It seemed to me that his whole speech was about avoiding the topic of Russia and Ukraine and “using his time” as an opportunity to vent about his favorite American culture war topics awkwardly transposed to Europe with examples that didn’t quite work. I agree the safe access zones seem overly stringent, but the Scottish law was passed democratically so I don’t see how it proves his point about respecting democracy even when you don’t like the results. It’s also quite rich to talk about the challenges of migration without noting that Germany has taken in more than a million refugees from Ukraine. The chef’s kiss was invoking John Paul II as a champion of democracy. Well yes, he was, but specifically he was a champion of Polish national independence from Russia.
Shadi, I'm tempted to agree with what you are saying about the message but why was this the right time for that message? While Ukraine sits there waiting for Trump to negotiate their land away to Putin without even involving them in the talks? Why does Vance think laws about speech around abortion clinics(Europeans believe in freedom from religion not of, this is something very important for Americans to understand) or elections in Romania (I'm from Albania myself, an even more insignificant country) are more important than European energy independence from Russia and stopping Putin? His message was this threat from within is greater than Putin...come on...
When would be the right time? Putin isn't going away anytime soon. And to do a speech like this 1 or 2 years from now would blunt its impact. The Trump administration's aim is clear, I think. It wants to disrupt the status quo and force European countries to rethink their assumptions about US support and protection. And already it seems to be somewhat successful, with European countries finally getting more serious about boosting internal defense and defense cooperation. The chaos is the point. We don't have to like, but I think this is the operating assumption of the administration.
It's always bad when Americans try to make some grand point about Europe and fall flat on their nose. Let's start with the most obvious thing that seems to go over the head of US commentators: there are 27 EU member states with distinct free speech traditions and different laws on assembly, protest, incitement to violence, libel, etc.
So even if the UK had some odd developments regarding free speech that doesn't mean "Europe" does. Neither does your hobbyhorse of Germany "suppressing" pro Palestinians speech.
As for Romania, they don't have the option to be blasé about Russian asymmetric warfare, considering the same playbook was used in Ukraine and Moldova.
I dunno, i guess it helps when you actually know what's going on versus i need what's going on to fit in my framework.
Romania has agency. I'm not sure where you get the idea it "doesn't have the option" but to cancel elections, just because the results weren't good. It clearly did have the option. On Russian interference, as I explain in the piece, if we canceled elections every time a foreign country organized an influence campaign, you'd have to cancel elections in a lot of places, including here in America. And, in any case, as NYT reported, the publicly released intelligence documents couldn't even establish that there was a real Russian role in the first place.
I don't mean to sound harsh, but i bet you would be confused too, if i drew sweeping conclusions about America, based on the fact that Muslims in Dearborn switched over to Trump, no ?
Europe and the UK are not vassals or colonies of the U.S. Being lectured on democracy by a U.S. Administration dedicated to establishing a plutocratic authoritarian government domestically is an insult to our allies. What a travesty of small-mindedness.
I agree, but it's not as if our existing approach to Europe was producing great dividends. Maybe shaking things up a bit is the only way to push European nations to take more responsibility for their own collective defense and boost their defense spending, something that they've been notoriously resistant to doing
So, throwing support behind the AfD in Germany is "shaking things up"? Yeah, let's meddle in our German ally's elections and support a neo-nazi party. Neo-nazis taking power in Germany, what could go wrong?
"Shaking things up a bit"! Now there's an understatement.
Yes, Europe was complacent, too comfortable with the status quo left over from WWII and the Cold War. The U.S. provided a strong military to keep Europe from re-arming soon after the World War. The Cold War was a nuclear standoff between two superpowers and wisely the U.S. decided it best not to have a bunch of rogue nuclear forces muddying up the waters.
Europe was a collection of individual nations until 1993 when the formation of the EU occurred. The EU was primarily an economic union, not a strong federation responsible for collective defense. NATO is a pact among individual nations, not a cohesive EU defense force. European defenses are weak by U.S. design, not necessarily by the choice of European nations. As the world's largest weapons manufacturer, the U.S. has a profit motive to keep Europe dependent on U.S. armament.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine was the wake-up call that destroyed Europe's fantasy of a post-Cold War Russia joining Europe in commerce and modernization. Putin's decision to invade makes no sense to Europe and is likely to trigger economic suicide for Russia (again). The myth of a new Russian Federation aligned with Western globalized commerce evaporated and the unthinkable became reality.
The Ukraine War has revealed that all parties - the U.S., EU, and Russia - had allowed their defense forces to atrophy. Ukraine has had to make do with used and obsolete Army Surplus equipment found in storage throughout the U.S. and various EU nations. Nobody anticipated such an insane event and even the U.S. cannot provide the munitions required for this type of conflict. Engaging in WWI trench warfare and artillery battles is unthinkable in the 21st century, but here we all are.
So, the U.S. lectures Europe to increase defense spending while it announces it will slash its defense budget. If Europeans are alarmed and confused by all of this, they have my sympathy. That Russia and China are emboldened is obvious. Yes, things have been "shaken up a bit."
There always seems to be a kernel of truth in arguments and positions taken by Those Pursuing Power. However, hypocrites (JD Vance) accusing the European Union of hypocrisy is irony and paradox to the extreme.
I neither like nor dislike JD Vance. I have never met the man. And his pointing out the failure of European countries to stand up to Putin's aggression is a credible criticism. That is the kernel of truth. However, I fear that his stance is no more than virtue signaling and political opportunism. Given the developments of the last 24 hours, with the phone call to Vladimir and the meeting with Lavrov, it would seem that Russia set out to conquer Ukraine, but it wound up taking the United States. Putin has already achieved his ultimate goal, conquering the United States. No other country will ever again trust the United States as an ally or partner. The Russians know this and they proved it. JD Vance, Elon and Rupert Murdoch are accomplices, while Putin never fired a shot. How efficient.
Not like it’s anything new, the US has practiced regime change on democratically elected leaders and others that weren’t adequately subservient to our government’s or industry’s demands for access to their natural resources and/or workforce, as orange is attempting now to extort Zelenskyy, again. So enough of the US’s high minded hypocrisy about human rights and democracy. The present regime is literally eviscerating democracy under our feet and our joke VP wants to lecture? Oh please. Maybe if we had a little more functional democracy we wouldn’t have musk as president, having bought the office for Trump who promised to stay out of musks way and defend his actions. The damage they do daily is irreversible and if it continues with the silent consent of congress and courts, which trump hasn’t explicitly said he’ll ignore but is doing in actuality, we’ll be on the dustheap of history long before the next election. Like the democrats have a clue how to ever win again, or overcome the entrenched vote manipulation achieved by musk in 2024. So maybe we should just stop pretending bc the rest of the world sees America clearly now. Trump wasn’t an aberration, he’s the buffoon leading the way to Idiocracy.
"He excoriated Europeans for “simply [not liking] the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion or, God forbid, vote a different way, or even worse, win an election.”
If WoC contributors weren't so quick to slap leftist wrists with the admonition that "it's more complex than that," I wouldn't feel the need to point out that in this case, it's more complex than that. Germany is less than a hundred years from the worst regime in all of history, bar none. The foundation of that regime was a racial ideology that exalted Germanness and first disparaged, then murdered en masse, many varieties of non-German. The problem of how to prevent the resurgence of that lethal ideology while still guaranteeing free speech is a delicate one, and should not be an occasion for what is becoming a rather tired WoC gambit of schooling the left.
Lots to think about here Shadi, thanks. I guess I read his argument in a different way. Vance's concern isn't about shared values of democracy or freedom of expression, it's about any attempts by European states to police their own elections from outside interference or decide where the bounds of freedom of expression should be. I completely agree that democracy should allow for its participants to make bad decisions but it also allows for democratically elected officials to attempt to protect themselves from perceived anti-democratic forces. Is this subjective? Of course it is! If German parties commit to not allowing the AfD into their coalition then voters are in fact expressing their democratic will in voting to keep AfD out of government.
It seems like Vance and his ideological brethren are more interested in using free speech and democracy as a cudgel. Democracy and free speech only flow from the right and any attempt to exercise democracy or free speech in the opposite direction, by boxing out or verbally attaching far-right parties is censorship or government interference. Further, I think it's understandable for Europeans to be more guarded about their democracy and to view political extremism more warily than on the other side of the Atlantic. There is still a living memory over here about the effects of allowing extreme parties to win power democratically. Does that make Europe less democratic than America? Maybe, but an argument can be made that the American system is by its design far less democratic than most European parliamentary systems. Democracy is a spectrum and no country has fully committed to an absolutist version of it, not in America or Europe or elsewhere.
But this analysis will always fall short if you view the USA as the world hegemon. Instead, a trans-Atlantic elite has steered the statecraft of the DC leviathan to wield global power. Holding Americans hostage while doing the bidding of a small European elite. To lift up this global empire which is neither American nor benefits true American interest.
Vance came to tell you Euros that the game is over and you best ought to get your house in order. There’s a Slow Train Coming, up around the bend. And the USA won’t be there to bail you out this time.
Any other response about the nastiness of Trump or Vance “being the wrong rep” is pure cope.
“We need to have an answer for it…” Well do you have one? How do you deal with a political party that might use democracy to gain power and then weaken or destroy that democracy? What good is holding to a pure principle of unfettered democracy with such a destructive outcome not just quite possible but proven to happen, historically? At a certain point some political parties seem like the equivalent of the guy falsely yelling fire in a movie theater and claiming free speech.
Broadly agree with you Shadi that 'bad outcomes' in a democratic system appear to be a major weakness of European liberal political norms. As a Brit, I admit that we have our issues and certainly there are questions around political cancel culture and censorship which need addressing. I wonder though, does our first-past-the-post electoral system actually prevent the likelihood of populist movements gaining ground in the same way that they can on the continent? I've been against FPTP for years (still am), but now find myself in the odd position of admitting it probably prevents a major rightwards surge at the next election, simply because I think it's unlikely that Reform UK have the political capital to win enough seats under that system. As a democrat, should I continue to campaign for a different electoral system, even in the knowledge that it opens the door to my political adversaries?
While I agree with the logic of your essay, I also worry that hate speech works on human weakness and by instilling fear to one's own tribe from the other tribes, can make humans behave in a manner that can lead to a loss of democracy totally. Democracy once lost is very hard to reinstate, as Russia has found out.
I agree that most of western Europe's ruling order sees losing to far right like a big risk as the far right parties are not fully committed to democratic norms but it is also true that this fear is self-serving as the liberal ruling order does not want to change its stance on topics that are of keen interest to large number of voters, issues such as muslim migrations, social spending, low defense spending to name a few.
It seemed to me that his whole speech was about avoiding the topic of Russia and Ukraine and “using his time” as an opportunity to vent about his favorite American culture war topics awkwardly transposed to Europe with examples that didn’t quite work. I agree the safe access zones seem overly stringent, but the Scottish law was passed democratically so I don’t see how it proves his point about respecting democracy even when you don’t like the results. It’s also quite rich to talk about the challenges of migration without noting that Germany has taken in more than a million refugees from Ukraine. The chef’s kiss was invoking John Paul II as a champion of democracy. Well yes, he was, but specifically he was a champion of Polish national independence from Russia.
Shadi, I'm tempted to agree with what you are saying about the message but why was this the right time for that message? While Ukraine sits there waiting for Trump to negotiate their land away to Putin without even involving them in the talks? Why does Vance think laws about speech around abortion clinics(Europeans believe in freedom from religion not of, this is something very important for Americans to understand) or elections in Romania (I'm from Albania myself, an even more insignificant country) are more important than European energy independence from Russia and stopping Putin? His message was this threat from within is greater than Putin...come on...
When would be the right time? Putin isn't going away anytime soon. And to do a speech like this 1 or 2 years from now would blunt its impact. The Trump administration's aim is clear, I think. It wants to disrupt the status quo and force European countries to rethink their assumptions about US support and protection. And already it seems to be somewhat successful, with European countries finally getting more serious about boosting internal defense and defense cooperation. The chaos is the point. We don't have to like, but I think this is the operating assumption of the administration.
It's always bad when Americans try to make some grand point about Europe and fall flat on their nose. Let's start with the most obvious thing that seems to go over the head of US commentators: there are 27 EU member states with distinct free speech traditions and different laws on assembly, protest, incitement to violence, libel, etc.
So even if the UK had some odd developments regarding free speech that doesn't mean "Europe" does. Neither does your hobbyhorse of Germany "suppressing" pro Palestinians speech.
As for Romania, they don't have the option to be blasé about Russian asymmetric warfare, considering the same playbook was used in Ukraine and Moldova.
I dunno, i guess it helps when you actually know what's going on versus i need what's going on to fit in my framework.
Romania has agency. I'm not sure where you get the idea it "doesn't have the option" but to cancel elections, just because the results weren't good. It clearly did have the option. On Russian interference, as I explain in the piece, if we canceled elections every time a foreign country organized an influence campaign, you'd have to cancel elections in a lot of places, including here in America. And, in any case, as NYT reported, the publicly released intelligence documents couldn't even establish that there was a real Russian role in the first place.
Thanks for the feedback
I don't mean to sound harsh, but i bet you would be confused too, if i drew sweeping conclusions about America, based on the fact that Muslims in Dearborn switched over to Trump, no ?
Europe and the UK are not vassals or colonies of the U.S. Being lectured on democracy by a U.S. Administration dedicated to establishing a plutocratic authoritarian government domestically is an insult to our allies. What a travesty of small-mindedness.
I agree, but it's not as if our existing approach to Europe was producing great dividends. Maybe shaking things up a bit is the only way to push European nations to take more responsibility for their own collective defense and boost their defense spending, something that they've been notoriously resistant to doing
So, throwing support behind the AfD in Germany is "shaking things up"? Yeah, let's meddle in our German ally's elections and support a neo-nazi party. Neo-nazis taking power in Germany, what could go wrong?
"Shaking things up a bit"! Now there's an understatement.
Yes, Europe was complacent, too comfortable with the status quo left over from WWII and the Cold War. The U.S. provided a strong military to keep Europe from re-arming soon after the World War. The Cold War was a nuclear standoff between two superpowers and wisely the U.S. decided it best not to have a bunch of rogue nuclear forces muddying up the waters.
Europe was a collection of individual nations until 1993 when the formation of the EU occurred. The EU was primarily an economic union, not a strong federation responsible for collective defense. NATO is a pact among individual nations, not a cohesive EU defense force. European defenses are weak by U.S. design, not necessarily by the choice of European nations. As the world's largest weapons manufacturer, the U.S. has a profit motive to keep Europe dependent on U.S. armament.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine was the wake-up call that destroyed Europe's fantasy of a post-Cold War Russia joining Europe in commerce and modernization. Putin's decision to invade makes no sense to Europe and is likely to trigger economic suicide for Russia (again). The myth of a new Russian Federation aligned with Western globalized commerce evaporated and the unthinkable became reality.
The Ukraine War has revealed that all parties - the U.S., EU, and Russia - had allowed their defense forces to atrophy. Ukraine has had to make do with used and obsolete Army Surplus equipment found in storage throughout the U.S. and various EU nations. Nobody anticipated such an insane event and even the U.S. cannot provide the munitions required for this type of conflict. Engaging in WWI trench warfare and artillery battles is unthinkable in the 21st century, but here we all are.
So, the U.S. lectures Europe to increase defense spending while it announces it will slash its defense budget. If Europeans are alarmed and confused by all of this, they have my sympathy. That Russia and China are emboldened is obvious. Yes, things have been "shaken up a bit."
There always seems to be a kernel of truth in arguments and positions taken by Those Pursuing Power. However, hypocrites (JD Vance) accusing the European Union of hypocrisy is irony and paradox to the extreme.
Yes, but paradox can be productive. That's what we need to be open to, even if it's someone we don't like saying something that we know to be true
I neither like nor dislike JD Vance. I have never met the man. And his pointing out the failure of European countries to stand up to Putin's aggression is a credible criticism. That is the kernel of truth. However, I fear that his stance is no more than virtue signaling and political opportunism. Given the developments of the last 24 hours, with the phone call to Vladimir and the meeting with Lavrov, it would seem that Russia set out to conquer Ukraine, but it wound up taking the United States. Putin has already achieved his ultimate goal, conquering the United States. No other country will ever again trust the United States as an ally or partner. The Russians know this and they proved it. JD Vance, Elon and Rupert Murdoch are accomplices, while Putin never fired a shot. How efficient.
Not like it’s anything new, the US has practiced regime change on democratically elected leaders and others that weren’t adequately subservient to our government’s or industry’s demands for access to their natural resources and/or workforce, as orange is attempting now to extort Zelenskyy, again. So enough of the US’s high minded hypocrisy about human rights and democracy. The present regime is literally eviscerating democracy under our feet and our joke VP wants to lecture? Oh please. Maybe if we had a little more functional democracy we wouldn’t have musk as president, having bought the office for Trump who promised to stay out of musks way and defend his actions. The damage they do daily is irreversible and if it continues with the silent consent of congress and courts, which trump hasn’t explicitly said he’ll ignore but is doing in actuality, we’ll be on the dustheap of history long before the next election. Like the democrats have a clue how to ever win again, or overcome the entrenched vote manipulation achieved by musk in 2024. So maybe we should just stop pretending bc the rest of the world sees America clearly now. Trump wasn’t an aberration, he’s the buffoon leading the way to Idiocracy.
"He excoriated Europeans for “simply [not liking] the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion or, God forbid, vote a different way, or even worse, win an election.”
If WoC contributors weren't so quick to slap leftist wrists with the admonition that "it's more complex than that," I wouldn't feel the need to point out that in this case, it's more complex than that. Germany is less than a hundred years from the worst regime in all of history, bar none. The foundation of that regime was a racial ideology that exalted Germanness and first disparaged, then murdered en masse, many varieties of non-German. The problem of how to prevent the resurgence of that lethal ideology while still guaranteeing free speech is a delicate one, and should not be an occasion for what is becoming a rather tired WoC gambit of schooling the left.
Lots to think about here Shadi, thanks. I guess I read his argument in a different way. Vance's concern isn't about shared values of democracy or freedom of expression, it's about any attempts by European states to police their own elections from outside interference or decide where the bounds of freedom of expression should be. I completely agree that democracy should allow for its participants to make bad decisions but it also allows for democratically elected officials to attempt to protect themselves from perceived anti-democratic forces. Is this subjective? Of course it is! If German parties commit to not allowing the AfD into their coalition then voters are in fact expressing their democratic will in voting to keep AfD out of government.
It seems like Vance and his ideological brethren are more interested in using free speech and democracy as a cudgel. Democracy and free speech only flow from the right and any attempt to exercise democracy or free speech in the opposite direction, by boxing out or verbally attaching far-right parties is censorship or government interference. Further, I think it's understandable for Europeans to be more guarded about their democracy and to view political extremism more warily than on the other side of the Atlantic. There is still a living memory over here about the effects of allowing extreme parties to win power democratically. Does that make Europe less democratic than America? Maybe, but an argument can be made that the American system is by its design far less democratic than most European parliamentary systems. Democracy is a spectrum and no country has fully committed to an absolutist version of it, not in America or Europe or elsewhere.
I’m not sure why I’m subscribed here.
But this analysis will always fall short if you view the USA as the world hegemon. Instead, a trans-Atlantic elite has steered the statecraft of the DC leviathan to wield global power. Holding Americans hostage while doing the bidding of a small European elite. To lift up this global empire which is neither American nor benefits true American interest.
Vance came to tell you Euros that the game is over and you best ought to get your house in order. There’s a Slow Train Coming, up around the bend. And the USA won’t be there to bail you out this time.
Any other response about the nastiness of Trump or Vance “being the wrong rep” is pure cope.
“We need to have an answer for it…” Well do you have one? How do you deal with a political party that might use democracy to gain power and then weaken or destroy that democracy? What good is holding to a pure principle of unfettered democracy with such a destructive outcome not just quite possible but proven to happen, historically? At a certain point some political parties seem like the equivalent of the guy falsely yelling fire in a movie theater and claiming free speech.
Broadly agree with you Shadi that 'bad outcomes' in a democratic system appear to be a major weakness of European liberal political norms. As a Brit, I admit that we have our issues and certainly there are questions around political cancel culture and censorship which need addressing. I wonder though, does our first-past-the-post electoral system actually prevent the likelihood of populist movements gaining ground in the same way that they can on the continent? I've been against FPTP for years (still am), but now find myself in the odd position of admitting it probably prevents a major rightwards surge at the next election, simply because I think it's unlikely that Reform UK have the political capital to win enough seats under that system. As a democrat, should I continue to campaign for a different electoral system, even in the knowledge that it opens the door to my political adversaries?
yep, exactly my reaction.
While I agree with the logic of your essay, I also worry that hate speech works on human weakness and by instilling fear to one's own tribe from the other tribes, can make humans behave in a manner that can lead to a loss of democracy totally. Democracy once lost is very hard to reinstate, as Russia has found out.
I agree that most of western Europe's ruling order sees losing to far right like a big risk as the far right parties are not fully committed to democratic norms but it is also true that this fear is self-serving as the liberal ruling order does not want to change its stance on topics that are of keen interest to large number of voters, issues such as muslim migrations, social spending, low defense spending to name a few.