A couple of days ago on Frau Merkel was interviewed on German TV by Anne Will. As most of you know Ms Merkel has fallen on hard times trying to manage an immigrant crisis of monumental proportions.
She remained calm despite the numerous attempts to shake her from her measured responses. She snapped twice: once when she said the equivalent of "watch yourself", and once when she emphasised that she had already answered that question a number of times. Otherwise she took everything that was thrown at her and responded with a rational, concise analysis.
The best, and to my eyes the worst moment of the evening was when Ms Will asked if Frau Merkel felt that we were perhaps entering a Weimar Republic stage of history.
Not for the first time the right wing populist parties are once again using their bully pulpits to incite their thug followers to violent self-justice in voicing their disagreement with the government.
Frau Merkel's response was hard and cold. The Bundesrepublik Deutschland is not the Weimar Republic.
Two days ago I wrote about Donald Trump and the fable of the Snake. My interpretation was that he was using the snake as a metaphor for immigrants.
A good friend pointed out to me however that my interpretation just might be off the mark.
As Martin Wolf wrote in yesterdays Financial Times "Mr Trump is a promoter of paranoid fantasies, a xenophobe and an ignoramus". Mr Robert Kagan of the Washington Post went on to call him "Frankenstein's monster".
But the most damning is Mr Wolf's comment that Mr Trump has threatened to round up and export (11) millions of people.
Donald Trump has repeatedly revealed his willingness to ride roughshod over the American system all the time claiming he is doing it to save America, to make America great again. He has appealed to every base instinct of the mob and actually said some very frightening things.
Upon reflection since Mr Trump only seems to think about himself and he has done nothing to hide his reptilian side I think my friend might be right.
And maybe, just maybe, Anne Will's Weimar question should have been directed to Mr Trump.
He's already sided with David Duke.
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