The English speaking world calls stuffed eggs by their french name Oefs Mimosa or Egg Mimosa.

But in German, they are called Russian Eggs. Which is also the title of an article on Trump in Austria’s leading political weekly magazine “Profil”. Rainer Nikowitz summed up all the tragedy of what has been going on in the U.S. in a satirical, fictional dialoge held between Putin and Trump somewhere in Moskow in the near future:

I’ll try and translate a part of it:

Trump: Wait. Where do I sign?

Putin: Here, here and here. And then again on the next page, at the bottom. At the additional agreement about selling out all the remaining state secrets, that our truth-serums will be able to extract from your brain.

Trump: …will be able to extract from my extremly big brain!

Putin: Ah … yes. In exchange for a VIP seasonal ticket to the golf club in beautiful Murmansk.

Trump: Great! How… is the weather in Murmansk?

Putin: Lot’s of gnats.

Trump: Oh.

After almost a week glued to the screen, binge watching CNN with my chin dropped in disbelief, I slowly come back to my senses. This article sped the process. A good laugh sometimes helps a lot, if things become unbearable. So, many thanks to Rainer Nikowitz!

I was reluctant to write anything about this. Because I am sure, everybody knows, what happened. And most everybody will have their own opinion or view on the spectacle going down. But now, after a few days, I think I have gathered my thoughts a little.

One one hand, it can be said, there was a bunch of angry, mainly white folks, breaking into Congress, while it was in session with both chambers, looting around, letting some steam off. They met almost no resistance by guards or police, otherwise they would not have come that far in the first place. There were a few fatalities, some damage to interior and some stolen property. Nothing much at all, compared to other rioting, insurrections or terror attacks. Which were the terms frequently used in reports.

On the other hand it was something, that made me draw my breath: this is Washington, America. The god-mother of democracies, for crying out loud. With right-wing white trash towing the Confederate Flag through the house while rampaging the offices of Congressmen and -women, even finding their way onto the congress floor while it was in session. Threatening elected representatives of the American People to huddle on the floor, hiding from the mob. And there were fatalities.

What is so remarkable: this was spurred on by the President himself. Not just on that very day, minutes prior to the rampage itself, when he spoke to the crowd, he had summoned to Washington. Only to cowardly turn his back on them, shortly after, to hide out in the White House instead of “being right there with them, marching down Pennsylvania Avenue”. To protest and possibly overturn the outcome of an election lost. Despite it having been freely held, the results counted, tried, recounted, proven and certified. The crowd eager to follow this lastest big lie of Trump. After all the other lies aka “alternative facts”, they have been fed over the years. The eroding and dividing process has not originally started with Trump, but he accelerated it to a degree, that blows everything imaginable.

With so many falling into this trap, that now a huge part of the GOP feels inclined to still support this raving lunatic with a red tie. Fearing to lose votes from an electorate I’d rather not want to depend upon. I honestly could not believe, there were still 70 Republican Senators protesting the Penn State election results, AFTER they knew what happened at the same day in the same house. It is their constitutional right to do so. Fine. But the entire thing was a Filibuster to start with and didn’t we all know it? Why keep it up? It makes me want to puke, really. Let’s just hope the next few days pass without any big disasters. And let Biden take over.

I think, Americans are not aware, how widely noticed these happenings are. How bad for every democracy on the planet. The ruffle of this earthquake shaking the globe still. The consequences of what on first sight seems only a minor incident might be very dire. We need to insist on and strenghten our democracies all the more for it. Oppose the beginnings, speak up when there are conspiracies on the go, whenever the institutions or their representatives are belittled, when there are calls for the one “strong person”, whenever there are all too simple solutions to complex problems on offer. Now more than ever. Lest despotism gets out of hand. As boring and tedious a business the search for democratic compromises and multilaterism is, it is the only way to go. If one wants to keep some degree of freedom, that is.