“Earthquake result”, “existential catastrophe for the Democrats”, “new data for America’s allies”: From London to Berlin, the European press is trying to decipher the reasons for the victory of Donald Trump in the race for the White House.

The British press is trying to interpret Trump’s victory by portraying Kamala Harris as underweight. Continental newspapers, by contrast, focus on appealing to people’s baser instinctsin the animal thirst for revenge, in the mobilization of the machine of lies. And they express their concerns about the consequences of the election on international affairs.

“Trump has a mandate to reform the United States in an incredibly radical way. There will be no going back after the earthquake result of the 2024 US election,” they write The Financial Times considering that “Trump’s re-election is an existential disaster for the Democrats” and “changes the situation for America’s allies”.

In its main article the newspaper Le Monde characterizes him Trump “ghost returning driven by his political instinct and the thirst for revenge». “The Republican billionaire achieves a historic return to business at the age of 78 despite his legal adventures and whatever his proposals are.”

In Spain, the newspaper El País writes that Trump’s victory is linked to his “aggressive, gregarious and uncomplicated way of dealing with others, where crude insults and offensive epithets take the place of arguments”. “What has conquered is the beast within us».

Trump “managed to identify the basic instincts, express them himself, fuel his thirst for revenge and set in motion the most powerful machine of beliefs, false information and emotions in an unprecedented electoral mobilization”, writes El País.

“By electing Donald Trump to the White House, Americans made a dangerous gamble. The future 47th president of the United States is unpredictable”, she estimates Neue Zürcher Zeitung. “The constitutional safeguards provided by the Constitution also apply to Trump. But it is likely that the Republican will despise them and challenge the chaos in Washington and on the international stage».

In Poland, the newspaper Rzeczpospolita writes that “the most serious problem in our view is that Europe is not at all prepared for Trump. There is currently no leader in Europe who will be able to take charge of the Western community (…) France and Germany are going through a major political crisis. Europe needs to do the right thing quickly about the leadership of the West before someone like Orban or Putin himself usurps it.”

In Germany, the Spiegel considers that “Trump’s triumph is a historical turning point not only for the USA, but also for the whole world”.

“Massive changes in US foreign and security policy should be expected, which they will have negative consequences, especially for Europeans. Trump sees the world as a jungle in which only the law of the strong can be imposed,” writes Spiegel.

“Allies do not interest him (…) unless they fully submit to American interests. Anyone who doesn’t stand up for themselves should expect vilification or threats from Trump. As in his first term, Trump wants to force NATO countries like Germany to drastically increase their defense spending. Otherwise, Trump could implement the full withdrawal of the United States from NATO.”

What was to blame for Harris’ defeat

According to the FT, if Joe Biden “had retired six months earlier, Democrats would have had time to find a better candidate than Harris (…) She appeared mediocre at best when the conversation turned to the economy – a subject she herself did her best to avoid.”

For them Times“Kamala Harris’s party misjudged the lack of enthusiasm and overestimated its position. It seems that this confidence in women’s enthusiasm for Harris was unfounded,” writes the British newspaper, recalling that “a similar situation arose with Hillary Clinton in 2016».

“Kamala Harris ran the worst election campaign in modern United States history” and “the vice president can only blame herself”. “The proposal he presented to the American people had no substance and was summed up in a slogan of the type ‘anyone but Trump'”, estimates the British Telegram.