Trump’s Psychopathology
„Liberation Day“, when Donald Trump declared reciprocal tariffs to the astonished world on April 4, was a turning point. It was not only the day the global economic order was shaken to its core. It was also the day when some liberal commentators changed course. So far, they had still been trying to explain his erratic, emotional and contradictory announcements with an underlying logic, be it shreds of a policy idea, remnants of economic theory or just a cheap gift to his MAGA base. But now they moved to explanations more personal: the guy was just mad and deranged.
Heading to America…
I was warned before travelling to the United States. “It must be an act of masochism to drive through America’s heartland in these dark times” a former Washington Correspondent told me before I left Berlin. “It is hard to keep up your spirits here” a current and disenchanted resident wrote to me from the capital before I arrived. Yet I was curious to find out what has happened to America over the last 30 years, after my six-year-stint as a US-correspondent had ended in early 1995.
Prologue – A Review of Explanations
To the surprise of many, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States for the second time in early November 2024. Is this a vibe shift that the liberal establishment missed, the new normal in the America of the new 20s after the ill-fated interlude of the Biden years? And was it a historic transition to a new Republican electoral coalition that led to the triumph of the MAGA movement over the system? What happened here – and how did it come to this?