Trump’s election took Europe by surprise
How are we to understand this election? Like many in Europe, some of us were surprised to learn last Wednesday of Trump’s re-election for a new term. In an age of instant information, how can it be explained that so many of us, so many Europeans, could have developed such a false picture of what was happening on the other side of the Atlantic? Where does this gap come from? Are European media, which are supposed to inform democratic debate, playing their role? And if not, what lesson should be drawn from this?
An election that surprised more than a few
On Wednesday morning, as the American states announced their results one after another, Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election soon left no room for doubt. It is not a victory, it is a triumph: the Republican camp, driven by Donald Trump but also by Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., won everything there was to win. The White House, the Senate, the House, the majority of governors. The electoral college, the popular vote, everything.
The Republican camp gained ground everywhere, even in Democratic strongholds such as California, and lost ground nowhere, not having lost a single county won in the 2020 presidential election. Yet, if one had relied on the analyses and commentary of European media and politicians in the preceding weeks and months, it would have been difficult to predict such a result, to say the least. So what happened?
European media do not report the facts
We have to face the facts. The presentation of the facts offered to us by our media and political leaders seems biased, to say the least, and therefore unfortunately false. We offer you a translation of a few passages from an article published on the very useful American political website Realclearpolitics.com[1], a non-partisan outlet that publishes articles written by supporters of both camps in the United States, which makes it quite convenient to compare them and form one’s own opinion.
This article sums up well the reading of the facts that is turning out to be the majority view in the United States at present, since it has just won the elections in triumph. A description of American reality that is nonetheless very different from the one that may come across in European media, which will never report this kind of analysis:
“Why [did Donald Trump win]? Trump was a better president than Joe Biden and a better candidate than Kamala Harris. Ordinary Americans led manifestly more prosperous lives under Trump than under Biden. And Trump is visibly more authentic, accessible, charming, intelligent, persuasive, perceptive, intuitive and fun than Harris. Trump won on both policy and personality.
Democracy prevailed; the people won out despite everything that was done and said to prevent it. Trump won even though almost every institution in the United States - the media, academia and big business too - not only opposed him, but opposed him virulently, comparing him to Hitler and warning that his election would mean the very end of democracy.”
The article goes on:
“Oh, and the movie and rock stars too. Harrison Ford told us emotionally this weekend that he had voted for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. (…) It was an impassioned plea, but it had no effect because most of us were not born yesterday. (…) [To us] it was just a beautifully narrated lie.
It was a call to trust the prosecutors and judges who cynically used the courts as a partisan weapon while proclaiming their loyalty to ‘the rule of law’. To believe the government bureaucrats who silenced those who dared to question the origins and effects of Covid (…). To ignore the dishonesty of the national security officials who claimed that Hunter Biden’s laptop was fake when they knew it was not. (…)
And he continues:
Thus, Donald Trump’s victory is more than an epic story of personal and political success, it is a vote of ‘no confidence’ in institutions and in governance by experts who claim authority. Institutions fail when they do not focus on their core mission (…)
Here are some of the examples he gives:
On his first trip abroad as president, Joe Biden addressed American troops stationed in England. (…) ‘This is no joke: you know what the Joint Chiefs of Staff told us is the greatest threat to the United States? Global warming.’
Despite the denial, it sounded exactly like a ‘joke’. Or rather, like a parody of liberal excess. (…)
Or these:
Similarly, almost all government institutions now focus on marginal issues or progressive fads rather than on their fundamental missions. Prosecutors promote ‘equity’ instead of jailing criminals. (…)
And it is not only government institutions that have lost their way. The core mission of the media is supposed to be delivering news, not constructing partisan, half-true narratives with the intention of influencing elections. Think of the memorable scenes of 2020 [during the BLM riots] where cable news reporters described ‘mostly peaceful protests’ while fires ravaged buildings behind them.
Once-venerable business institutions are not focusing on their core missions either. [They are] lecturing consumers instead of serving them. (…) Placing political commissars in the C-suite distracts from companies’ core mission, creates divisions within the workforce and alienates consumers. (…)
And finally, on the Covid crisis:
Just as government, media and business institutions have been degraded by their politicisation, so too have public ‘experts’. Socrates, perhaps the greatest expert on knowledge, observed that the only true wisdom lies in knowing that you know nothing. He refused to use his expertise in an authoritarian way, but used it instead to empower others to think through problems.
Although few voters read Socrates today, almost everyone knows that experts do not always agree. That is why, when we face difficult or costly problems, we seek a second opinion. Whether it is car repair or brain surgery, we know it makes sense to get a second, and sometimes a third, opinion. Why? Experts have different perspectives and motivations. Often there is not just one answer. We may ultimately rely on an expert’s judgement, but not without using their expertise to understand the problem so that we can make a better decision ourselves.
Public experts tend to be more authoritarian and less consultative, which undermines trust in experts in general. For example, Dr. Anthony Fauci and the team of government experts used their ‘expert’ status in an authoritarian and political way, seeking to dominate others instead of empowering them to decide for themselves. They misled the public about the origin of Covid, the effectiveness of masks, and the safety and efficacy of the vaccines. Equating himself with ‘the science’, Fauci sought to silence critics, stifle questioning, and deprive people of their ability to make fully informed decisions. This lack of Socratic modesty has led millions of people to lose trust in all public experts who behave in a similarly authoritarian way.
He concludes as follows:
So, in a world where so much is going wrong, electing the guy who drives all these prevaricating pundits crazy simply makes sense. An active majority of the American people were convinced that, despite (or perhaps because of) all the hatred they attract, Donald Trump and his merry band of bold critics - including former Democratic Party members Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Elon Musk and Tulsi Gabbard - are the best bet to purge the system in order to make America great again.
This description of the situation in the United States no doubt surprises you, as it surprises more than a few people within BAM!’s own editorial team. Yet, as Wednesday’s results showed, it seems that this is indeed how the majority of the American population sees it.
So why can we not sense this reality? Perhaps because we never read this kind of text about the United States, however obviously relevant, in European media? But why do our media not pass on to us this kind of reading, which is nonetheless very common across the Atlantic? It seems that our media are not fulfilling their role of informing us, but rather, by exercising strict control over what is or is not broadcast in Europe, are carrying out careful disinformation work. Daily disinformation work, which leads us to a perception of the facts totally disconnected from reality.
A disconnection from the facts that runs counter to the exercise of democracy
The disconnection of many Europeans - especially the aptly named “educated”, judging by what can quite easily be observed when talking to people around you - from American realities is ever more astonishing, even among those who have seen through the whole thing on other topics, such as Covid or the climate.
The disconnection is, moreover, overwhelmingly similar among Europeans with regard to Russian, Chinese, Iranian realities, etc. Europeans seem sincerely to believe that the majority of Russians, Chinese and Iranians, to take three major targets of current propaganda in the West, are opponents of their own country and see it in a way similar to the view developed here. Which, if one takes the trouble to find out objectively for two minutes, is laughable. The majority of Russians, Iranians and Chinese are obviously more favourable to their own country than to the views of the West. How can Europeans believe the opposite? We seem to be living here in an intellectual bubble, the result, it seems, of a constant bias in access to information. But who controls this access? And is this control deliberate, or the result of a “natural” social evolution?
Be that as it may, at present one of the things Europeans seem to need most is a school of thought that makes it possible to truly break free of this control of opinion, whatever its origin – artificial or not -, in order to restore meaning to the notion of democracy. For, as Hannah Arendt remarked, democracy can only be exercised if public debate is informed by real facts. Without access to the facts, what is our own thinking worth?
This emancipation seems to require, at the very least, regularly reading the press, or sources, from different countries belonging to the different blocs. Otherwise, how can one compare and form one’s own opinion? Also, from this point of view, should learning non-Western foreign languages not be a key element of education?
Telling the difference between describing and endorsing
In terms of education, it also seems necessary here in Europe to learn to tell the difference between describing things and endorsing them: writing “Trump is popular in the US” is a statement of a reality, which has nothing to do with “being pro-Trump”.
Exactly as writing “the Iranian regime enjoys substantial support among the population” is the statement of a reality, which is very different from endorsing the principles of that regime.
This kind of tribalism of thought, which levels discourse, seems to be highly blinding. Last week’s election results in the United States are a good illustration of this for many Europeans who failed to see what was happening on the other side of the Atlantic, stuck in their binary “pro or anti” “Trump”.
As if this binary “pro-Trump” versus “anti-Trump” made it possible to understand anything at all.
What do the coming months hold in store for us? How should we react?
Now that Donald Trump has been re-elected, what do the coming weeks, months and years hold in store for us?
Can we expect our media and political leaders to question themselves? Will they denounce their own biases and finally set about giving us a description of the facts closer to reality?
In view of what has happened over the past few years, and of the coverage of other recent events, there is room for doubt. So what is left for Europeans to do?
Why not follow the American example? Let us turn away from the media and the champions of the official narrative, and learn to form our own opinion by actively informing ourselves. Let us compare the press of countries with opposing leanings, and collect the quality sources available on social networks. Let us finally be adults in the way we inform ourselves and form our own opinion.
And let us do this work for every subject, not only for the one that is dear to our hearts. Let us start from the principle that every theme, new or old, is by default, like all the others, suspected of being or having been subjected to propaganda. Let us not question the narrative only for the theme we care about, while continuing to let our opinion be so easily shaped on all other subjects. On the contrary, from now on let us avoid falling into the trap of the dominant discourse, on every subject.
By Nicolas Mertens, citizen journalist for BAM!
Image generated using the Grok artificial intelligence
