Germans regard U.S. President Donald Trump to be the “greatest threat to world peace,” a latest YouGov poll shows.
About 41 percent of German respondents picked U.S. President as most dangerous from a list of world leaders which included Iran’s Islamic tyrant Ayatollah Khamenei, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, Communist China’s Xi Jinping, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. More than 2000 Germans were polled for the survey.
Germans have very little trust in President Trump as well, a separate year-end poll conducted by the London-based Kantar Institute found. The U.S. president was seen as the least trustworthy leader, with 89 percent saying that they had “very little trust” in him. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson also didn’t fare well. Some 71 percent of Germans did not trust the newly elected UK prime minister either.
In contrast, French President Emmanuel Macron emerged as “most trustworthy” leader in that poll, with 57 percent of Germans putting their faith in him. The French leader’s polling numbers were even higher than those of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The longest serving German chancellor trailed slightly behind at 53 percent.
German state broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported the new YouGov poll:
When asked who posed the greatest threat to world peace, Germans in a recent poll overwhelmingly pointed to one person — Donald Trump. The US president beat out the leaders of North Korea, Russia, China and Iran. (…)Germans were asked who was more dangerous: North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Russian President Vladimir Putin or US President Donald Trump.Some 41% of Germans said they thought Trump was the most dangerous out of the five world leaders.In second place was Kim with 17%, followed by Putin and Khamenei with 8%. Coming in last was China’s Xi with 7%.Over 2,000 people in Germany took part in the survey, which was commissioned by news agency dpa.A similar YouGov poll was carried out in July last year, in which 48% of Germans surveyed said Trump was more dangerous than Kim and Putin. That poll, however, did not include the leaders of Iran or China.
Since President Trump took office three years ago, Germans have responded to him unfavorably in polls. In 2018 “The fears of Germans” annual survey found that Germans were more worried about the policies of the U.S. president than mass immigration from the Middle East or jihad terrorism. “Nothing scares Germans more than the US president’s policies,” Germany’s Deutsche Welle commented while reporting on the 2018 survey.
Germany’s state-run and mainstream news outlets have been obsessed with President Trump, churning out one negative story after another ever since he took office three years ago. A Harvard study in 2017 found that German media coverage was “extremely negative” toward the U.S. president.
The study by the Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center showed that during “Trump’s first 100 days in office, 98 percent of [Germany’s state-run] ARD’s news coverage that assigned value to a story about him was negative.” This figure was higher than that of CNN, NBC, Washington Post, New York Times, or any other media outlet surveyed in the study.
With a gigantic budget of over €8 billion, Germany’s state-owned media plays a key role in dictating the narrative and shaping public opinion. Germany’s political establishment had been rattled by the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Berlin had placed big hopes in Hillary Clinton’s presidency. The German government even handed out $5 million to the Clinton Foundation in the months leading up to the U.S. election. Following the ‘upset’ of 2016, German state media are incessantly venting their fury at President Trump.
Germany’s leading state-owned TV channel ZDF cheered the last week’s congressional impeachment, describing it as “a symbol of hope for democracy.” The state-run Deutsche Welle even congratulated Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party, calling it a “huge success.”
Germany’s mainstream media outlets, too, are implicit in peddling the agenda set by the political elite. The leading German news magazine Der Spiegel regularly brings out title stories that are deemed anti-Trump and anti-American. Shortly after President Trump took office, the magazine published a cover illustration showing him beheading the Statue of Liberty. The magazine’s star reporter, Claas Relotius, was caught planting false stories, including a fake news story portraying Trump supporters as racists. Der Spiegel reporter’s fake coverage earned him the ‘CNN Journalist of the Year’ before getting caught.
The new YouGov poll shows how the German media establishment has succeeded in diverting public attention away from the pressing issues and directing their anger towards President Trump. Germany witnessed 40 knife attacks in early December. This news went unreported by major German media outlets. The German mainstream media outlets simply refuse to report rising migrant crime or surging Islamism in the country, covering up even the mass sexual assaults by migrants on the 2016 New Years Eve in Cologne and other German cities. However, burying their collective heads in the sand and bashing the U.S. president won’t save the country from the gigantic problems Chancellor Merkel’s legacy will leave behind.
Trump on Merkel’s migrant policy during the presidential campaign
[Cover image via YouTube]
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