Donald Trump is the most powerful man in the world - here are two scenarios for how that plays out

Putin will annex the Crimea? He wouldn't dare.

Erdogan will introduce the death penalty? He won't go that far.

Kaczynski will paralyze the Polish Constitutional Court? He can't do that.

The British will vote for Brexit? They wouldn't do that.

Trump will become president? Never.

It is in the nature of centrist societies to assume the moderate status quo is stable and disruption through extremes is not possible. This is why they are often surprised by the predictable and obvious.

Now the predictable and obvious, but hitherto unspeakable, has happened.

Donald Trump will become President of the United States of America. He governs the largest and most important country of the free west. He is the most powerful man in the world.

What next? There are two scenarios.

The less likely scenario

Let us turn our attention first to the less likely. As exaggerated as it was to celebrate Obama after his election as a messiah who would bring world peace, it is equally exaggerated to damn Trump.

Everything will become better than expected.

Trump will develop respect for the office. He will use the highly professional structures of the White House. The experience of the advisors. And the intelligence of several of his supporters.

Chris Christie was one of the first to endorse Trump. He is clever and represents the liberal side of the Republican Party as Governor of New Jersey. A real political professional and moderate with it.

In Peter Thiel (digital nerd, chess genius), he has one of the most successful investors in Silicon Valley at his side. And even a Henry Kissinger, not without underlying sympathy for Trump, will certainly not withhold his wordly wisdom with regard to foreign policy.

Donald Trump, the poltergeist, starts his term of office in the freezing zone of expectation.

Every piece of nonsense that he doesn't carry out, is already a positive surprise which will allow the capital markets to react positively. And in spite of the combined hatred of the global community of do-gooders, he demonstrates within a year or two that he is a sheep in wolf's clothing. The US economy flourishes. America's foreign policy is resolute but not more unpredictable, the transatlantic alliance holds, and the dictatorships in the world have somewhat more respect for America again.

This is the best case. Conceivable. But probable?

The worst case scenario

Due to his disturbed narcissistic personality, Donald Trump does not develop any respect for the office. He regards and runs the Oval Office like the hub of a real estate empire. Those presenting concerns are discredited as wimps, those who contradict are thrown out.

He can govern comfortably with a solid Republican majority both in Congress and the Senate. There are hardly any correctives. A deep contempt for the institutions and for the compromise-based mechanisms of democracy will change the political style and the substance of American liberty.

The biggest risk proves to be Trump's tone-deafness to the rule of law.

Plain common sense - as in the worst tradition under Nixon - is placed over and above rights and the law. Buddy-like alliances arise with other strongmen, who don't take the frippery of democracy so seriously.

A man-to-man friendship develops with Putin. Hooks thrown in foreign policy escalate the conflicts in the Middle East.

The problem is the accumulation of risk factors: the culture war of Islamism and the campaign of IS terror, the geopolitics of Russia, China, the debt crisis, the weakness and dysfunctionality of the EU.

Every single problem could be solved. Trump's erratic behavior however provokes a domino effect. The American economy erodes, Wall Street experiences panic and the flight of capital. Draghi's ECB policy collapses. Unemployment and a coup atmosphere also reach Europe. The world wobbles.

Inconceivable? But not impossible.

Why the election of Donald Trump was predictable and obvious

1. Because we, the media, failed.

Trump was - often and by many, but naturally not all, we do not of course want to generalize - combated as in a campaign, but not really presented as clever. In the struggle for a good cause, fairness fell by the wayside. The concerns of the people, who were so alienated by the political establishment that they sought refuge with Trump, were not taken seriously, but ridiculed. Public insults and contempt for voters reigned on the galleries of the good taste of published opinion, instead of understanding and empathy. This is coming back to haunt them. People see through it and they don't like it. And the fact that Trump was always only and consistently photographed and portrayed as a monstrosity, as a clown, has in the end done him more good than harm.


2. Trump was the direct result of extremely weak government by Barack Obama and for a time also Hillary Clinton.

America shifted massively to the left under Obama on the domestic front. And drifted into the margins on foreign policy. Obama's weakness, the lack of diplomatic back channels, were what created the Putin of today. Actions and their results in Syria and in the entire Middle East were similarly disastrous. The lack of orientation in foreign policy has left a weak impression of America. Through his lack of success in domestic policy however, Obama has first and foremost created a sense of abandonment within American society. An unaffordable health insurance system, whose contributions have increased by 25%, with the three most well-known insurers distancing themselves. No reform of immigration law, of energy and climate policy or arms legislation. In place of this: brutal race conflicts, white police violence. And an ideological split in the United States. Obama created a vacuum that Trump was able to fill with vague promises.


3. Hillary Clinton was simply not convincing. 


4. Michael Bloomberg should have seen the misery coming and stood.

Under these circumstances Bloomberg could have won and become an excellent President. 
But could have doesn't help. It is too late. What is important now is the view ahead.

The election of Donald Trump is the greatest challenge to our system and the western values of freedom, democracy, the rule of law and human rights.

Now we will see how powerful the self-regulatory mechanisms of modern free societies really are. Which is stronger? Civil society, whose vision is to bring forth the best from every person? Or the man who appears to want to turn precisely this civil society on its head?

Who will win? The madman or the scales of the rule of law? Do the scales have a chance against rudeness? 1000 kilos of cotton weigh just as much as a tonne of lead. The experiment on the open heart of democracy has begun.

Europe is poorly equipped for this practical test of the free west. It needs strong leadership.

Where are the populists of the middle ground? The charismatic propagandists of humility before the rule of law? The sympathetic evangelists of freedom, tolerance and open society?

Opportunistic focusing on details as part of the party geographical pork-barrel politics drives people to despair and to the extreme margins. If politics does only what seems politically achievable at the moment, but too rarely what is simply right, if it says too often what is politically correct, but rarely what is simply true, then it loses followers.

Perhaps in this sense, the election of Donald Trump is a salutary shock. And in fact a turning point for the better.

Everything is possible. A dramatic renewal of centrist political leadership. Or, in Germany for example, the right-wing populist AFD becoming the strongest party within five years.

The Germans won't do that?

Let's hope not.

Mathias Döpfner is CEO of Axel Springer.

Disclosure: Axel Springer is Business Insider's parent company.

This is an editorial. The opinions and conclusions expressed above are those of the author.