Guest post: Trump is not the “leader of the free world”
Guest post by Maureen Brian, originally posted on Facebook.
This was published immediately after the Inauguration but here it is again because six months on it might have been done with a difference of emphasis. Also because I am sick to the back teeth of running into people mindlessly referring to Trump as the “leader of the free world.” The rest of this is addressed to them with no offence to my friends who have more sense.
Listen up, kiddies! Leader of the free world is not a title at all: it is an epithet applied to whomever is believed worthy and by general consent. No, it is not in the gift of the Electoral College and you can’t buy it.
It was first applied to FDR in exceptional circumstances, when he was supporting and funding much of the war against fascism against opposition at home and against the direction of much of your history. Monroe Doctrine, anyone?
Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy all lived up to that level of concern for the world and interest in it. Johnson might have done if he’d sought another term and if he’d not been so busy turning Kennedy’s dreams into some sort of reality right there at home.
Since then your Presidents have been a mixed bag. Only Clinton and Obama had enough interest in/knowledge of the rest of the world to even think of such a title and neither seemed terribly bothered about claiming it. Just like FDR.
As for Trump? No way, José! He knows nothing of the world or its history, he pisses off allies from the long-established to the lukewarm or unreliable. Back home he constantly attacks various clauses of your First Amendment when they or something very like them would be the founding principles of anything described as free.
So stop claiming the title for this man. Doing so merely confirms your political illiteracy and is an unnecessary burden on this world as it actually exists.
People claim that title for Trump?
I thought everyone knew Merkel was…
BKiSA, frankly, I find Merkel so much more – palatable – than Trump, it is almost worth seeing if I could emigrate to Germany (and how difficult it is to learn to speak German; I took Spanish in high school, and girls were not encouraged to take any languages other than Spanish or French. We weren’t forbidden, but in the end, none of us really wanted to be the single female in that particular group of males, either).
Given how much of the German language has filtered through to form the basis for English (which is a hybrid language after all), I suspect you’d do fine. I’ve only been to Germany for a week working, but quite enjoyed it. Still, nowhere is perfect if you live there.
German is *relatively* easy for an English-speaker to learn; it’s the sole occupant of Category II of the Foreign Service Institute’s Language Difficulty Ranking, denoting about 30 weeks of full-time study to get to communicative fluency. It’s in a ranking of its own because it *should* be easier, but because of all of the case distinctions and intricacies of grammar, it’s more difficult than all the other Germanic languages.
As for Germany itself, immigrating isn’t impossible, especially if you’re a professional. I’m considering it in the future, if my adoptive home of Canada becomes less tenable. But it *is* culturally different, and it’s undergoing its own crises with terrorism and assimilation of refugees. Also, Merkel has been its head of government for more than a decade, now, and her tenure will not last another decade. It’s really up in the air who might replace her, and from which party.