Ich habe sogar auf @BarackObama verzichtet, um in #Erfurt zu sein. Wenn das mal kein commitment ist. @spdde #Ostkonvent pic.twitter.com/eistBBv2NG
— Sawsan Chebli (@SawsanChebli) April 6, 2019
I found this really, really funny. Obama’s organization has invited a German woman to attend a „conversation about what it means to be an active citizen“ in Berlin, where the „event will be in English and interpretation to other spoken languages will not be provided.“ Comments on Chebli’s tweet include references to Obama’s drone war and his administration’s prosecution of whistleblowers.
Der Präsident der Vereinigten Staaten hat gestern Menschen als Tiere bezeichnet. Vor laufender Kamera. Ist irgendwer überrascht? Tja. Realität 2019. Guten Morgen.
— DIE ZEIT (@DIEZEIT) April 6, 2019
Menschen sind keine Tiere. Ganz einfach.
— DIE ZEIT (@DIEZEIT) April 6, 2019
I read Die Zeit’s tweet sitting at a woman’s backyard Imbiss, enjoying Currywurst and a beer during a break hiking what had been the DDR borderguard path alongside the wall. Several things impress me here: a number of US news posts quickly pointed out the clip was from a year ago, and Trump was responding to a question about the possibility of Central American gang members being among refugees. While not stated, the implication seemed to clearly be the quote was misrepresented, that it was gang members being referred to as animals, not refugees in general. Social media reposts of the quote in a number of instances added comparisons of Trump’s language to that of Nazis. Americans in the 21st Century use the Nazis as a sort of gold standard for dehumanizing dictatorship even while the American understanding of pretty much any aspect of German 20th Century history and politics is quite weak.