By Mick HUME
The "weak" elites he attacks are the real enemies of European democracy.
There has been much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's recent scathing criticisms of Europe's "weak" leaders and the danger of "civilisational erasure" on the continent.
Trump has been branded anti-European. But if that was true, then surely millions of European citizens must also be considered "anti-European." Because they are voting for political parties and supporting protest movements which make strikingly similar criticisms of the EU regime.
Take the Trump administration's controversial new National Security Strategy, which has been condemned as a work of imperial interference in European affairs.
The document argues that "the European Union and other transnational bodies" are working to "undermine political liberty and sovereignty"; observes that Europe's mass immigration policies "are transforming the continent and creating strife"; and identifies problems such as "censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence."
Sound familiar ? These are the sort of fundamental criticisms of the Brussels elite and their works that we commonly hear from national conservative parties across Europe. They form the basis of policies that are now supported by millions of patriots in European nations.
Contrary to the impression given in Brussels, the peoples of Europe do not need any malign American interference to turn them against their leaders. They can see for themselves that national sovereignty, democracy and free speech are under attack from the EU centre, and that uncontrolled immigration is transforming their societies for the worse.
That's why people across Europe have been voting in increasing numbers for insurgent national conservative parties-not because of what Trump or anybody else says, but because of what their rulers have done to European society, culture, and civilisation.
Amid the row about his National Security Strategy, Trump gave an interview to Politico, in which he shocked that house journal of the Brussels elites by laying into Europe's leaders again. "I think they're weak," said the president, "but I also think that they want to be politically correct. I think they don't know what to do."
Does anybody really imagine it is outrageous to suggest that top European leaders are weak, ineffective, and obsessed with making politically correct gestures ? For example, by insisting nonsensically that a man can be a woman, rather than standing up for real women's rights ? Many people across Europe would have nodded in agreement with Trump's blunt point.
Turning to the terrible war in Ukraine, Trump was equally dismissive of posturing European leaders who claim to be championing Ukraine: "They talk, but they don't produce, and the war just keeps going on and on." Which would no doubt sound to many European ears like a factual description of their rulers' alleged "coalition of the willing," which has only actually proved willing to fight to the last Ukrainian.
President Trump's more idiotic critics in America and Europe like to accuse him of ruling like "a King," ignoring the fact that-unlike many of the most powerful people in Brussels-he was democratically elected with a mandate to implement the very policies he is pursuing.
In this instance, "King" Donald looks rather more like the truth-telling boy in the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, who says what everybody can see and shouts out that the Emperor has no clothes. In publicly exposing the dangerous ideologies and actions of the European elites, he has given a presidential voice to what many rank-and-file voters are thinking.
There is no doubt that Europe's political elites genuinely despise the populist Trump, who has disrupted their cosy world and showed up their globalist worldview as outdated fantasy.
They also, of course, secretly relish the chance that opposing Trump gives them to pose as defenders of Europe against U.S. imperialism. Although it is surely debatable how many Europeans were taken in by European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen's declaration that Trump should "respect elected leaders" in Europe. We all know that Von der Leyen is the unelected EU president-a real "Queen" of European politics-who derives her power from riding roughshod over the elected governments of sovereign states.
European peoples' attitude to Trump is more complex. True, he would not win many elections this side of the Atlantic. But whatever they think of him personally, many instinctively agree with Trump's political attitude to issues such as mass migration and national sovereignty.
According to one new opinion poll that made mainstream headlines, nearly half of Europeans see Trump as "an enemy of Europe." The figures ranged from 62% in Belgium and 57% in France, to 37% in Croatia and just 19% in Poland. Coming from a firmly pro-EU standpoint, the pollsters, of course, did not bother to ask the people of Hungary or other sovereigntist nations further East.
According to a December YouGov poll, 64% of French voters had an unfavourable view of Trump, compared to 18% who were favourable. In Germany the unfavourables were ahead by 79% to 17%, in Italy by 64% to 28%. The landslide in Spain-where 80% held an unfavourable view of the U.S. president compared to 16% favourable-was only beaten by Denmark's 91% to 6% wipe-out. In the UK, the margin was 72% to 22%.
Yet, whether they like him or not, many European voters also seem essentially to agree with Trump's point that European leaders are "weak" and that the continent is "decaying" economically and culturally.
That is surely why, according to a major Politico poll, voters in big European nations who view Trump unfavourably still see his re-election in Washington as more significant for their countries than the election of their own national leaders.
In the UK, a remarkable 54% thought Trump's re-election meant more for them than the election of Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer. In Germany, 53% thought Trump's re-election more important than Friedrich Merz becoming chancellor. And 43% of French voters thought that Trump being U.S. president had a bigger impact on them than Emmanuel Macron being elected president of France.
They recognise that Trump is changing the world order. And it's not just about U.S. global power. They can also see that the sort of patriotic movement he represents is coming to Europe. It is striking that, despite all the personal attacks on him, being linked to Trump has not damaged the political success of national conservative leaders such as Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán, or the ascendant Nigel Farage in the UK.
The truth is that Donald Trump is neither the cause of Europe's problems nor the solution. Europe must resolve its own civilisational crisis. But that will not be possible while it is ruled by an EU elite that does not believe in the democratic civilisation it claims to lead.
The American administration cannot seriously be considered "anti-European." As the National Security Strategy makes clear, they "want Europe to remain European, to regain its civilisational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation." As Trump's vice president JD Vance told European leaders in Munich in February, the fear is that the EU elite is an "enemy within" which has betrayed the principles on which Europe is built.
Or as that famous banner French farmers flew outside the European Parliament in Brussels put it, "This is not the Europe we want!" Were they "anti-European" too?
Original article: europeanconservative.com