It's time to accept what Americans have become
Europeans who wanted to convince themselves that 2016 was a fluke got a rude awakening this morning. We need to be honest about the 1930s era we find ourselves in.
Today I’ve been talking to shell-shocked Europeans here in Brussels about their thoughts and fears following what has just happened in America. Without a doubt, they are more scared now than they were when this first happened in 2016. They know this time the guard rails will be off. But they are less surprised this time, because of everything that has happened since then. "We're not as naive as we were 8 years ago, especially about Americans,” one told me. “We just need to make [inner] peace with this 1930s-type era."
In 2016, Europeans could console themselves by saying that Americans didn’t really understand what they were voting for. ‘Hillary ran a bad campaign,’ people insisted. Trump actually lost the popular vote, they pointed out. So many here on this continent could not bring themselves to think that Americans had voted for Donald Trump with their eyes wide open, knowing full well what he represents and what he would do. Because their entire lives, Europeans have been taught to idolize America - the country which provides both their security but their entertainment. Surely, people living the American Dream would never knowingly vote for a fascist.
But this time around, Europeans can’t make excuses for Americans any more. A majority of them voted for a man whose own top generals warn is a fascist. They voted for a man who tried to overthrow a democratically-elected government, who led an insurrection against the Capitol Building. They voted for a man who has openly sided with Vladimir Putin over America’s state department and intelligence services. They voted for a man who wants to pull the US out of NATO and told Putin he could “do whatever the hell he wants” to European countries. They voted for the first president who has been convicted of a crime, knowing that he will pardon himself. They voted for a man whose fascistic intentions, including purging the civil service of people who are not MAGA loyalists, have been spelled out in a 900-page Project 2025 document.
As Carlos Lozada wrote in the New York Times today, we need to stop pretending Trump is not who Americans are. “There have been so many attempts to explain away Trump’s hold on the nation’s politics and cultural imagination, to reinterpret him as aberrant and temporary,” he writes. “We can now let go of such illusions. Trump is very much part of who we are. Nearly 63 million Americans voted for him in 2016. 74 million did in 2020. And now, once again, enough voters in enough places have cast their lot with him to return him to the White House. Trump is no fluke, and Trumpism is no fad. After all, what is more normal than a thing that keeps happening?”
That a majority of Americans have voted with eyes fully open for a man who has threatened to imprison his political opponents and journalists should send a shiver down every reasonable person’s spine. It should also make very clear what type of era we are in. There is no escaping that we are living in a time in the West that we have not seen since the 1930s. It will not look exactly like the 1930s, and we don’t know what kind of conflagration it will lead to. But what should be very clear at this point is that the next years are going to be filled with the kind of chaos that we have not known in our lifetimes.
What has happened in America is only the most glaring example, but it is growing everywhere in the west. Trump may have gotten over 50% of the vote, but in Italy the far right came first with 29% of the vote in 2022, giving them the premiership. The far-right in Austria also came first with 29% in September’s election, and the Dutch far right came first with 23% last year, putting them in government. It is hard to imagine any of these people getting the vote share they did had they said and did the same things as Trump, and perhaps that is the unique thing about Americans versus Europeans. Ironically enough, in many ways Europe’s current far right is more moderate than Trump - who so many here insist on calling center right. But they are part of the same far-right impulse that has propelled Trump to power in the US.
If we want to confront this dangerous era head on, then Europeans need to be honest about a few basic realities:
The Republican Party is now a far right party, having purged itself of all remaining center-right politicians (who opposed Trump in this election).
The population of the United States is currently, in the majority, very attracted to the basic precepts of fascism.
The United States is abandoning Europe - at the very least because of disinterest, but also because it may need to turn inward to confront an internal conflict (civil war) or unrest. It is not inconceivable that in the coming years the United States will not only no longer be an ally, but will be an enemy of Europe.
These are hard things to admit for a continent that still idolises Americans. But if today’s vote result isn’t enough for Europeans to take their heads out of the sand, I don’t know what would be.
At the end of last year, I asked whether 2024 would be the year democracy is voted out. Looking at the first-place finishes for the French and German far right in June’s EU election, and today’s result in the US, I do think that this year will be seen as a turning point to the public definitively losing faith in democracy and the rule of law. Let’s be honest about the fact that much or most of the public in the West just doesn’t seem to care about these principles at the moment, and they are becoming increasingly attracted to authoritarianism. That was the verdict delivered by Americans yesterday, and many people here in Europe feel the same. It is the same way many people felt in the 1930s. If we want to avoid repeating the horrors of what came after the 1930s, let’s be honest about where we are at this moment.
Spot on. When George W Bush was elected (a real nice guy compared to the president elect), we made similar excuses. We looked the other way when he was re-elected. At some point electors get what they deserve.