The US and Europe, once close allies and friends, are moving away from each other.
JD Vance went to Europe. His visit was as strange as that of the protagonist in Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Vance spoke of freedom and abandoning censorship. He spoke of America leading in AI and the freedom of expression needed for such leadership. His hosts may have understood the words coming out of his mouth but did not understand the concepts he so eloquently put forth.
The Europeans and Americans are experiencing a cultural and social divorce. Vance’s talk might have been a smash in the 1950s, but no longer. The Europeans are going down a dark path, one the Americans only missed by the Obama-Biden-Harris train being derailed. Those three would have loved to make America into Europe. Those who would like to make Europe more like America – Farage, LePen, AfD – are mostly out of power or run smaller countries like Italy and Hungary.
The election of Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s force for free speech via X are shocks to the European system. We know that the British not only monitor online chatter but are prepared to arrest old codgers for not saying the right things on their “private” Facebook pages.
The EU is enamored with vaccine passports, the kind we needed during Covid. They would love to enforce a Chinese-style social score and do everything the World Economic Foundation (WEF) tells them. They are reducing farmland, they wish to cull large parts of their herds, and, of course, they are allowing near unfettered immigration.
So, while the US is doing its best to tighten its borders and begin the process of throwing out millions of illegal aliens, Europe is instead preparing to lose its identity to millions of unvetted immigrants who have made it clear that they don’t like their host countries. Sure, they love having nice things like expensive smartphones and designer clothes. But they hate their new countries and the permissiveness they sense in the freedoms that in the past allowed people to live their own lives and express themselves within reasonable bounds. Seeing thousands upon thousands marching over the Thames in favor of Hamas terror or Muslim immigrants taunting and harassing German women on a subway should cause the locals to say, “Enough!” But it often does not. One of the big differences between the US and Europe is pride. For nearly a decade, Donald Trump has been running and leading on a platform of “Make America Great Again”. The slogan has several implications.
When growing up, Europe always held a strange spot. It was not like the communist countries behind the iron curtain, but it was also not the freewheeling, go-get-it land of America. It was socialist and so most people took trains or buses. The apartments were small, as were the cars. Medicine and other services were socialized, and as one can see that only one European company (the maker of Ozempic) is in the top 20 companies in the world by market value, it’s clear that Europe did not have the take risk and success or fail ethos of the United States.
JD Vance came to a Europe that looks like the Europe of old but has changed socially and politically to the point that his hosts did not understand him. I would rather have the same passport as JD Vance than one from any of those countries that are presently committing national suicide.
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