The following is a translation of an introduction by a very famous German TV host in one of his political talk shows (translated by me):
>Not a day goes by without gun violence. At the same time, the Supreme Court is deepening divisions within the country with controversial rulings. Women lose their right to abortion. Gun laws are being relaxed instead of being tightened. America’s democracy as a whole is threatened by potential electoral reforms. In addition to the domestic political tensions, President Biden is also facing major foreign policy challenges: he wants to supply Germany with LNG gas and end its energy dependency on Russia by the end of the year. People and the environment bear the costs. So where is the US headed? How long will the United States and NATO partners remain united on the issue of supporting Ukraine?
30 comments
Your submission has been automatically removed due to exceeding the text limit in your post’s textbox. Please shorten it to fewer than 500 characters (not words), including spaces and links, to comply with rule #2. Afterwards, contact us via modmail, and we’ll restore it.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskAnAmerican) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Most of that is technically accurate, but reeks of bad faith.
>Not a day goes by without gun violence.
True, but not a day goes by without gun violence in Europe either, and none of the European talk shows are saying that.
>Women lose their right to abortion
I love the irony of being criticized about this from countries where abortion is still technically illegal, and even though that’s not enforced it appear German abortion laws are more strict than many red states. Anyone advocating for the German status quo would be branded far right in America.
>America’s democracy as a whole is threatened by potential electoral reforms.
Like other statements, it’s so vague that it’s impossible to judge and basically some pundits opinion. I’d love to hear them explain how and why or if they’re just importing American political parties talking points.
>he wants to supply Germany with LNG gas and end its energy dependency on Russia by the end of the year. People and the environment bear the costs.
Is this a bad thing? Do Germans want to keep buying Russian energy? Yes, someone will bear the costs for that energy. Maybe if Germany hadn’t shut down their nuclear plants they wouldn’t have that problem. I wonder how many Germans remember [this](https://twitter.com/marcusgilmer/status/1044604107997237249?s=20&t=qW0hKfkH1ny_cHWSFy5owQ)?
I’m at least glad to see that German media has moved on from just making stuff up to instead just presenting the truth in the worth possible way and only some opinion presented as fact.
This just a bunch of vague criticism with no real substance.
Glad we finally got the Germans opinion on the matter. Now we can make some real progress by emulating your example
**> Not a day goes by without gun violence**
Euros don’t truly care about violence. If they did they’d get their knife attacks, bombings, and rapes in order. They only “care” when it’s an American problem. And even then, not enough to truly understand the problem. Most statistics are cooked, definitions are cherry picked, and studies forged to make it look way worse than it actually is.
**> At the same time, the Supreme Court is deepening divisions within the country with controversial rulings**
SCOTUS is in no way obligated to unite the country. It does not exist to represent Democratic will. If anything it serves as a counter to it. Hence why Justices are not elected and are appointed for life. Also funny how abortion is only a divisive issue when it goes against the left. As if there weren’t millions of conservatives who felt left out and deeply offended for the last 50 years having abortion forced upon them when they didn’t want it in their state. But those are icky rural RepubliKKKanz so fuck them amirite lolz!@!11!
**> Women lose their right to abortion**
Only in the states that vote that way. Other states will vote to expand abortion rights. Weird how Democracy only matters to Europe when they get the result they wanted. And I defy any European leader to run on the “abortion up until the point of birth” platform that Democrats in deep blue states are increasingly turning towards. Like take the Ralph Northam position and see how quickly support for abortion drops in Europe. Europe already has vastly more restrictive abortion laws than the US does and this is how they talk?
**> Gun laws are being relaxed instead of being tightened**
Tell that to the red flag law the Senate just passed.
**> America’s democracy as a whole is threatened by potential electoral reforms.**
Oh no, Americans have to prove they are citizens and present a photo ID to vote in some places. Not even all of them. The very thing that virtually every other country does is proof America is doomed!!!
**> In addition to the domestic political tensions, President Biden is also facing major foreign policy challenges:**
He faces more than foreign policy challenges. Dude struggles to put a sentence together sometimes.
**> he wants to supply Germany with LNG gas and end its energy dependency on Russia by the end of the year. People and the environment bear the costs.**
And Germany bears no responsibility for this. They are not responsible for closing their own nuclear power plants. They are not responsible for heeding the warning to get off Russian gas 4 years ago when Trump warned them and they spat in his face. It’s America’s job to secure their energy for them and do so in a way that is eco friendly. For some reason Germany has the relationship to America that a toddler has to its parents when it comes to energy, yet somehow it gives off very condescending vibes for the whole thing. Who else can be this self entitled, this ignorant, yet this holier-than-thou?
**> So where is the US headed? How long will the United States and NATO partners remain united on the issue of supporting Ukraine?**
Well with “allies” like Germany, who needs enemies? It’s so strange to see Europeans take this snotty attitude towards the US and act all surprised when there’s murmurs of us leaving NATO. Reap what you sow. How about Europe act like a big boy and solve its own problems? They’ve chanted Yankee go home for 20+ years now, and now there’s even a mild problem within their borders they come crying back to us. They talk so big yet when the time comes to back up their words they are moral cowards.
Sounds about right.
so I guess most of these things are technically correct, but it seems a little cherry-picked. I think you could probably put one of these together for most countries. Like the US, while more violent than Europe, is not uniquely violent in international comparison — it’s pretty middle-of-the-road. (and personally, I tend to think that has more to do with income inequality than guns, although the guns certainly aren’t helping). And while I do think the recent gun law reforms didn’t go far enough, I don’t think it’s accurate to say they were a relaxation. Or abortion — there is no country in Europe that protects abortion rights to the same extent Roe did (most cap elective abortions around 15 weeks), and even post Roe there are a bunch of US states are still more liberal on it than anywhere in Europe. Or he’s complaining about LNG being bad for the environment — you could point plenty of fingers at German coal/nuclear policy as well.
I do think it’s fair to question what happens in terms of the US’s commitment to NATO/Ukraine if another Trump is elected. But it would also depend on what happens in that Congressional election; as it stands, most of the GOP establishment in Congress is pretty firmly pro-Ukraine (they’re all dinosaurs from the cold war haha). It’s hard to say with any real certainty what will happen, but I think that is a reasonable concern to have.
just out of curiosity, who was this? Böhmermann?
Technically true, but still a skewed representation.
A couple things European people and European media tend not to understand about the US is how much US laws are really determined on the state level vs federal level. We have a very decentralized system.
For example, it’s true that there’s no federal regulation around parental leave and vacation time, but where I live in San Francisco, there are. I get government mandated fully paid parental leave (for both men and women).
Likewise, gun laws are very tight in certain states and very loose in other states. Abortion is still legal in half of the US states, and in some states there are even less restrictions than in Europe. For example, in Alaska, Colorado, or New Hampshire, you can have an abortion for any reason pretty much right up until birth.
The other thing Europeans tend to misconstrue is our media. In most countries, media is state owned and state funded, so it tends to be pro-establishment. In the US, none of our media is state run. It’s all entirely funded by donations and ad revenue. Therefore, it’s in its best interest to be as exaggerated, skewed, and sensationalist as possible and it is. The closest thing you can get to neutral US reporting is a public grant funded network like PBS or NPR. If you look up news through either of those, you’ll see a marked difference in tone and representation vs the major news outlets. So, Europeans consume a lot of US media and assume they understand life here without realizing how crazy skewed our major media actually is lol.
For example, there were riots in my hometown some years ago. The news media came in with cameras and helicopters doing forced angle shots acting like it was a bombed out ghetto and the whole city was on fire. In reality, it was in a working class suburb and the rioting was only on a couple blocks of one street.
The Supreme Court is deepening divisions effectively because right now it has a conservative lean. It’s the non-democratic wing of government as a check on the power of the legislature. Judges are appointed vs elected and sit there for life. As a result, it generally tends to skew more conservative because virtually everyone in it is old and a holdover from several administrations ago.
I would say that yes, the future of US involvement in Ukraine and NATO is sort of uncertain. Idk if international media has picked up on how hard the US has turned against foreign intervention. The Iraq/Afghan wars thoroughly pissed off everyone across the whole political spectrum. Everyone felt lied to and it contributed greatly to Trump’s rise because he promised “no more foreign wars.” Military recruitment is way down (young people don’t believe in the military and don’t want to join the army anymore).
While there is a lot of emotional support for Ukraine, the money and weapons we’re sending is actually controversial among the people. There’s a lot of griping about “let Europe fight its own wars” “why is this our job? Why isn’t Europe stepping up?” “Europe has been freeloading too long.” “We don’t need to be sending money overseas while the US itself is such a mess right now.”
So yeah, a lot of growing resentment and isolationist sentiment in the US people.
You and these, I assume paraphrased German shows, really need a new hobby.
It highlights the issues but presents it with an anti-American agenda rather than an in-depth understanding of the issues at hand (even if disagreeing) and presumes that the measurement for what Germans generally declare as successful is their own culture.
This kind of snobbery is nothing new out of Germany, though.
Even famous figures in the past like Nietzsche had a similar opinion about how Americans were savages who promote savage ideals, Hitler stated his disapproval of the US and its corrupting practices, and both East and West Germany promoted the US in a cynical or negative manner. Recently, there were those articles written by that journalist a few years back and every fucking German I meet on the internet seems to be some American hater.
So, I don’t know what you guys want to hear. Maybe it’s that, left to your own devices, the Germans will inherently become overbearing towards their neighbors like Poland and cause geopolitical frictions that would likely lead to another great European war. All the while, they would do this while forming some tie with their rival, Russia, to accomplish their regional goals.
And that, Europeans, for centuries and even thousands of years, have slaughtered, raped, pillaged, conquered, brutalized entire civilizations, including themselves….then, they go on and talk about how civilized and advanced they are compared to Americans, Asians, Africans, and the Middle-East. This no truer than in a place like Germany, the heart of the EU and of modern Europe.
So, yes, the US is trying to navigate through certain issues but please don’t measure the US and its troubles by this Euro-supremacism.
Sooner or later, you’re going to chase away the only thing that is preventing your continent from returning to the warmongering shithole that it used to be.
>Not a day goes by without gun violence.
It’s a country of 350 million people. That claim is true but not inherently meaningful.
>Gun laws are being relaxed instead of being tightened.
They are being relaxed and tightened in different ways. Whoever wrote this chose to focus on one and ignore the other. The charitable way to describe that is bias, but it could also be straight-up lying.
>At the same time, the Supreme Court is deepening divisions within the country with controversial rulings.
The rulings are controversial because the questions are contentious. The purpose of the Supreme Court is not to smooth over tension and make everybody happy, it’s to answer constitutional questions. When those questions are contentious, almost any decision is going to be controversial.
>America’s democracy as a whole is threatened by potential electoral reforms.
No it isn’t.
>he wants to supply Germany with LNG gas and end its energy dependency on Russia by the end of the year.
That this is a challenge for Biden reflects poorly on Germany and Europe, not him. You’re still buying Russian gas and Putin has you by the balls because you handed them to him *even though we warned you repeatedly that this would happen.* Your green energy policies A) didn’t work and B) left you dependent on Russia just like Trump (and Biden, and Obama, and Bush) said you would. Your national representatives insulted ours in public for telling you the self-evident truth, and there appears to be almost no open recognition or contrition on your part.
>How long will the United States and NATO partners remain united on the issue of supporting Ukraine?
We’re doing fine on that front. You’ve been feeding Putin mountains of cash throughout the war. If unity is in question, it’s not because of us.
Pretty accurate but I doubt we’ll stop supporting Ukraine anytime soon.
Not sure why everyone in the comments is going “gun violence happens in Europe too population big!!” or “it’s bad faith!!!” when there’s a clear difference in gun violence between the EU and the US according to every source. Like, come on – certain point of being intentionally obtuse just makes you look like you can’t read. I’m not sure the first paragraph of what may very well be a longer more detailed article is gonna be able to do more than summarize our political environment anyway. I’m on the bus though, so if the article sucks I’ll never know 😉
Looks like a bunch of right-wing gun nuts answered already, so I’ll say that yeah, that’s pretty spot on from the left perspective. I’m terrified of where we’re headed.
I’m also genuinely worried that if the Russian invasion lasts past Biden’s term, that whatever Nazi takes the reigns after that will do a 180. America maybe (?) will recover from this horrible point in our history, but if we stop supporting Ukraine and/or start supporting Putin, the damage done to western democracy could change everything for a long time to come.
Every country talks as if they are the greatest in the world. All of this is bullshit or intellectually dishonest
Sort of technically accurate but strung together to be maximum doom and gloom.
Also it’s a lot of vague handwaving.
The Supreme Court is contentious? Yes, they make decisions on contentious constitutional issues. They are not meant to be a consensus political legislative body. They make legal determinations based on laws. It is up to the legislature to draft laws and make compromises. One of the reasons abortion is so controversial is because the court originally invented a right that didn’t exist anymore and largely cut out the legislative process with respect to abortion.
Also, the LNG bit is hilarious. Germany needs gas and has to get it from Russia. When the US steps in to help then they complain that it’s bad.
Peak European relations right there.
Unless Germany has some magic up their sleeve to do away with LNG needs do they really want to be dependent on Russia for it?
The gas bit is a major swing and miss. We see this as Germany’s self inflicted problem. With the amount of flak Germany has thrown our way over the last decade plus whenever we suggest they should decouple from Russia this is quite rich.
You can always count on German media to give a measured, accurate representation of this country.
This is typically German, essentially true but presented in extreme bad faith and with a great deal of spin, meant more to evangelize than inform.
It’s essentially correct but doesn’t really get into the potential electoral reforms’ depths enough to communicate the 2 branches of govt currently deliberating over them to be very educational, in my mind.
None of that really touched on Germany’s relationship with America but, yeah, in a vacuum this isn’t off base, even if it’s not tone-neutral.
* It’s factually true that a day doesn’t go by without gun violence. However, this doesn’t mean that there are school shootings everyday. Guns are used for domestic murders, gang/drug conflict, and suicides. With a nation of 330 million people, those things will happen on a daily basis and involve guns. Mass shootings also don’t have an agreed definition. Many reporting outlets will define a mass shooting as any shooting involving 4 or more people who are shot, which includes a lot of gang related attacks. However, the likelihood of someone being shot in America who isn’t involved in criminal activity is extremely low…like getting hit by lightning low. I’m not scared to go out in public or live my life because of guns, and I personally don’t own a gun and support increased gun control.
* Confidence in the Supreme Court has dropped from 40-50% to 35-45% in the 2010s. And recent polling shows only 25% of Americans have confidence in the Supreme Court, which is down about 10% from last year. The current ruling about abortion rights most certainly caused the huge drop from last year. It doesn’t help that 1/3 of the current court is composed of justices appointed by Trump. One of those positions was vacant during Obama’s term, but the Republican-controlled Senate refused to accept a nominee from him. To me, this is a concerning trend because it continues to show a loss of institutional trust, which is a threat to our democracy.
* The Supreme Court’s abortion recent ruling does state that women don’t have a constitutional right to an abortion, but it didn’t make abortion illegal. Its ruling means that each state can make legislation allowing or restricting abortion as it pleases. California, New York, Illinois, etc. will continue to allow abortions while states like Texas, Alabama, etc. will make them illegal. Women who can afford to travel to pro-abortion states will be able to get abortions here. (This isn’t to imply that there won’t be negative consequences for a lot of women, but that there is a little gray here in terms of the impact.)
* I’m not sure what they mean by electoral reforms? Possibly they’re implying that the “Stop the Steal” crowd is trying to find ways for states to overturn the election results in their states in 2024? Or that many Republican governors and state legislatures are trying to reduce ease of access for voter registration, which actually hurts Republicans due to making it harder for older voters to register? I’m more concerned that our current electoral system fuels polarization, and I’d be in support of electoral reforms like limiting gerrymandering and rank-choiced voting.
* I do think there could be fractures in the West about how to handle the Ukraine situation as it drags on, and there will need to be some serious negotiating. But that comment sounds pretty defensive to me. Germany screwed itself by relying on Russian LNG given how Russia behaved in the past 15 years. That’s a mistake Germany made, and it’s not Biden’s or America’s fault that they increased their reliance on Russian LNG when Putin had shown his aggressiveness and willingness to twist arms to get what he wants.
These are all more or less true, though it’s worth nothing, about the gun violence, that there’s not really anywhere in the U.S. where people experience gun violence daily, it’s just that someone somewhere in the country is shot every day. Outside of the areas with the highest violent crime rates it’s actually pretty easy to ignore if you don’t read or watch the news, because 363 times out of 365 it’s happening somewhere else in the country that you have no connection to.
I find this whole thing a bit odd in that it lists a bunch of lamentations about the United States and then concludes with… a point regarding uncertainty over the US and NATO partners sticking together on Ukraine? What, precisely, is the thesis here? That the USA’s visible internal dysfunctions alone threaten an otherwise united NATO? If so, it is pretty unequivocally the case that the likes of Hungary and Turkey have done more to disrupt NATO unity than the US.
What you have been kind enough to translate here is more or less akin to those infomercials that create a false sense of urgency by feeding you bullsh*t without *actually* lying to you. “*Call within the next ten minutes and you’ll get a second Magic Mop absolutely free!*”
All of these points are more or less true, but are presented without complete perspective or honesty.Can you say more about the part regarding the gas and the point about people and the environment bearing the cost? I’m asking because I don’t have all the facts about what was meant, but it sounds like they are criticizing the US’s energy proposal to Germany as coming with a human and environmental cost. Unless the talk show in question has also criticized Germany for **sucking Russia’s gas tit** for years instead of investing more in green energy, etc. then I would say that point is *grotesquely hypocritical*.
To answer your question directly: No, I do not think this talk show has depicted the US in a correct or fair way. A lot of what was said seems to be duplicitous rhetoric meant to, for this and that reason, continue to depict the United States as a violent, dysfunctional hellhole.
I wish I could say this doesn’t sound boilerplate for German media but it completely and utterly is. Just ask that *Spiegel* reporter who was caught making up tons of crap about small town America just to feed that narrative.
I wouldn’t trust German media to accurately depict America.
Especially not since the spiegel incident
Lots of bad faith arguments here.
>Not a day goes by without gun violence.
Well, yeah. 300+ million population with access to guns.
>At the same time, the Supreme Court is deepening divisions within the country with controversial rulings. Women lose their right to abortion.
The roe v wade loss is huge, no lie. But the SC is not a legislative body. There’s no federal ban on abortion or anything.
>Gun laws are being relaxed instead of being tightened.
They’re passing new federal red flag laws. Lots of states are moving to tighter gun restrictions too.
>America’s democracy as a whole is threatened by potential electoral reforms.
Without an example I have no clue what they’re actually referring to here.
>In addition to the domestic political tensions, President Biden is also facing major foreign policy challenges: he wants to supply Germany with LNG gas and end its energy dependency on Russia by the end of the year.
Does any European country really *want* to be at the mercy of Russia and their energy providers? It’ll never be in the US’s interest to show up on your doorstep or invade allied neighbors.
>How long will the United States and NATO partners remain united on the issue of supporting Ukraine?
It’s NATO’s move. The US isn’t backing down nor looking to support Russian bullshit anymore.
It’s pretty accurate.
Before I even read it: No.
After I read it: No.
Honestly this is the shit that makes Germans think they are very knowledgeable on US politics which they will then come here and use to tell us “the right way” to do things like they understand the US thinking they know it well enough from tv that their advice is somehow valid
The first four sentences are accurate. “America’s democracy as a whole is threatened by potential electoral reforms” is not accurate; I think they’re referring to the redrawing of certain districts, which is done every time there is a new census (every ten years) at the state level by whatever party is in power in that state, and is an ongoing push and pull between parties that never ends (there are 435 districts so this could be in the news every single day if the media wanted it to be), sometimes landing in the courts. This is a non-issue insofar as “threatening (our) democracy,” though the media loves to blast out stories every time a certain party gets its way when district boundaries are redrawn and the other party is mad.
Biden wanting to supply Germany with LNG (G stands for “gas” so “LNG gas” is redundant) has never been offered as a full solution to Germany’s gas problem; it’s been known from the start that Germany (and Europe as a whole for that matter) do not have enough LNG processing facilities for LNG to come anywhere close to meeting their gas needs. Don’t know Biden’s exact words but he was probably throwing us supplying LNG out there as a way to assist, and to support the US gas industry. We have WAY more gas than we need, but everyone who needs it happens to be really far away so it’s not usually practical to ship, and pipelines that long are out of the question.
How long will NATO and the US remain united? My guess is not very long because of the pressure Germany is under regarding its Russian gas supply. The US has basically zero reliance on a Russia for anything, so it costs us almost nothing (except worldwide higher energy prices, which will probably be coming down since Iran, for one, has already cracked and is seeking to sell its oil for less because Russia is now supplying China and India with so much of their energy needs that Iran needs prices to be lower in order to be able to sell their oil at all). Germany is the weak link in NATO’s united stance against Russia.
>Not a day goes by without gun violence.
True.
>At the same time, the Supreme Court is deepening divisions within the country with controversial rulings.
True.
>Women lose their right to abortion.
True.
>Gun laws are being relaxed instead of being tightened.
Mix of true and false.
>America’s democracy as a whole is threatened by potential electoral reforms.
Mix of true and false.
>In addition to the domestic political tensions, President Biden is also facing major foreign policy challenges: he wants to supply Germany with LNG gas and end its energy dependency on Russia by the end of the year. People and the environment bear the costs.
It’s true that he wants to supply Germany with LNG. I’m not convinced by the “People and the environment bear the costs” line. Surely, having no natural gas at all would be worse for people and Germany is turning coal plants back on, so it seems like LNG is better for the environment than the other option.
Okay, cards on the table, Germans have been setting pen to paper to say how awful America is *before there was a United States of America*. We’ve seen that negative coverage of America is so in demand that a major news outlet paid for blatantly made-up negative coverage, the public ate it up, and it was sheer dumb luck that the ‘reporter’ got caught at at all.
Coverage from our foreign friends sometimes tends to give the idea that America is, constantly, on the verge of collapse and dissolution (looking at you, BBC, down in front CBC. *Spiegel,* you don’t even get to be in this room.) . So, the mere fact that someone is saying less-than-positive things about us isn’t new or particularly noteworthy.
Anyway:
>Not a day goes by without gun violence.
Not untrue, but also not the Wild West that some people imagine us to be.
>At the same time, the Supreme Court is deepening divisions within the country with controversial rulings.
This is true.
>Women lose their right to abortion.
Yes and no- it’s not a casual topic, but [here](https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/06/abortion-laws-states-roe-overturned-00044127)’s a link with a map to what state is doing what. It’s not a finished deal yet, and it’s not across the board.
Also, a quick Google tells me that abortion is illegal in Germany. Beams and splinters, people.
>Gun laws are being relaxed instead of being tightened.
Again, not across the board. [Lookee here](https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-signs-landmark-legislation-strengthen-gun-laws-and-bolster-restrictions#:), for example.
>America’s democracy as a whole is threatened by potential electoral reforms.
As other people have noted, this is vague. People are pushing to *fix* gerrymandering, for instance. What “potential electoral reforms” are we even talking about?
>In addition to the domestic political tensions, President Biden is also facing major foreign policy challenges: he wants to supply Germany with LNG gas and end its energy dependency on Russia by the end of the year.
Germany shutting down all of its nuclear plants, despite what was going on with Russia, and then kvetching about their energy shortfall if they didn’t keep doing business with Russia is pretty unsurprising.
Also, I don’t think I’ve heard anyone mention this particular issue as a thing the GOP wants to challenge Biden on- the general consensus is that the Ukraine conflict is almost a blank check and anyone opposing measures that would contain Russian expansion/aggression is kind of seen as a crackpot.
​
>People and the environment bear the costs.
This is the sort of generic hand-clutching that I come to expect. (For example, there was a German newspaper that famously pushed for the US to withdraw all military bases from German soil, but greeted all suggested or actual base closures with “but what about the local economy?” There’s a bakery! It will have to shut down! Heartless Americans!.)
*Of course,* people are going to bear costs. *Things cost money*. The implication, in that sentence, is that we’re going to be price-gouging, but there’s no backup for that idea, just… you know, *Americans*.
I’m not sure what ‘environment’ will bear the costs, because nobody’s specifying- but the general idea that nobody is taking it into account is implied, and unchallenged. (And of course, the Russian pipeline wasn’t milk-and-cookies for the environment either, but this goes completely unmentioned because we’re building to “America: Amirite?”.)
>So where is the US headed?
Gee, I wonder if it’s going to be a positive direction, in this guy’s opinion? (It’s gonna be ‘in a positive direction’- I can just feel it!)
>How long will the United States and NATO partners remain united on the issue of supporting Ukraine?
Oh, God, this one’s *rich*!
[Check it out](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germanys-response-ukraine-insufficient-nearly-half-germans-say-survey-2022-04-07/)
[No, really, check it out.](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/1/german-chancellor-defends-cautious-approach-to-ukraine-crisis)
[I can keep going all day.](https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-04-21/russia-ukraine-germany-nato-nordstream)
“Will… will America keep *supporting* Ukraine?! D’you think? ” from a *German* media source! Seriously? Good one! The word “footdragging” might be a German loanword by now, if we go by NATO policy toward Ukraine.
Oh man, if it wasn’t for the big buildup about “America’s becoming a Mad Max wasteland”, it would be too ridiculous of a topic to just launch into, on it’s own.