What do you do when you discover that your best friend is violent towards his partner at home? That question - or one very similar - should be asked of European leaders, but also of all of us in the European public sphere, who silently watch as Donald Trump hammers the institutions of American democracy.
Over the past nine months, European leaders have been silent, aloof, and resorting to flattery, appeasement, and empty promises just to keep the American president in their good graces and involve him in European security. The immense pressure for Trump to stand with Europe in confronting Russia over its war in Ukraine—or at least not to be against us and on Vladimir Putin’s side—has led them to swallow unrealistic military spending targets and unequal terms of trade. And for what benefit?
No European leader has publicly challenged Trump's overblown claims that he has ended eight wars in eight months, nor has he criticized his destruction of the multilateral order based on free trade rules, his attack on the United Nations, or his selective use of tariffs for political showdowns around the world.
The only moment when European leaders briefly found their voice was when J.D. Vance used the stage of the Munich Security Conference to launch a scathing attack on European democracy. Vance accused American allies of stifling free speech and said he was more concerned about “the threat from within… the retreat of Europe from its most fundamental values” than any threat to the continent’s freedom from Russia or China. To underscore his support for the “freedom” of anti-immigrant hate speech, he met with the leader of the far-right German AfD, Alice Weidel, in the middle of the election campaign in Munich, while simultaneously ignoring then-German Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the Social Democratic Party.
As millions of Americans take to the streets to protest Trump's authoritarian turn at home, isn't it time for European leaders to speak up and demonstrate moral autonomy - sending a clear message that Europe supports democracy in the United States and those who are trying to defend it?
This does not mean that expressing European outrage would have any practical effect on dismantling the system of checks and balances in American politics, abolishing the USAID foreign aid agency, cracking down on universities, law firms, and academia, abusing the judiciary against political opponents, purging the armed forces, or, most alarmingly, deploying the military in American cities to combat the “enemy within.”
While the United States can protect Europe's security - and deserves our enduring gratitude for doing so for 80 years - Europeans cannot protect democracy in the U.S. They can and must, however, protect liberal democracy in Europe, which risks becoming a collateral victim of Trump's domestic and foreign policies.
What happens in America doesn't stay in America. It's often a harbinger of trends that spill over into Europe. Just as the #MeToo and "woke" movements from Hollywood studios and American campuses spilled over to European film sets and universities, the wave of illiberalism and repression rising in Washington is already breaking onto European shores - in countries like Hungary and Serbia.
By speaking out publicly about Trump's attacks on the independence of the American civil service, judiciary, legal profession, media, and armed forces, and his attempts to criminalize dissent, European leaders would reaffirm the values of the rule of law, separation of powers, and liberal democracy that they have a duty to uphold at home.
If Elon Musk can use his social network and the world's greatest wealth to interfere in German elections in favor of Weidler's far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) - or in British politics in support of convicted anti-Islam extremist Tommy Robinson - then surely we can make our voices heard in American politics.
We can offer support and practical cooperation to states, cities, and courts that share our values, as well as moral support to America’s freedom fighters. Our governments and regions can build partnerships on climate action, civil rights, and development assistance with like-minded American states and local governments. We can offer jobs, visas, and scholarships to American scientists and academics affected by Trump’s cuts to research funding. Europe can only profit from the American “brain drain” that Trump himself would cause.
The massive “No Kings” protests in cities across the United States have been, thankfully, peaceful, despite Trump’s deployment of the armed forces to Washington, Los Angeles, Memphis, Portland and other cities, as well as his attempted mobilization of the National Guard in 19 states. But having declared his leftist opponents “domestic terrorists,” the risk is growing that Trump could make good on his threat to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 and grant himself broad authority to use the military against American protesters.
The last time the U.S. military was used for domestic police action against protesters was in 1970, under Richard Nixon, when the National Guard killed four students at Kent State University in Ohio who were protesting against the draft and the U.S. intervention in Cambodia. An earlier precedent for the use of lethal force against peaceful protesters occurred in Selma, Alabama, in 1965, when state and local police violently broke up marches by black Americans demanding unhindered voting rights.
In both of these historical cases, European media criticized the use of force against peaceful protesters, but governments on this side of the Atlantic remained silent, guided by the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of an allied state.
Today, when the US administration and its billionaire allies intervene at will in support of hate speech and its advocates in Europe, and against the European Union's digital regulation, there is no longer any excuse for silence. On the contrary - the defense of European liberal democracy begins with acknowledging the moment when it is threatened in the country of our closest ally.
The text is taken from "The Guardian"
Translation: NB
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