The Biden win of the 2020 US Presidential Election capped off one of the most turbulent election seasons in recent American history. An event that saw ballots being counted a week after Election Day on November 3, and lawsuits on polling in five states, finally concluded. Whether confronting a racial reckoning or a global pandemic, America has been a divided nation, specifically regarding how the country would move forward if incumbent president Donald Trump won.
Ultimately, the democratic nominee Joe Biden came out on top, to the relief of many Americans across the country and, also, in Europe. Biden’s victory was more than just a win for the Democratic Party, in many ways, it was a victory for democracy and for international relations.
The US Presidential Election was a hot topic in news coverage across Europe–Germany, in particular, was one of the nations heavily reporting on the issue — at times more than American news outlets. With the world on edge, Germany was at the forefront of those anticipating a huge outcome in US politics. The happenings in Germany in early November were just a glimpse of how the two countries are connected and the greater significance of reconstructing transatlantic relations.
Covering the election and its outcomes, which dragged on for about a week after election day, is no longer a low key affair in Germany. Deutsche Welle, a German news outlet, reported monitors being set up at Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz to host a late night watch party. Munich’s Amerika Haus sold all available tickets with over 800 attendees, and Hamburg’s world renowned Tivoli Theatre saw partygoers betting on the election outcome. CNN reported that the election was probably the most bet-on event in history.
What stands out are the numbers of people who gathered to watch an election happening across the Atlantic Ocean, hundreds of miles away from their country borders. Even with the seven hour time difference between the East Coast of America and major German cities, hundreds still attended the event and stayed up until late at night, awaiting results.
While discussing politics can be taboo in the United States, healthy political debates are common amongst college students in Germany.
A German student who attends the University of Trier near Stuttgart, Germany, said she and her friends were on an emotional roller coaster debating each other and awaiting the election results and court decisions in early November.
“In general, the US is a big country and they have a lot of influence on the economy — I felt stressed, especially since it took so long, “ the University of Trier student said. “I got to say, I still experience a constant level of fear because Trump still hasn’t held a concession speech and made clear that he’s not over his loss yet. It seemed very much like democracy was at stake for a moment.”
One of the main concerns for German citizens during the Trump era was the stability of US-German relations. Four years of Trump have left America’s European allies in a state of shock, with many relationships needing to be rebuilt, such as US relations with NATO and the Paris Climate Accords.
One of the most notable broken bonds was Trump’s opting out of the Paris Climate Accords, which is an agreement with the central aim of tackling the global climate crisis. As of November 4, the US officially left the agreement, three years after Trump announced he would leave. Joe Biden says he will rejoin the Paris Agreement on his first day of office and will work to restore US relationships with Europe. Just last Sunday, Trump went on to say the agreement was ‘designed to kill the US economy,’ maintaining his stance in opposition to the global project.
In an address to the White House in 2017, Trump said the Paris Accords handicap the US economy.
“The Paris Agreement handicaps the United States economy in order to win praise from the very foreign capitals and global activists that have long sought to gain wealth at our country’s expense,” Trump said, “They don’t put America first. We don’t want other leaders and other countries laughing at us anymore. And they won’t be.”
According to a poll conducted by the German public TV station ARD taken during the 2020 US Presidential election, 85 percent of respondents personally preferred a Biden win. Moreover, 75 percent of respondents thought Biden had what it takes to lead a country like America — compared to a distant nine percent for Trump.
Officials with relations to Germany, have talked about just how divisive the Trump administration has been regarding country relations, old treaties and the appearance of the leadership in America.
Deutsche Welle featured Peter Wittig, the German Ambassador to the US during the Trump presidency, and Deutsche Welle’s NATO correspondent Teri Schultz, to analyse why Europe needed Trump to lose the election and what went wrong during the 45th president’s first term. There were three main topics that the broadcast looked into: the end of treaties, US allegiance to NATO and whether or not Europe and America were ‘still friends.’
Teri Schultz thinks a lack of stability was evident during the Trump administration.
“When you’re an alliance that is founded on deterrence, you’ve gotta look like you have your ducks in a row,” Schultz said. “It’s very hard to have your ducks in a row when one of them is Donald Trump.”
Wittig said that if Trump won, Europe would have to be prepared to adapt, mainly because the values of Donald Trump differ starkly from those of Europe. When it comes to issues like Russian hybrid warfare or Chinese trade practices, leaders would have to look past the differing values in order to benefit common interest. Deutsche Welle’s Chief International Editor Richard Walker, who moderated the broadcast, explained that past presidents’ shared values with Europe were what was at the heart of the alliance.
“Without them – Can [the alliance] survive? — And that’s the nagging question that Europe is asking,” said Walker.
Wittig explained that the reason for this disparity in views is Trump’s ‘America First’ plan and his nationalistic focus that he hoped Americans would back.
“‘America First’, in a way, meant that the US would abdicate its role as leader of a transatlantic, and Western alliance,” Wittig said on the Deutsche Welle broadcast. “We knew Trump was an outsider [in 2016] and we knew Trump would destroy a lot of the structures in Washington [D.C.]. But, we only got a glimpse of what he wanted to achieve when we heard his inauguration speech and he laid out a sobering speech of what we used to call the West.”
Wittig says from a German point of view, multilateralism, in which multiple countries pursue the same goal, is the right approach to foreign policy. Any nationalistic approach to foreign policy, according to Wittig, is not a sufficient way to go about it. As an example he mentioned Germany’s nationalistic stance during the World Wars, especially during Nazi rule under Hitler.
Wittig concluded the broadcast stating the significance of a Biden win.
“With Biden, we’ll see the restoration of what used to be called the West,” Wittig said, “Secondly, we want to have a friendly and well-meaning conversation about the issues that we want to tackle.”
A Biden win has triggered a lasting ripple effect around the world — Germans got the results they hoped for.
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons
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