I read the Trump administration’s new “National Security Strategy” and find two delicious ironies in it.
The first is geographical: in the eyes of Washington, Latin America and Europe appear as two neighboring territories, regions that should be kept under the “sphere of influence” of the planet Maga.
In Latin America, this means supporting allies (Milei) and overthrowing enemies (Maduro).
In Europe, the technique is more subtle: since you cannot send an aircraft carrier and end the European Union once and for all, the solution is to promote nationalist movements that do the work from within.
Trump has already explained that the European Union exists primarily to “harm” (I use a euphemism) the United States. That the European Union was a project promoted by the Americans themselves in the post-Second World War period as part of Soviet containment is a detail that does not occur to our Donald’s enlightened mind.
But there is a second, more recent irony. American contempt for its Latin American “backyard” is old. The deep irritation that the Trumpist right displays today against Europe is a historic novelty. For what?
Financial Times columnist Janan Ganesh gives a clue. On the surface, Trumpism condemns Muslim immigration to Europe and the alleged cultural “authoritarianism” of Brussels on issues of freedom of expression.
But Ganesh puts both sins in their place: Muslim immigration to Europe has the same geographic explanation as Hispanic immigration to the United States – and, in absolute and relative numbers, it is even smaller.
As for “wokism”, unfortunately still flourishing here, it is an American invention. The plague originated at Ivy League universities, not the Sorbonne or Oxford. And in fact, it caused more cultural damage in the United States than in Europe.
Trumpist hatred therefore perhaps has another origin: the fear that the United States is too similar to Europe. More secular. With fewer children. More tolerant of cultural or sexual diversity. In the imagination of the Maga movement, Europe is the ghost of the future Christmas.
I agree with Ganesh. The United States has always believed in its “exceptionalism” as a beacon of history. And it is not possible to be “the city on the hill”, the engine of “manifest destiny” and, at the same time, transform into an aging, post-religious, post-heroic civilization – that is, a normal civilization.
And here comes the curious inversion, which escaped Ganesh: for centuries, it was Europe that feared the “Americanization” of the Old Continent. Love is paid with love.
As I write these lines, I have on the table an essay by Stefan Zweig (“Um Mundo Increasingly Monotonous”, published by Relógio D’Água) in which the Austrian writer deplores “the uniformity of the external forms of European life” – in dance, fashion, cinema, radio, literature – after the First War. Whose fault is it? From Uncle Sam, of course.
“We still harbor illusions about America’s philanthropic and economic goals,” Zweig said. “In reality, we have become colonies of their way of life, of their behavior, slaves of an idea which, fundamentally, is foreign to Europe: the mechanical idea.”
Zweig repeated, perhaps without realizing it, a long tradition of European intellectuals who projected (and project) all their cultural anxiety onto the New World.
For some, America was too degenerate (Maistre); for others, materialistic (Gobineau) or too young (Chateaubriand); or it was too pragmatic (Nietzsche); or too crude (Spengler); or too ignorant (Heidegger); or too primitive (Baudrillard). The list is long, but the objective is constant: to paint the other with the colors of the spiritual, moral or intellectual desert.
If Trump’s America fears being “normal” like Europe, it is worth remembering that Europe has always been afraid of being “vulgar” like America. Ultimately, both sides of the Atlantic use the same distorted mirror to expel their innermost fears.
The reality is more prosaic: the Americanization of Europe has occurred; and the Europeanization of America is underway.
With similar birth rates, similar secularization processes, post-industrial economies, aging populations, technocratic elites, and mature consumer societies, Europeans and Americans live in the same late civilization – perhaps entering the same twilight and seeing, in each other, their own sunset.
Someone should warn the hysterics of planet Maga that there are worse fates. And this late afternoon sun also has its charm.
About The Author
