Vaclav Klaus, for MF Dnes

This morning, an elderly couple approached me in the Diablik residential area. Judging by their clothing, they were certainly not among the top ten thousand, and they enthusiastically congratulated me on Trump's victory. It was completely unexpected, but utterly genuine. And sincere. They didn't hide their joy.

In a statement released by our institute on Wednesday regarding this astonishing and almost unimaginable (and let no one boast that they knew for sure) result, we wrote that "the Czech political scene had placed too much faith in one side before the election, and now it will be difficult for them to correct their various statements." We debated extensively while writing this statement about whether we should specify what we meant by "various statements." In particular, whether it was necessary to recall the unbelievable statements made by Mr. "advisor" Kolář in Tuesday's Pravda newspaper, that the people have the right to "oust" a "dictatorial" president.

In various media interviews before the election, I hinted that I expected a rapid change in the opinions and attitudes of our media, our media commentators, and many of our politicians after a potential Trump victory. However, I didn't expect it to happen so quickly, just the day after. I see that I am naive and that I believe people are better than they are.

The newspaper Pravda published an interview with former Czech Ambassador to the United States, Petr Kolář, on the day of the election. In it, he repeated the well-known statement made by then-candidate Petr Pavel, that Trump is a "repulsive human being," and he reaffirmed this statement on Tuesday. This newspaper's Thursday report on the election results featured a massive headline on the front page: "Trump's Great Comeback." Suddenly, Donald Trump is a persona grata, suddenly he is shown in very flattering photographs, and suddenly, on the evening news of Czech Television, his enthusiastic supporters are portrayed as beautiful, well-dressed young people, not as homeless people and "desperate" individuals of all kinds, as was the case recently.

Suddenly, the main commentary is titled "The Power of Trumpism Revealed." Did anyone talk about "Trumpism" on Tuesday night? And about the fact that "Trumpism" might have "some justification"?

MFD, where anti-Trump sentiment was less prevalent, features "Great Comeback" on the front page, and its commentary on the same page is titled "The Model of Washington Elitist Snobs Collapses." It's a repeat of November 2016. Back then, everyone in the Czech Republic was anti-Trump before the election, but immediately after the election, they all flocked back to the American Embassy in Prague. I am not in favor of fueling animosity in Czech-American relations, but shouldn't all these, suddenly pro-Trump people, at least wait a little? And reflect?

However, there are some who stand by their convictions. They deserve to be praised. The utterly discredited liberal, more precisely extremely left-wing, newspaper The New York Times wrote immediately after the election that Trump would "use military force against his political opponents" and that he would "crush the independence of the justice department." These are statements about a man who had already been president for four years and did nothing of the sort. That is incredibly audacious. Our great "Americanist," Tomas Klvana, who worked with us at the Castle for a few weeks, is more conceptual. According to him, "Trump's victory is a geopolitical catastrophe." I may have quickly said goodbye to him at the Castle after a few weeks, but I still regret that I allowed him to come there in the first place.

Perhaps Kamala Harris also deserves a few words. A headline in one of today's articles here states that "something tripped her up." I would say that it wasn't "something," but rather the fact that she was almost completely invisible for nearly four years under Biden, and that she failed to reverse that perception during the presidential campaign. She was simply the wishful thinking of anti-Trump voters; she herself lacked any real political substance. By the way, today, as I write this commentary, is November 7th, the anniversary of the beginning of the Great October Socialist Revolution in then-tsarist Russia. It's not a round anniversary; it's 107 years, but we should remember it. While no major revolution is starting now, the American elections could be a step towards a better world. *Václav Klaus, MF Dnes, November 9, 2024* inv.cz / gnews-jav