In the columns of the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, a major Munich daily newspaper, journalist Kurt Kister delivers a scathing commentary on the places he now prefers to avoid: the United States under Donald Trump, Munich during the Security Conference from February 13 to 15, 2026, and even a CDU congress in Stuttgart from February 20 to 21.
A former expat in Washington, Kurt Kister recalls a country he once loved. He reminisces about living in Washington, “a time when we were younger, more beautiful, and more optimistic.” He used to travel through New Mexico or California, dreaming of buying a wooden house in Bisbee, Arizona, to spend a few weeks each year once he was older. That dream has faded. “Today, I am happy to have never bought such a wooden house,” he writes, stating that he will not visit the United States again as long as Donald Trump or a Trump supporter is in power.
The refusal is not an economic boycott but a sign of deep political discomfort. “America is evolving into a partially illegal state, governed by an immature hypernarcissistic individual,” says Kurt Kister.
Although he claims to enjoy peculiarities, Kurt Kister explains that he no longer wants to revisit “Canyonland, Seattle, and Santa Fe,” considering a significant portion of the country that elected and supports Donald Trump to be “profoundly disreputable.” He sees this shift as historic: “I never imagined that America would one day, in terms of freedom, become Chinese.”
In Munich, his boycott is only temporary. He is leaving the city until the end of the Security Conference, which he compares to “Davos without the mountains.” Lastly, he observes from a distance the CDU congress, marked by the announced return of Angela Merkel. Many once familiar places have now become difficult to frequent for political and symbolic reasons, as if traveling now involves a moral choice as much as a geographical one.
