Writing in the Financial Times, Simon Kuper worries that the US and Europe are drifting apart. Predictably enough there’s grumbling about the role of money in American elections, but, equally predictably, nothing about the manner in which the EU’s oligarchs have gutted the democracy of Europe’s nation states, and then,of course, there is the problem posed by those GOP neanderthals:
The Atlantic will probably widen further if Mitt Romney wins. Since 2000, Europeans have become fervent Democrats. In 2008, Barack Obama would have been elected leader of any European country where he’d run. Even now, according to polling by the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 75 per cent of Europeans back him. Just 8 per cent support Romney. Though Obama ignores us, Europeans still consider him one of us.
By contrast, at a recent Parisian dinner I heard a senior European politician describe Romney – inaccurately – as “a foolish guy, a stupid man”. “Romney: L’Extraterrestre”, screamed a magazine cover here, encapsulating the view of Republicans as aliens.
Nuts, of course,but pretty much the same thing was said about the election of Ronald Reagan.
Kuper concludes:
I’m not saying Europeans are right about Republicans. Perhaps the Tea Party is correct, and Europeans are crazed, bankrupt, jihad-supporting socialists. My point is that a Republican-led US would share few values with Europeans. Sure, Republicans believe in democracy, but so now do Indonesians and Ghanaians…
But does the EU leadership?