IF EUROPE HAS A DIALOG WILL ANYONE IN

IF EUROPE HAS A DIALOG, WILL ANYONE IN THE US LISTEN?

US and Europe Disengage End of the Cold War Rise of China Bush Administration “Go it alone” Policies Obama as first post-Atlanticist president

Today: Americans Become Anti- or Post-Europe Republican right Elite opinion makers Democrat left

Republican (GOP) Issues Economy - If it stays the same or declines, Obama loses Obama’s “otherness” – he is not ‘one of us’ and will destroy the America we know

The GOP Presidential Candidates Mitt Romney – Governor of Massachusetts Newt Gingrich – Speaker of the House Rick Santorum – Senator, Pennsylvania Ron Paul – (now) Representative , Texas

GOP Candidates – Mitt Romney former Governor of Massachussets

Mitt Romney – speech June 2010 “European answers are not the right solutions to America’s challenges. ” [Obama’s] economic policies “awfully European”

Romney – Debate January 2012 Obama wants to turn the US into a “European welfare state. ” “I don’t believe in Europe. I believe in America. ” “I don’t think Europe is working in Europe. I know it won’t work here. ”

Romney – Victory Speech in Florida January 2012 President Obama wants “to turn America into a European-style entitlement society. ” Obama “…takes his inspiration from the capitals of Europe; we look to the cities and small towns of America” “I want you to remember when our White House reflected the best of who we are, not the worst of what Europe has become. ”

Newt Gingrich Speaker of the House 1994 -98

Newt Gingrich – Victory speech in South Carolina, Jan 2012 “The American people feel that they have elites [who are trying] to force us to quit being American and become some other kind of system. ” [Obama is a] “natural secular European socialist. ”

Gingrich Campaign Ad [narrator describing Romney] – “Just like John Kerry, he speaks French, too. ” [But Gingrich’s Ph. D dissertation was about Belgian education policy in the Congo and cites French (!) sources. ]

Rick Santorum - former Senator from Pennsylvania

Rick Santorum "Those [European]cultures are dying… They're being overrun from overseas. . . and they have no response. They have nothing to fight for. They have nothing to live for. " Apr 2006 “You want to see America after the Obama administration is through, just read up on Greece. ” Jan 2012

Santorum – Interview Dec 2011 [Europe is] “a place that has rejected Christendom…” [France, Germany, et al. ] “hate us because we stand by this old, antiquated idea of Christendom as a good thing. ” Redistributing resources from top to bottom is a practice of the European absolute monarchies

Ron Paul Representative from Texas

Ron Paul Take American troops out of Europe so that America is no longer subsidizing “socialist Germany. ” Jan 2012 On the debt crisis “Bailing out profligate European governments will only ensure that no correction will take place. ”

GOP Position on UN Agenda 21 “…this United Nations Agenda 21 plan of radical so-called “sustainable development” views the American way of life of private property ownership, single family homes, private car ownership and individual travel choices, and privately owned farms; all as destructive to the environment…”

Elite Opinion Makers Christopher Caldwell - Reflections on the Revolution in Europe 2009 ‘. . no consensus…about what European values are” Gareth Harding - “…a fiction that Europeans ever existed at all” Foreign Policy Jan/Feb 2012 Walter Lacquer After the Fall: The End of the European Dream and the Decline of a Continent 2012 – Europe … a downward spiral

The Democrat Left - Jan 2012 Rep. Barney Frank (D –MA) “our commitment to the defense of Western Europe is wholly inexplicable now that Europeans are wealthy, strong, and threatened by no one. ” New York Times: “failed European summit meeting” imposes “senseless restriction on stimulus” Paul Krugman, Nobel economist, “Europeans aren’t making any progress against excessive debt – we are. ”

The Obama Administration Little comment on Republican rhetoric Sec’ys Clinton and Panetta seek to reassure Europe that US will still defend Europe, but will withdraw two brigades from Germany No clocks in National Security Advisor’s office are set to European city times Obama first non-Atlanticist president

What’s Going On? Inevitable relative decline in US power Most Americans have only known #1 status US gets the world it asked for Demographics of US changing Latino and Asian influence grows Social class divergence, ‘occupy’ movements Result: inchoate unease, attempts to define US by what it is not

Lesson for US Be careful what you ask for – you may get it

Lesson for Europe Current European dialog will likely only increase disengagement with US