What the Danish and European media misunderstand (and misrepresent) about America, and vice versa. And other stuff.
In covering Liz Cheney’s entirely predictable defeat in Wyoming’s Republican primary, Berlingske offered a telling headline: She became world famous for hating Trump. Now she has lost.Sara Hodzic, Berlingske.dk, August 17 It’s an accurate headline: Liz Cheney, daughter of former vice-president Dick Cheney, did indeed become world famous for hating Trump, and she lost her…
Some things are so stupid only an intellectual could believe them.—George Orwell (apocryphal) Sovereignty is irrelevant.—Intellectual The new think pieces are here, the new think pieces are here! American professor: The Danish yes is part of a new world orderSolveig Gram Jensen, Berlingske.dk, Jun 2 Yesterday, as expected, Denmark voted overwhelmingly (roughly 2:1) to drop…
The headline of this post is, as best as I can tell from the information available, a succinct and yet comprehensive taxonomy of our ruling class. This was brought home to me today by an article on DR’s website. The EU’s Mission in the Mediterranean hasn’t stopped a single human smugglerTine Toft, DR.dk, May 31…
On Wednesday we Danes will be voting on a referendum to answer the following question, which I’ll provide in the original Danish first: Stemmer du ja eller nej til, at Danmark kan deltage i det europæiske samarbejde om sikkerhed og forsvar ved at afskaffe EU-forsvarsforbeholdet? In English: Do you vote yes or no to Denmark…
There was record turnout in Georgia’s primary elections yesterday. Record. Turnout. The New York Post goes easy on the left, headlining their story “Georgia sees record early voter turnout despite Dems’ carping over new election law.” Carping? Carping? Here’s a Fox News montage of leftists “carping” about the law while it was still a bill….
This is a pretty remarkable headline: Foreign heads of state involve themselves in French presidential election: warn against voting for Le PenPer Bang Thomsen, DR.dk, 22 Apr Election interference by foreign countries is supposed to be a bad thing, isn’t it? That’s what American Democrats and their international allies—everyone who wants to sit at the…
Danish news media don’t appear to be coping very well with yesterday’s shellacking of the Democratic party. Phrases like “five-alarm fire” and “bloodbath” are being used even by leftist commentators in America to describe the results of Tuesday’s elections. But as far as I can tell to this point, the major Danish news outlets have…
I’m hearing a lot of crazy talk these days. I’m hearing that the 2020 presidential election was rigged by a massive, heavily-monied, and carefully coordinated national organization of businesses, unions, activists, special interest groups, social media oligarchs, and political operators determined to prevent Trump from being re-elected. I thought we’d be over all that by…
NOTE: Danish coverage of recent American events has been universally awful: whether on television, radio, web, or print, it’s all had the calm tone of MSNBC, the editorial equilibrium of the New York Times, and the penetrative historical insight of Vox. That is, it’s been a dumpster fire of unhinged and often uninformed hyberbole. Rather…
The Politiken editorial board wants the U.S. Ambassador called in because “there’s a coup attempt in progress.” I got a breaking news alert saying so on my phone the night of January 4th. They also put out a Tweet: The text of the Tweet: “Denmark and others must speak up.” The text of the headline:…
A Sunday article from Berlingske (under their AOK rubric) appears to have come straight from the Democratic National Committee (which, insofar as it’s just a recap of a Washington Post article, it sort of did): Trump Burrowed in and Was Like “a Crazy King George”: “I won, I won, I won”, Stine Hansen, Berlingske.dk, 29…
Good News! As DR notes in the article that topped their homepage Friday morning, America’s 2020 election was the most secure ever: 2020 Election Was the Most Secure Ever, but That’s Not Stopping Trump, Malthe Sommerand, DR.dk, 13 Nov The American media have run wild with this story as well, and you can gorge yourself…
I’m going to assume that Joe Biden fends off the court challenges from Donald Trump and other interested parties and is sworn in as our 46th president on January 20. At that point he would ordinarily become the man I recognize as my president. However, based on my experience of the last four years, which…
I flipped back and forth between DR and TV2 News Tuesday evening for their American election coverage until about 21:00, then got a little sleep and was watching American coverage on Fox (via internet) from about 01:30. My main takeaway from the Danish coverage was that I’ve been much too charitable on this blog. Danish…
America has, for better or worse, a two party political system. Other parties exist, and some are even quite strong in individual states (consider Senator Bernie Sanders’s socialist following in Vermont), but at the national level American politics is binary: Democrat and Republican. There hasn’t been a president from any other party since Millard Fillmore…
His name is Anthony Bobulinski. I conducted the following searches between 12:15 and 12:27 today, October 28. On Berlingske.dk: On B.T.: On Information.dk: On taxpayer-funded DR.dk: On Politiken.dk: On TV2News.dk And yet, on Google: In case it’s hard to read: that’s 174,000 results in about a quarter of a second. In the news tab of…
The New York Post published a story yesterday that, like most unflattering stories about Joe Biden, didn’t get much coverage in Denmark. It was entitled “Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad.” The smoking gun in question was an email on a computer whose contents came to the Post’s attention:…
(Before I begin: it’s not my intention to go three or four days at a stretch without posting something, but I had a busy week and it’s not like anything was going on in American politics or culture. Slow news week, right?) This blog is mainly “about the relationship between Danish and American culture, politics,…
I was reading Berlingske’s preview of tonight’s debate between President Trump and Joe Biden (I’m a glutton for punishment), and it was about what I’d expected. At one point in the article, however, author Mikkel Danielsen notes that maybe the attacks predicted from Trump could be an advantage to Biden. “[Det] mener flere amerikanske analytikere,”…
