Market day in a small German town. What's the topic of every discussion? We are.

[DFW]

My wife did the Saturday shopping at the farmers' market today. It's three times a week in the town square, and Saturday is the biggest. She took a quick break at a café on the square for cappuccino to wake her up. The day's newspapers lie on big tables for everyone to read (or not, as they see fit). They run the gamut from conservative (not Republican crazy style, but truly conservative) to left-leaning (not necessarily "liberal" as defined in the English language). She was there for a few minutes (I'll get to that later)*, and perused the headlines to see if there was any variation. Trump at the UN was front page news everywhere, and sub-themes were mostly concerning his new obsession to get every Democrat indicted who ever did or said anything in opposition to him. In other words, the word "dictatorship" reared its ugly head. Every European who hasn't grown up in Iceland or Switzerland lives in a land that has known some form of that within the last 3 centuries.

One problem that frustrates me to no end is that the US-based of the European news media completely ignore our opposition. Their audience knows who Trump is, but they have never heard of Governors Pritzker, Newsom, Mills, Hobbs, Senators Schiff, Whitehouse, Coons or Murphy, Reps. Crockett, Swalwell, Ocasio-Cortez, etc. They know more about Colbert and Kimmel because they are in the same line of work. One thing I hear from my European friends that pisses me off is "why don't the Democrats do or say anything?" We do plenty (Kimmel IS back on the air, isn't he?), and we have plenty to say. We can't force European news correspondents to get up on Sunday morning in time to see our people rant on the Sunday talk shows, but they do show up, and they DO have plenty to say. We write articles and bring lawsuits, but our judicial system is different, and so is our form of government. They should take a course before hopping a plane and deciding that we're doing nothing. It's good that they report on Trump being a disaster, but that isn't telling their audience something they don't know already. I sometimes feel like the European print news media is akin to a New York Times correspondent in Berlin in 1938 writing an article explaining that the Nazis don't like Jews, and expecting it to be breaking news back home, whereas any American who could read had known that for five years already.

*My wife took a few minutes at the café because one of the women at my travel agency across the square had seen her and brought over two train tickets I had ordered earlier this morning on the phone. Since we travel a lot, we are well known at the local travel agency. Still, my wife appreciated the gesture, so in turn, she ordered eight mini amaretto pastries from the café and brought them over to the travel agency. We're a small town in central Europe, so we still do that kind of thing here.

[cachukis]

1. Wonderful vignette.

[NJCher]

2. 3 nations are on a death watch

Last edited Sat Sep 27, 2025, 10:07 AM - Edit history (1)

That’s the big story they are missing.

Putin and trump are circling the drain. Yesterday Netanyahu experienced a massive display of rejection.

Everyday we see evidence of their dwindling support and resulting desperation. Johnson’s refusal to accept the new representative’s taking office is the latest. That can only fly for so long and reality will slap him upside the head.

[IbogaProject]

6. Argentina now too

Milei claimed libretarian "Economic Success" now needs a bailout.

[raccoon]

8. I devoutly hope that something will.

[MLWR]

3. I have had a similar experience.

My niece is German and lives in Munich. She too asked me why the Democrats aren't doing anything and like you, I told her they were but the MSM doesn't report their efforts.

[dalton99a]

4. Our current two-party system consists of the Party of Trump and the Party of Silence

[Hekate]

16. Not in my experience. Are you on mailing lists for Indivisible and your local Democratic activists?

I seem to be on several (at my request) and they are all busy. I didn’t anticipate myself feeling so under the weather for so long — but they are not sharing my malaise.

[ancianita]

5. Thanks for the news. You do a great job explaining what their news doesn't. You might add some numbers

on behalf of the American people, too, that US news doesn't fairly report ...

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=20676017

[KS Toronado]

7. Is the problem with European news media companies

basically the same as over here, way too much is owned by right leaning oligarchs and they have
their own agendas? Granted they do inform people that dumpie is evil.

[DFW]

11. No, quite different

Much of the electronic media here is quasi government owned, though not socialist style. No TACC or anything like that, although the two main quasi dictatorships, Hungary and Russia do muzzle their press when it comes to permitting anything critical of their own governments—i.e. they don’t. Sometimes semi-official directives are issued, like the time the Belgian press was forbidden from reporting that violent crimes were committed by Moroccan immigrants. The intent was to reduce discrimination against them, but the Belgians, not being idiots, knew exactly what was only going on when the crimes were reported with no mention of who committed them. They cynically said, “it was those Swedish immigrants again (there are none). “ Interestingly, Murdoch tried to organize a Fox Germany cable TV station, and faltered when running up against Germany’s anti-Nazi laws, probably the most restrictive laws on fully free speech still on the books in Europe. They gave up.

Otherwise, government-owned electronic press, like the BBC, AFP, the main German channels ARD and ZDF, enjoy near total press freedom as long as they attempt to remain pretty much objective. There is no government printed press. That died with socialist-run governments here. Therefore, there is a far greater range of slanting in the print press, where the full range exists in most countries.

The problem here, as I see it, is that the European correspondents don’t dig deeper than what they see on the surface. They don’t get the humor of Colbert or Kimmel (for years, my wife didn’t either), so it was hard for them to grasp how much their loss traumatized so much of our nation. They are sometimes understaffed, and if they don’t look for the significance of people like Pritzker, Schiff, Crockett, they will never understand how important they are. I don’t even know one European who knows the name Rachel Maddow.

They don’t look, and so they don’t see. I’m not the only one to notice this. The same complaint was expressed, and far more forcefully, by a German friend who was Moscow station chief for the WDR (local western German radio and TV news). He took his job seriously, learned Russian, traveled all over, from the Ukrainian border to Kamchatka. He lamented that many of his German colleagues there were too content to parrot other people’s reporting, and not get out and dig for the stories themselves. So the problem here is not with higher-ups telling journalists what to report, but rather the journalists, themselves, being too quick to decide that what is most important is that which requires the least work.

One time, when I was in NYC, I was stopped by a German TV crew for a random American “man-on-the-street” interview. I said sure, OK, and started speaking German to them. They said what I said was fascinating, but they couldn’t use my interview. I asked why not? They said their prescribed formula assumed that Americans are never able to speak German, and that I didn’t fit their narrative. It’s a far more subtle way to slant their news. I’m as American as anyone else on the street, but I’m too familiar with Germany, so my opinion isn’t newsworthy to Germans—so say the German media, anyway.

[KS Toronado]

12. I see said the blind man

My late uncle who was shot down over the Ploesti refineries was glad he learned German growing up.
The German doctor who saved his life hated Hitler so they had something in common and became
life long friends.

[highplainsdem]

9. Kimmel and Colbert are celebrities. Trump was a celebrity before he was a politician.

While I'm normally not in favor of celebrities going into politics, we could use one now.

Though in an age of political violence, the families and friends of any celebrity considering entering politics would probably plead with them not to.

It is a problem that there is no clear Democratic leader, party leader, at the moment. It isn't just the lack of European media coverage. There's no Democrat who can at this time command the sort of media attention we need, and be recognized by most Democrats as the spokesperson for the party.

[DFW]

13. I'm not sure we'd be well-advised to have a clear front-runner right now

When Howard Dean took over as DNC chair sfter Kerry’s “loss,” he made it clear it was not to pave the way for another candidacy of his own. Howard was everywhere, and paved the way for us to retake the House and the Senate in 2006. I didn’t even know the name of the current DNC chairman without looking it up, and that’s just wrong. Even with Howard’s dynamic DNC leadership, we didn’t have clearly declared presidential candidates for 2008 until 2007. Even Obama took a little time to catch fire. Inevitability invites burnout. I’m happy to have a rotating roster of dynamic Democrats with no presidential ambitions occupy the TV screens for now, until the next Obama steps up in 2027 to lead us to a victory every bit as decisive as the one we enjoyed in 2008.

[Hekate]

17. Agreed. Every time it looks like we have a frontrunner who is an actual politician (it's a knack)...

…we end up with blowback from people on the lookout for the next Jesus.

I liked Dean, by the way. I still have all my old t-shirts.

[DFW]

18. I still like him!

We don’t get together nearly as much as we used to. Thank goodness for email. For that matter, I guess I owe him a visit in Burlington. After all, we have met up in Düsseldorf.

I can’t believe he’ll be 77 this November. Now THAT is scary.

[58Sunliner]

10. Good to know. Thanks.

[ClaudetteCC]

14. thank you for a nice description in part about normal life elsewhere

I have the opposite (or is it contrapositive?) problem. I seek out distant news sources online (dw.com, straitstimes.com, etc) to get away from constant Trump news and to hear about things going on outside of that bubble. I'm not sure if I see their regular news or if the sites detect my IP and think all I want is us politics 24/7.

[Hekate]

15. TY so much for this. The "US Dems aren't doing/saying anything" trope is a popular one at DU itself...

…and it pisses me off, too — because the vast majority of DUers aren’t living tens of thousands of miles away. (Looks around the hall and says: Are We? )

Loved your post.

[DeeDeeNY]

19. It was so enjoyable reading your post

You must be one of the only DUers to use asterisked footnotes!

[DFW]

20. Except for when I lived in Spain, most of my education was in English.

As opposed to:

EXCERPTS FROM THE OFFICIAL DICTIONARY OF REPUBLICANESE

In Republicanese, many words that sound alike may be spelled differently at random. A few prominent examples:

In Republicanese, the following words may be spelled at random using any of the three ways given:

A.) Two, Too, To
B.) Their, They're, There
c.) Your, Yore, You're

The Republicanese version of Robin Hood therefore starts with "In days of you're...."

The only rule is that the correct use of them as in English is never permitted twice in a row.

Words with single letters that change meaning when that letter is doubled must never be used in correct English context. The classic example is “lose” vs. “loose.” In Republicanese, if you do not win an election, then you “loose” that election. Conversely, if your (Republicanese: you’re) belt is too tight, you need it more “lose” in order to be comfortable. Another example would be the Republicanese, “I met Donald Trump, and he was rudder than I imagined,” vs. “I grabbed the ruder and was able to steer the boat to shore.”

In English, the contraction for "it is" is written "it's." To show possession referring to something previously mentioned, one writes "its." In Republicanese, it is the other way around. Example:
English: “It's impractical for a building to have its solar panels in the basement.”
Republicanese: “Its impractical for a building to have it's solar panels in the basement.”


In Republicanese, idiomatic expressions that use words that are homonyms with animals in English must use the spelling that denotes the animal.
Three examples:
In English, when someone wins a race by a very small margin, one can say, “He won the race by a hair.” In Republicanese, one writes, “He won the race by a hare.”
In English, someone fleeing the law can be said to be on “on the lam.” In Republicanese, that is spelled “on the lamb.”
In English, when one starts to lose their voice after shouting for an extended time, one says, “he shouted himself hoarse.” In Republicanese, one writes, “He shouted himself horse.”


In Republicanese, an apostrophe is used to form a plural, whereas this is never correct in English. But it must be done at random, never systematically. For example, Bill and Hillary are "the Clinton's," but Bill, Chelsea and Hillary are "the Clintons." The other way around is also correct. In Republicanese, either form is correct as long as it is not spelled the same way twice in a row.
Example:
In English, one writes "The Clintons like dogs."
In Republicanese, this can be written as "The Clinton's like dogs," or "The Clintons like dog's" or "The Clinton's like dog's." The only version that would be incorrect in Republicanese would be to use no apostrophe at all. Only English is written that way.

In Republicanese, pronouns that are direct or indirect objects must never be used as in English when combined with another proper name, proper noun, or pronoun.
Example: in English, one says, e.g., “John went to dinner with me,” and not “John went to dinner with I.” Therefore, in English, one also says, “John went to dinner with my wife and me.” In Republicanese, while it is also correct to say, “John went to dinner with me,” it is only correct to say “John went to dinner with my wife and I.”

[DeeDeeNY]

21. There is also this Republicanese phrase that doesn't adhere to rules except bad spelling --

GET A BRAIN MORANS!

[DFW]

22. Noteworthy that they never follow their own instructions! n/t