Hillbilly eruption
Vance drops in on Europe to yell “You all suck!!!”
In a chastising speech on Friday that openly questioned whether current European values warranted defence by the US, he painted a picture of European politics infected by media censorship, cancelled elections and political correctness.
Arguing that the true threat to Europe stemmed not from external actors such as Russia or China, but Europe’s own internal retreat from some of its “most fundamental values”, he repeatedly questioned whether the US and Europe any longer had a shared agenda.
Well no, and that’s because the US now = Trump.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, the vice-president had been expected to address the critical question of the Ukraine war and security differences between Washington and Europe. Instead, he widely skated over these to give a lecture on what he claimed was the continent’s failure to listen to the populist concerns of voters.
Vance said of Donald Trump’s re-election: “There is a new sheriff in town.” He said: “Democracy will not survive if their people’s concerns are deemed invalid or even worse not worth being considered.”
So if the people want a genocide of immigrants that’s worth being considered?
The blistering and confrontational remarks were met with shock at the conference and were later condemned by the EU and Germany, while drawing praise from Russian state television. They signalled a deepening of the transatlantic chasm beyond different perceptions of Russia to an even deeper societal rupture about values and the nature of democracy.
Vance said: “If you are afraid of the voices, the opinions and the conscience that guide your very own people … If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you, nor for that matter is there anything you can do for the American people.”
He doesn’t really mean “the American people” though, does he. He means the pro-Trump ones.
In Germany, a firewall has long existed preventing mainstream parties from engaging with the far-right Alternative für Deutschland owing to its Nazi origins. But Vance said there was no room for such barriers.
No room for barriers against Nazism. Thanks for the clarity.
“People dismissing voters’ concerns, shutting down their media, protects nothing. It is the most surefire way to destroy democracy.”
Is it? More surefire than embracing Nazism?
After the speech it was confirmed that JD Vance privately met the AfD leader, Alice Weidel, for 30 minutes. In a breach of previous protocol, he had declined the offer to meet the SPD leader and current chancellor, Olaf Scholz.
Fabulous. He spurned Scholz and cuddled up to Weidel. He’ll be sieg heiling any day now.
Interesting. I wonder if he’ll ask the AdF what they think of his mixed race children
Sort of like the North American chasm, not just between the three countries that inhabit the continent, but the voters of the United States, who are working on vastly different value systems. And both think the other’s system is flawed. Both are right, but in reality, I’d rather fight the trans fight with the Democrats than fight the rest of it with the Republicans (and let’s not forget who cancelled reproductive choice…and are probably going to try to do the same with contraception).
Or if the Criminal In Chief refuses to accept the result of elections unless he wins.
I think my favorite part was:
The margin of victory in Trump’s plurality (he didn’t even win a majority) was what again? 49.9%-48.4% = 1.5%.
Dude with a 1.5% lead is calling someone else’s mandate thin. Yeah, so he’s learned nothing.
Papito, it is a huge mandate when you don’t count the votes cast for the other candidate!
IMHO the most significant part of Vance’s speech was this:
There, in a Trumpian way, Elon Musk is equated to the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, that thorn under the saddles of the everyday denialists of anthropogenic global warming like, say, Donald Trump. Musk is the richest person in the world, and can buy damn near anything he might want, while Thunberg lives by her wits and can only focus on the delivery of truth, as she sees it, to power.
And to cap the irony, Vance delivered his speech in the beautiful Bavarian city of Munich, from which the easily-gulled Neville Chamberlain returned from his 1938 meeting with Hitler waving a scrap of paper bearing Hitler’s signature, and which signature to him meant that after being given the Sudetenland, Germany would be making no further demands for land in Europe.
Chamberlain said it was ‘peace for our time,’ but then again, he was not a ‘stable genius’ like Donald Trump, and so was easily gulled and dudded by a ruthless egomaniac and dictator.
Mark @ 1 – good point. I wonder what his mixed race children think of him.
I was listening to a discussion about Vance’s speech on The World Tonight programme on BBC Radio 4 while driving home last night. The host asked one of the guests how important Vance is to Trump and to the MAGA movement in general. He answered that Vance is very important indeed because – and I swear I am not making this up – he is the ‘intellectual powerhouse’ of Trump’s administration. I have no idea how I managed to not crash the car.
Well, you see, he wrote a book. Writing a book=intellectual powerhouse in Trumpthink.
Intellectual powerhouse == IQ > 110 & < 130 given his exchange with Rory.
J.V. Dance is a midwit, which makes him an intellectual powerhouse compared to Trump, Hegseth, and their ilk.
Omar: throwing Ukraine to the wolves at a conference in Munich was deliberate. They think they’re extremely clever and super funny.
Noted @ #12. And yes, indeed.