Whither Europe
In the 2016 election cycle, the majority of the American people signaled that they were done with the ideological politics that had reigned since the Cold War. While Trump did not win a majority in the general election, the election as a whole, including the primaries, made clear that the public was ready to move on. The way to view the last three election cycles is as a long struggle by the public to drag the economic elites out of their isolation and back into politics.
That is what we saw in 2024 and what we are seeing now. What is happening in Washington is both revolutionary and just the start. The cutting of government payrolls is one part of a bigger change in how America operates. The United States is about to end its empire phase and return to being a big powerful country. It is a long overdue transformation that has been made possible by the economic elites realizing things had to change if they were going to remain elites.
Left out of this is what it means for Europe. The issue of Ukraine, for example, has the Europeans on the sidelines, muttering mad ideas to one another about how they will get along as American vassal states without America. They are drawing up grand schemes for re-arming Germany and developing their own nuclear arsenal, so they can pretend Brussels is an imperial hegemon and the political classes of the European states can continue as dysfunctional flunkies.
It is strange to see the Europeans, both their media and their politicians, carry on as if nothing has changed. In the United States, the talk is about the DOGE audits and making deals with the Russians and Chinese. In Europe they are locking people up for speech crimes and looking under their bed for you-know-who, when the closest they will come to seeing him is in the mirror. Suddenly, Europe is a land of poor people wearing yesterday’s fashions.
The problem is most obvious in British politics. The Economist had a cover featuring British Prime Minister Keir Starmer as Winston Churchill. The motivation behind it is the British elites are still suffering from the 1938 disease that used to rage in the United States until the antidote of the 2024 election. If they had made Starmer look like a guest at Studio 54 it would have been less cringe. British politics is a mess of yesterday men looking for a reason to exist.
This post in the Spectator about Nigel Farage inadvertently gets at the problem faced by the Brits and all of Europe. Farage is a generational talent in terms of democratic appeal, but he is worthless as a politician because he accepts the fact that he lacks elite support, especially support from economic elites. As a result, he is always getting close to the important issues facing his people, but he always pulls up just as he is about to engage directly and candidly with them.
What you always sense with Farage is that he desperately wants an invite to the cool kid’s table, so everything he does is aimed at keeping that option open. He could give the ridiculous fops on the continent a tough time, but he never levels the same charges at the local fops, because that would mean giving up forever the chance to sit with them at the cool kid’s table. He may not like their policies, but the dream of being accepted by them still controls his actions.
It is why he is always negotiating with himself when it comes to issues like immigration or Ukraine. Nowhere on earth is there a majority in favor of immigration and in most places, even the thoroughly demoralized portion of the population wants an end to the open border’s madness. This should be a trillion-dollar bill on the ground for Farage to pick up, but he just cannot do it. He gets close, but always has a reason to leave it there, staring up at him.
What Farage lacks is the backbone that comes from elite support, especially from the economic elite. The reason for that is the indigenous economic elite of the UK was transformed into a local office of American Inc. It could act only with the permission of the bosses in the main office, who for decades were happy to leave things to the managers, both at home and abroad. The result is that the economic elites in Europe have the same managerial mindset as the managers.
The problem can be seen in the list of “British” billionaires. We must put “British” in quotes because the man topping the list is Gopi Hinduja. Number three on the list is Sir Leonard Blavatnik from Ukraine. Fifth on the list is Lakshmi Mittal. This feature of the British economic elite is shared on the continent. What passes for the European economic elite are people who gained their opposition by doing business with the Americans by the rules of the Americans.
The reason the UK is becoming a garbage island is because the “owners” have no connection to it. The servants of those “owners”, huddles in the swanky neighborhoods of London, define themselves by their opposition to the British people. The people of the British Isles got better treatment from the Vikings. The reason Farage can never get elite support is because the elites have no interest in a populist, nationalist message, so Farage reduced to being a charming rumpswab.
There are other forces at play, but all of them have their roots in the fact that Europe has been under American rule for eight decades. The reason Farage cannot be the UK Donald Trump is that Farage is not a member of the economic elite. Trump is a billionaire and sees himself as an equal to the billionaires. His perseverance over the last eight years won over the economic elite. Such a thing is not possible in the UK or on the continent, so they cannot produce their version of Donald Trump.
This does not mean things are hopeless in Europe. In fact, the United States suddenly joining the rest of the world in the 21st century is setting the stage for Europe to finally escape the 20th century as well. It will require a longer and more painful process, like what Russia experience after the Cold War. The reason is Europe will need to rebuild its institutions and develop its own elites. That can only happen when America finally kicks Europe out of the imperial nest.