Germany's 'Der Spiegel' Views Trump as a World-Consuming Meteor
Everything is fine.
Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 U.S. presidential election is a world-changing event, and many people around the globe think it’ll be a total disaster. A major German news magazine, Der Spiegel, cleverly and terrifyingly illustrated this belief with a cover that portrays “The Donald”‘s screaming, flaming orange head as a massive meteor that’s about to destroy — or maybe eat? — planet Earth.
The tagline, written in German, quotes the R.E.M. song: it’s “the end of the world (as we know it).”
While Americans are grappling with the ramifications of the election (and grasping at straws), the rest of the world, as Der Spiegel shows, is coming to terms with President-elect Trump as well.
“Trump means the end of normality in German politics,” Der Spiegel writes, explaining that Europe, on the whole, is dealing with a wave of rising populist power — and now Trump will represent populism, with all its deplorable, white nationalist undertones, on the other side of the Atlantic.
“How do you react when the incoming occupant of the most powerful position in the Western world sees himself as a populist and is threatening to end traditional Western alliances?” Der Spiegel asks, in one of the articles from 57 pages of stories and content about Trump’s victory.
Trump’s Galactus-like visage might look familiar because it’s the same drippy caricature that artist Edel Rodriguez created for two Time magazine covers that he made back when it looked like Trump was going to lose.
'Time' thought Trump was a droopy mess, not a meteor.
Der Spiegel’s cover is funny and gripping, but although the issue is referencing Trump’s apocalyptic impact on German politics, it’s probably an even more apt metaphor for the impact that his White House could have on the planet. He is, after all, a staunch climate change denier.
