Since the real estate mogul made a shocking surge to the top of the
Republican presidential polls in the U.S., Europe has fixated on the
unapologetic showman, churning out a steady stream of news coverage and
commentary.
The Continent has its share of outrageous personalities on the political right of center: Britain’s
Nigel Farage, Italy’s
Silvio Berlusconi, France’s
family Le Pen.
But Trump fits many perceived European stereotypes of America: excess,
vulgarity, ignorance, superficiality, love of wealth, to name a few.
“Trump represents the America that we love to hate,” said Marie-Cécile Naves, a sociologist and author of “
Le nouveau visage des droites américaines”
(“The New Face of the American Right”). “He is our negative mirror
image, a man we see as brutal, who worships money and lacks culture —
someone who lets us feel a bit superior about being European.”
In Europe’s capitals, feelings of superiority sometimes translate as
concern for an ignorant American public that Trump, described by
Britain’s Observer newspaper as a “malign buffoon,” is supposedly
exploiting. “His constituency is ignorance,” the Observer
wrote on Aug. 9 in an unsigned editorial. “In this, he is heir to a long, inglorious American tradition.”
In France, editorialist Alexandre Vatimbella called him a
“provocative clown” whose brand of populism was dangerous for democracy,
while Germany’s newspapers have reached a consensus around the label “
Großmaul,” or loudmouth.
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