America’s populist turn has confused and perplexed observers of U.S. politics, both at home and abroad. New cultural flashpoints emerge with great intensity and speed, and many seasoned observers can no longer predict the American reaction to long-standing problems.
Many have hoped the populist moment would at least make U.S. foreign policy less ideological. As they see it, that crusading spirit often leads to trouble, and an infusion of homespun wisdom could make the country more hard-headed and clear-eyed about the rest of the world. That is especially important now that America’s adversaries have grown strong and confident enough to challenge the American-led international order. But recent events show the populist right is becoming as ideologically driven as its left-leaning counterparts. As a result, they are fixating on the wrong things.
This came to a head last week when Elon Musk hosted Donald Trump for a conversation on his social media platform X. Thierry Breton, the European Union’s digital commissioner, sent Musk a letter demanding he take "all proportionate and effective mitigation measures" to prevent the conversation from yielding "disinformation." Musk’s response was unprintable.
Like many of Breton’s actions, this is another instance of European protectionism. European industrial policy has promoted manufacturing at the expense of everything else for decades, so the EU is trying to make up for lost ground by impeding American tech companies. European elites tend to fear and loathe Donald Trump too, so Breton can strengthen his position by depicting himself as the guardian against the Great Orange Peril. Even so, Breton’s boss Ursula von der Leyen disavowed the letter the next day.
The populist right’s reaction was incandescent. Like most postcolonial nations, the United States is very touchy about its sovereignty, and some Americans have long feared that foreigners will manipulate international bodies to strip Americans of their rights to pick their own leaders and govern their own affairs. To them, Breton’s letter was just the most recent insidious maneuver by these shadowy outsiders. Their way to fight back? Leave NATO.
Even worse news, according to some in these circles, came this week when Ukraine passed a law that could ban the Ukrainian branch of the Russian Orthodox Church. To them, this is another example of woke Europeanism run amok, and they fear that the American left will take the same steps and ban churches in their own country. As a cross-denominational group of Ukrainian Christian leaders made clear, though, in a statement supporting the law, that is not what is happening.
The Russian Orthodox Church maintained its peace with the Soviet Union, which generally tried to stamp out religious belief, by collaborating with it. Patriarch Kirill, who allegedly worked for the KGB, cheers on today’s "holy war," in which Russian occupying forces routinely torture and murder Ukrainian pastors. Russia’s subversion and persecution is a much greater threat to Christianity than Ukraine’s law.
Much like their counterparts on the American left, the populist right wants to make U.S. foreign policy even more ideological, in some respects, than before. The Bernie Bros want to throw Saudi Arabia under the bus because Mohammed bin Salman is not reforming Saudi governance according to their tastes, while the cranky right wants to do the same to Europe.
This would be foolish. Europe and the Middle East are still strategically important regions, and the United States is not likely to thrive in either place if it jettisons its key allies. Europe, moreover, shares America’s civilizational DNA and is ideologically much closer than, for example, most of the countries bordering China. What hope is there of a favorable balance of power in Asia if the United States only picks allies with identical values?
Americans should be far more worried about European weakness than about European diktats. Germany, the greatest power in Europe, neatly illustrated the problem in the past week. The big German bet on manufacturing is going sour, and its leadership is out of ideas. The ruling Social Democrats dynamited Germany’s oldest nuclear power plant to appease the Green coalition partners and let the Free Democrats block further expenditures on Ukraine to avoid further deficit spending. Successful great powers usually do not destroy their most stable sources of energy or pinch pennies during wars.
The European Union once puffed itself up as an equal to the United States, but its crowning geoeconomic success is making everyone click through those annoying popups about browser cookies. It lacks the vision, dynamism, and unity to threaten anyone, including the United States. This is a mixed blessing, at best, for Americans: A Europe that is too weak to govern itself cannot stand up to Russia either.
When the Fourth Crusade ran out of money, the incompetents leading it replenished their funds by attacking their ally, Constantinople. America’s current bankruptcy is more intellectual than fiscal, so there is even less excuse for launching another misbegotten crusade.