhor Donald Trump’s populist style fearing that their own hegemony over public opinion might be in jeopardy.

And it is not only the media. On Facebook a Danish grandmother tells how her three grandchildren aged 7 and 14 have been indoctrinated in the public, taxpayer-funded schools to believe that Trump is a monster. She asks: “How normal is it for a 7-year old to be talking about how ugly and evil a politician in a foreign country is? This is sick.”

Dreams of revenge creep in. Die Zeit muses that perhaps Trump will be dragged in front of a court and punished for his heinous deeds.

It is easy to understand the glee of European journalists. For four years they have had a soft job. All they needed was to repeat what they had heard on CNN or read in the New York Times and take the rest of the day off. No wonder that 90% of Danes hate the President for all the mainstream media have told them is that he is a villain.

On the assumption that Joe Biden has indeed won the presidency, the Danish and many other European media face a challenge. How to explain that half of the Americans voted for Trump? Why wasn’t there a blue wave? Why did the Republicans – probably – keep the Senate and make inroads on the Democratic majority in the House? Worst of all: Why did some 26% of the minorities vote for a man whom the media had described as a racist and a champion of white supremacy?

Most European media will probably abstain from tackling these questions. But now they are up against another hurdle. Up until now they have presented American politics as a battle between good (the Democrats) and evil (Trump). What will their angle be after evil has been vanquished? Perhaps daily praise of the wondrous achievements of the Biden-Harris administration. In other words the North Korean option with round the clock adulation of the beloved leader. One wonders if that would attract much interest when the election fever has abated.

There are signs that a part of the European media have realized that the press cannot survive on propaganda alone and perhaps a growing sense that their readers may demand more, such as reports on what is going on in the USA. And there is much to report from Biden land. Dominic Green writing in The Spectator (London) notes that hardly had the Democrats claimed victory before their bliss fizzled: “Within hours of Biden claiming victory, the Democratic left was trading Twitter snark with the centrists. The fanaticism and fellow-traveling of the wokist horde is one reason why this election was so close. It is also crucial to the Democrats’ failure to flip the Senate and, it appears, to grow their lead in the House.” It is also unlikely that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez can carry on with her planned witch hunt against anybody associated with the Trump campaign without it being noted in Europe – which has, after all, intimate knowledge of witch hunts and their consequences.

There are even signs that some journalists would prefer a balanced perspective on Trump and his supporters. Ole Nyeng, writing in the Danish weekly Weekendavisen (Nov. 6), quotes Henry Olsen, senior researcher at the Washington think tank Ethics and Public Policy Center and a contributor to the Washington Post. Olsen opines that if Trump had only carried out his policies instead of splitting the country, he would no doubt have gotten four more years. “Most Americans”, notes Olsen, “wish for what Trump delivers.” And what about COVID? “Trump might have handled it better and faster but remember that in the USA the struggle against COVID lies first and foremost in the hands of the States. It is not like in Denmark, where Prime Minister Frederiksen only needs to tell you what to do.”

Henry Olsen further notes that the Democrats bear a big part of the responsibility for the political clashes over the past four years. “They have insisted on treating Trump like a person he is not. He is not a racist, he is not a dictator, he is an unpolished person but he gets things done.”

“like our mainstream media they’re political advocates”

Advocating the left who in there youth wanted to burn it all down... up to this day and age where the left of the 60s, somehow put themselves in charge and want to watch and direct the anarchy.

Is that the truth we’re being told to believe?

tHAT stance is not at all wide spread across the political spectrum among average people .
But , it’s true , that liberal propaganda has some influence among weak minded people
It’s the political class (or political cast ) ruling WESTERN Europe and E.U. and owned propaganda media !
It’s different for EASTERN European countries which went back to their cultural and historical legacy after the disaster of communism

This is NEWS?

This has been going on since at least President Reagan!
Any and EVERY Republican is nothing short of evil.
Any and EVERY Democrat is a Saint in waiting.

Most Europeans have absolutely no idea about what Republicans stand for (or at least claim to). Nor do they have any idea about how the American Government actually works (or should work). They have been fed propaganda for well over 40 years with little or no “push back” from any media outlets. Even the “conservative” ones are quite far to the left.

There will be no “change” in the way they report. Any discrepancies will simply be ignored and few if any will even notice.

Europe has been pumping out Ministry of Truth broadcasting for a long time. There’s is precious little alternative broadcasting there. And Voice of America went leftist/globalist long ago.

From frequent contact with a number of typical, working class Danes, I can tell you that their common perspectives are:

Americans are, in general, inferior to Danes.

Conservative (right-wing) Americans are ignorant, Bible-thumping, gun-toting, racist, sexist fascists.

Trump is the reincarnation of Hitler. Trump is evil. Trump is stupid and mean. Trump is all the right-wing stuff above.

BTW — Europe has no AM stations any more, nor AM radios in cars or for sale. FM is being eliminated, too. They want only satellite radio there = trackable listening.

Comparisons of Trump to Hitler are all the rage in the media. So let’s look at a few of them:
At the age of 55 Hitler had conducted a putsch, invaded and conquered most of Europe, arranged for the murder of six million Jews, to say nothing of Poles, Gypsies, and any conscientious German Christians who dares raise their heads. And had gotten Germany into an unwindable war with the US and the USSR, lost it, and committed suicide.
At the age of 69 Trump was a controversial figure but had never held or seriously sought any political power, was not publicly accused of racism, and was never even rumored, AFAIK, to have murdered anyone.
Hitler controlled “the media” of Germany absolutely.
”The media” has, almost unanimously, opposed Trump -
and the comparison of Trump to Hitler only proves that point.
IMHO Trump needs not only to win his suits against the swing-state Democrats, he needs to obtain injunctions against any future such conduct - and he needs SCOTUS to announce the abolition of the New York Times Co. v. Sullivan decision which allows “the media” to violate
Ninth Commandment:
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. Exod 20: 16
by libeling Republicans (they never libel Democrats, who are in symbiosis with them). The history original understanding of the Bill of Rights absolutely justifies that. But Trump needs, IMHO, to sue for libel in order to give SCOTUS the opportunity to do that.

Even the foreign policy spokesman of the hard-right Danish People's Party, Espersen, expressed his hope that Hillary Clinton would win in 2016.

I find it very hard to believe that anyone I would consider even close to being "hard-right" would want Mrs. Bill Clinton to be POTUS.

Lots of countries in the UN want to go back to the old days when you could buy a speech from an American Democrat for $40,000 a minute and get a billion dollars worth of American taxpayer dollars in return... Or American blood and blown off arms and legs...

Your choice.

And not to forget - in the old democrat days no one had to keep their word to NATO...let the American fools pick up the tab and responsibility...

“We’ll butter up democrats with fancy parties and amazing hookers. Maybe they can sit on the boards of our companies and we’ll steal their companies in exchange. And Israel? We’ll kick them in the head like fallen MEGA supporter...”

Yeah, UN Thugs are happy... is that really a surprise?

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