A good American writes me this:

‘I have a friend who just came back from Germany, said there is growing unhappiness with Merkel and with European attitudes toward taking muslim immigrants, none of this is picked up by our papers, we are all too afraid of Trump entering into a nuclear war with Korea or the current attempt to pass a new budget and tax bill. I am curious , if you have a moment, as to what you see as the man on the street or your students reaction to what has been going on.’

My -quick- answer:

In Slovakia anti- muslim sentiment is on the rise.
Trump is seen as a puppet of the superrich to make them even richer while having poor people believe they will benefit somehow.
Most people think Obama was better, although it was all just rhetoric, the guy bombed 7 countries, but they still like the brand, they can’t name even one of his policies, nothing, they just fall for the image.
In Europe prices are rising, there are more austerity cuts, more money is flowing to the top and more and more people are struggling.
It’s even starting to have an effect on people’s social lives, it’s getting hard to just meet for drinks because everybody always seems to be working.
Depending on their background of course, IT people still live like kings.
At the moment I find it hard to describe the mood.
I would say that lots of folks are unplugging from the news, they don’t follow politics and just focus on their little job. Most don’t even realize that they are underpaid for what they do.
I myself am involved in teaching Slovaks Dutch, which will result in job loss in the Netherlands eventually. It’s much cheaper to have some Slovak employees who know Dutch on the payroll than to pay native speakers in the Netherlands to do the same job. Of course, in the long run this will all have a detrimental effect on the economy in the Netherlands.
But stock markets will continue to rise, these are good times for shareholders and people with a lot of money.
If you are young now and don’t have any money, you will be squeezed like a lemon.
A lot of us will do less well than our parents before us.
Some still have very cosy positions, like certain government funded jobs.
That’s it in a nutshell.