Sunday 31st January 2021
Ex-president over ex-president
Obama: Trump's importance is overestimated
Former US President Obama speaks about his successor in office, Trump, in an interview. Accordingly, the political work of the Republican is more marginal than is often shown. As an example, he cites Trump's inability to reverse the Democratic-initiated health insurance reform.
Former US President Barack Obama doesn't think much of Donald Trump's political legacy. The importance of his successor is overestimated, said the 59-year-old in a ZDF interview published on Sunday. For example, Trump was not able to destroy the better access to health insurance introduced by the Democrats, as announced. And in terms of climate protection policy, the new government under Joe Biden could quickly pick up on the previous course and, for example, rejoin the Paris Agreement.
Regarding the strength of the conservative camp led by Trump and his influence, Obama said that in the end Trump was not re-elected – in contrast to himself in 2012. Trump's election victory in 2016 was due on the one hand to centuries-old social conflicts in the USA, but also in the 2008-09 financial crisis, said Obama. The economic turmoil at the time had created instability and worry. Many people feared that there might be setbacks for them personally.
In this situation it is very often the case that politics relies on strong men, on power. In addition, right-wing social media were added, in combination with television channels such as Fox News. These fed people with information "completely detached from reality," he criticized.
"If you feed people lies, distortions, conspiracy theories, and if politicians try to take advantage of it for their own sake – then over time social trust can break down and the whole thing can lead to tragedy. Like the ones we saw here in the Capitol to have." On January 6, a mob of hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in the US capital in an unprecedented escalation of violence after Trump incited them at a mass rally. There were several fatalities.
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