We’re living in interesting times. The real Donald Trump has managed to win the presidential elections in the USA.

Though liberals and leftists in europe and the world have long demanded the US to stop acting as „world police“, now that Donald Trump has projected to do exactly this and even to — kind of — dismantle the NATO, they seem not to be happy either.

If the official motto of Trump, „America first“ and „Make America great again“ is meant seriously, the rest of the world can expect the US-american surveillance and espionage system to be used for ever more economical espionage and intelligence operations.

Therefore network security and information security should finally be taken seriously in the world. The best protection against data theft and surveillance is not gathering data, and if data is gathered, a strict security concept to prevent the data from being copied by the wrong people.
Also, Europe and Germany should consider building up an IT industry of their own (again). Do you *really* trust US and chinese network hardware? Is it really smart that so many people and companies use Google all the day? Is there any of us who could not be blackmailed by what Google knows about us? Shouldn’t we build an european search engine, like China did build a chinese? Am I the only one who has the impression that the european industry politics on IT were naive and stupid and that we’re ruled by digital simpletons?

In his first speech, Trump has eaten crow, and said all kind of nice things, like, being a good partner to all the countries in the world. It sounds absurd, but if Trump changed the US foreign policy to treat all countries more like partners than like vassals, this really may be a positive development.

And he does not even want to put Clinton in jail any more… Let’s see if he will really close the border to Mexico, or if he will fail like Obama failed to close down Guantanamo bay.
Let’s see if Trump will really cancel „Obamacare“ – I don’t think so. He’s already promised in his first speech after the victory to do more for the veterans, to create more jobs, to fix the US health system were everything seems to be ridiculously expensive, he’ll probably rather need an „Obamacare+“, and not less health care.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump turned out to be totally different than expected in some aspects of his government. Who could be more independent than a billionaire who didn’t even have his own party’s full support and became the most powerful man in the world? Maybe Trump will turn out to be much „social-democratic“ than Hillary could ever have been. If Trump wants to win a second term, he will have to deliver to his voters, and cutting their health care will probably not be what he does.

Maybe Trump even is just the right kind of person to cope with the dictators and other challenges of today. At least he’s someone the world thinks is capable of doing almost anything (crazy). So he’s a kind of personified deterrent. Democratic leaders who believe in negotiations and win-win-situations etc. often seem to be no match for cold-blooded autocrats. Trump may be the guy who speaks their language.

For Europe, I’m afraid that the political climate will also change as an effect of Trump’s victory.
In Europe, large parts of the population also have not benefited from free trade and globalization. Large parts of the population also feel not respected by the politicians. In Germany there also is a tendency that green/left politicians discuss issues detached from the daily life of most people. A kind of „state feminism“ constantly keeps mocking the male half of the population. Huge sums of money are invested into receiving refugees from syria, and homeless people, pensioners, maybe also students, single moms may feel neglected.
The people think that the state is no longer capable of guaranteeing security, and that (foreign) gangs of criminals are not fought decisively enough. Though the government and the political parties are sharpening lots of laws, they rather do it in secrecy in order not to „support the right wing“.
But that is exactly what the right wing is profiting from – that the left/liberal majority seems passive, seems not to see the issues the „plebs“ is seeing.
There have been concerns in the past that (some) islamic mosques may in fact be islamistic mosques or that many muslims in germany may be patriarchal and anti-democratic. The left has always called these concerns „racist“. Now it turned out that many syrian refugees don’t visit islamic mosques in Germany anymore, because they find the imams there too conservative. Of course, this was grist to the mill for all who accused the leftists/greens of ignoring obvious social problems and acting chicken-hearted and submissive towards (self-proclaimed) minorities.

The social democrats even called the plebs „plebs“, which may not have been the best idea in a democracy. Especially not since the election of Donald Trump may now activate the (previous) nonvoters to show the „establishment“ the ropes.
Also, the governments of the states and the federal government did nothing to stop the rural exodus happening all over Germany. In ancient times, some aristocrat would have found a new city and build a new university to create a new nucleus for economical development to bolster their dominion, but today’s government seems incapable or unwilling to take action and really rule in order to correct maldevelopments. If big projects are started, it’s always that in a already huge city like Berlin, Stuttgart, Hamburg, some billions are spent for yet another prestigious building. This is a problem, because the rural population feels left alone, and this in turn strengthens the longing for a „stronger leader“, who would finally change the course of politics into the right direction.

That’s why I fear that in europe and germany we’ll also have to expect Trump-like election winners. As in the USA, not because these people will be the most qualified, but because their opponents at least seem to be passive, fearful, checken-hearted and sugar-coating sissies who can’t tackle even the most obvious problems.

As I said, we’re living in interesting times. May god bless (not only) America.