European anti-Americanism

Illustration by Barbara Kelley

After my visit to Germany last summer, I posted here a piece on German anti-Americanism. The Germans, however, are only indulging in a widespread European phenomenon, as evidenced by what I read in today's edition of "euro|topics," a daily digest I receive in my email box. I receive the German version, but the link here is to the English homepage. It is well worth subscribing to if one wants to get a feel for what agitates Europeans about the world. Every weekday there is a new topic on which the European opinion class opines Today's digest concerned "One Year Trump." To be fair, there was a variety of views. Trump remains mysterious at best to Europeans, and not all the commentators were uniformly negative, although it could be expected that Le Monde would assert that Trump represents the end of liberal democracy. I get Europeans to some extent, and the disruption of their pieties is not surprising.

One response from the Belgium newspaper De Standaard, however, was a really stand-out piece, exposing not simply hatred of the the U.S. president, but also every preconceived notion about the kind of country the U.S. represents. Here is the short version in English, oozing disdain and hatred, by Nick De Clippel:

“The problem is not Trump but that there were enough voters who lifted this rodeo clown into the saddle. If Trump falls from the horse, they're still there. ... The question is how could the US be allowed to go to rack and ruin like this, to gamble away all the moral authority it had, to fall behind on all levels (except the stock markets). ... Basically it was written in the stars that sooner or later a country with shopping mall schools, with Fox News as an analysis programme, with monsters like The Gong Show and The Jerry Springer Show as 'human interest' programmes would sooner or later have someone like Trump as president. A society driven by blind greed for profit and the resulting decay in education and media is responsible for this.”

That's pretty rich coming from a citizen of Belgium.

Excuse my arrogance, but Belgium is country that can't even keep track of the terrorists it harbors. That has two language populations that hate each other. That has a history of colonialism that is the worst in modern history. What has Belgium done for the world, aside from chocolate and beer?

De Clippel reproaches the U.S. for loss of "moral authority." What moral authority does "Europe" possess aside from its pieties and platitudes?