The world’s eyes have been on America this week, thanks to the midterms. Cockburn, however has been gazing across the Atlantic with amusement. A new dance class is being offered in Germany called “Let’s Move — Tanzt Euch Warm,” or “dance yourselves warm,” to combat rising energy costs as the temperature falls.
These Germans are trying to dance the cold away amid Europe's energy crisis as part of an initiative called 'Let's move – Tanzt Euch warm,' which translates to 'warm up by dancing' pic.twitter.com/V76iiGeJsz
— Reuters (@Reuters) November 10, 2022
Watching the footage of the chilly krauts cha-cha-cha-ing, Cockburn can’t help but recall former president Donald Trump’s speech to the United Nations back in 2018, where he warned that “Germany will become totally dependent on Russian energy.” At the time, the German delegation laughed and shook their heads at what they considered yet another absurd broadside from the American president.
Trump made some outrageous claims about German energy at the UN — and the German delegation’s reaction was priceless pic.twitter.com/izpa2fKC3B
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) September 26, 2018
Reliable, even-handed CNBC rated Trump’s claim as “highly misleading.” That didn’t age very well.
After a bruising midterm cycle for the Republicans he endorsed, Trump can salve his ego with the fact that he was right about Russian energy.
In a Reuters video showing off the class, one instructor said that “you can dance yourself warm, for example, by taking up the swinging, this bounce that you have all the time, or a triple step.” Another expressed a sense of satisfaction with the program, saying it helped to add some positivity to the “problems with the climate or the energy crisis and such.”
How far Germany has fallen. From being the economic envy of the world, it is now a country where citizens turn to the waltz to save energy and fight the cold — the faint echoes of World War One’s Turnip Winter are hard to miss.