A sobering view from across the Atlantic. These are the lead articles this morning in the international edition of Spiegel Online. Der Spiegel, published in Germany, is one of Europes largest circulation news weeklies, according to Wikipedia. These are people who know a thing or two about the rise of totalitarianism.

An editorial, “The True Face of Donald Trump, America’s Chauvinist-in-Chief.”

Trump is a racist. He is a preacher of hate. Those who pretend he is not, those who portray him as merely being an unpolished, somewhat chaotic old man, as a person who explicitly sought to avoid becoming a slick politician, are merely enabling him. “Trump tests ideas on Twitter and then he repeats and repeats them so often to the point that they have been learned,” says German cognitive scientist and linguist Elisabeth Wehling, who is currently at the University of California in Berkeley. Many Americans, she says, see the world as a fundamentally aggressive place, as a dichotomy between good and evil. Trump, she says, precisely articulates these people’s reality.

And the editorial goes on to compare Trump’s America to Nazi Germany and South Africa under apartheid.

And a second article, “The Unforgivable Disgrace of an American President.”

Trump is the first president to offer his protection to right-wing extremists, and he has lost the ability to distinguish between good and evil — if he ever possessed it in the first place. Such a shortcoming would be horrific in any political leader, but the U.S. president is more than just another head of state. He sets an example for the entire world, particularly when it comes to fighting hate and fanaticism in his own country.

No politician should find it difficult to condemn right-wing violence, especially after human life has been lost. But it has now become apparent that a traumatized United States cannot look to the White House for comfort in its time of need.