Oh good: Germany’s most influential publication is calling for a German-led alliance against Trump

America’s new president poses a real threat not just to the U.S., they argued, but also to the whole world. European leaders must therefore unite to resist Trump.

“Germany must stand up in opposition to the 45th president of the United States and his government,” the weekend editorial declared, adding later, “It is literally painful to write this sentence, but the president of the United States is a pathological liar. The president of the U.S. is a racist (it also hurts to write this).”

“He is attempting a coup from the top; he wants to establish an illiberal democracy, or worse; he wants to undermine the balance of power. He fired an acting attorney general who held a differing opinion from his own and accused her of ‘betrayal.’ This is the vocabulary used by Nero, the emperor and destroyer of Rome. It is the way tyrants think,” it added.

This editorial isn’t coming from just any online news group. It’s coming directly from the newsroom with “the most successful online presence” in Europe’s most economically stable and powerful country. Der Spiegel is also the same publication that envisioned Trump recently as a murderous savage:

The editorial’s author, Der Spiegel’s editor-in-chief Klaus Brinkbäumer, continued, writing that the real problem is that the Trump administration is openly hostile towards world organizations, including the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, NATO and the European Union.

“The fact that the United States, a nuclear superpower that has dominated the world economically, militarily and culturally for decades, is now presenting itself as the victim, calling in all seriousness for ‘America first’ and trying to force the rest of the world into humiliating concessions is absurd. But precisely because this nonsense is coming from the world’s most powerful man, it is getting trapped by him,” the editorial reads.

“This is not a threat that will somehow resolve itself. The German economy has become the target of American trade policy and German democracy is ideologically antithetical to Trump’s vision,” it added.

The response, it added, is clear. It’s time now for European leaders to stand up to Trump in the name of promoting and protecting the principles of “democracy freedom, the West and its alliances.”

But what does that look like, practically speaking?

“This does not mean escalation or that we must abandon our contacts with America and all the working groups between our governments. What is does mean, though, is that Europe must grow stronger and start planning its political and economic defenses. Against America’s dangerous president,” the editorial explains.

That’s much too vague.

It doesn’t tell us in clear terms what German-led resistance to Trump looks like. Is it just words and symbolic gestures, or does Der Spiegel have something specific in mind?