Many have already been "outwitted"

Václav Klaus for MF Dnes

This morning I was approached by an elderly couple, certainly not in the top 10,000 judging by their clothes, on a housing estate in Devil's Den, and they enthusiastically congratulated me on Trump's victory. It was totally unexpected, but completely authentic. And real. They didn't hide their joy.

In our institute's opinion on this amazing and almost unimaginable (and let no one boast that they knew for sure) result on Wednesday, we wrote that "Czech politics bet too much on one side before the elections, and now it will be difficult for it to correct its various sentences." We argued a lot when writing this opinion whether we should specify the words "different sentences". In particular, whether it is not necessary to recall the incredible statements of Mr. "advisor" Kolar in Tuesday's Law that the people have the right to "overthrow" an "autocratic" president.

In various media interviews prior to the election, I had already indicated that I expected a rapid change in the views and attitudes of our media, our media commentators and many of our politicians following a possible Trump victory. However, I really did not expect it to happen so quickly, the very next day. I can see that I am naive and that I think people are better than they are.

On the day of the election, the daily Právo published an interview with former Czech Ambassador to the USA Petr Kolář. In it, he repeated the well-known statement by then non-president Petr Pavel that Trump was "a repulsive human being" and he claimed this statement on Tuesday. This newspaper headlined its Thursday report on the election results with the giant front-page headline "Trump's Great Comeback." Suddenly Donald Trump is persona grata, suddenly he is shown in very affable photographs, suddenly - on the evening news on Czech television - his enthusiastic supporters are beautiful, well-dressed young people, not homeless people and 'desperados' (or desolates) of all kinds, as was the case until recently. Suddenly the main commentary is headlined "The power of Trumpism has been shown". Was anyone talking about Trumpism until Tuesday night? And about Trumpism having "some merit"?

MfD, where anti-Trumpism was not so much in evidence, mentions "The Great Comeback" on its front page and its commentary on the same page is entitled "The model of elitist Washington snobs has collapsed". It is a repeat of November 2016. Back then, they were also all anti-Trump in our country before the election, but right after the election they rejoined the US embassy in Prague. I'm not in favor of stirring up animosity in Czech-American relations, but shouldn't all these suddenly Trump supporters at least wait a while? And examine their consciences?

Yet there are some who stand their ground. They should be commended. The totally discredited liberal, or more precisely far-left, 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 has been president for four years and has done nothing of the sort. That is incredibly brazen. Our great "Americanist" Tomáš Klvaňa, who also worked for a few weeks at the Castle, is more conceptual. According to him, "Trump's victory is a geopolitical disaster". I quickly said goodbye to him after a few weeks at the Castle, but even now, I blame myself for allowing him to come there in the first place.

Perhaps Kamala Harris deserves a few words as well. The headline of one of our articles today says she's been "tripped up by everything". I would not say that anything has tripped her up, but the fact that she was completely invisible for almost four years under Biden and that she failed to reverse that in the presidential campaign. She was just wishful thinking on the part of the anti-Trumpers, she had no political content herself.

Incidentally, today, as I write this gloss, is November 7, the day the Great October Socialist Revolution began in what was then Tsarist Russia. It is not a round anniversary, it is 107 years ago, but we should remember it. No great revolution may be starting now, but the American election can be a step towards a better world.

Václav Klaus, MF Dnes, 9 November 2024

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