JD Vance: “Europe is dying”

Donald Trump, JD Vance, and many Americans are not happy with Europe. Not happy about Europe’s military free riding off the US, and Europe’s criticism of the US while free riding.

In a recently released conversation within the Trump administration before their strike on the Houthis, Vice President Vance and Defense Secretary Hegseth made their disgust with Europe clear.

Vance noted that he hated “bailing out Europe again,” and Hegseth responded by saying “I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC.” Europe has increasingly relied on the US to do its bidding in any arena of the world that involves hard power use.

In addition to Europe’s diminished influence and power, many countries in the continent are becoming hostile to free speech, or rather hostile towards certain conservative, nationalist oriented ideologies. Vice President Vance rightly called out Europe for these erosions, at the same time when the continent is asking the US to provide the military muscle to advance supposedly shared values.

But not only has Europe lost influence in the world, as well as respect for free speech, the continent itself is literally dying. And JD Vance has mentioned this, saying that “Europe is dying, unfortunately.”

It’s hard to argue against this. Europe’s population is set to decline, and if not for the massive amount of immigrants the continent is taking in, that decline would be even more precipitous. Essentially, the native population of Europe is dying out, as people around the world, but especially in Europe, are not having children.

The massive influx of immigrants, not just of different ethnic origin, but with different religion and, most importantly, different values, into Europe is changing Europe in a way that they are demographically destroying themselves.

Of course, demographics is just one example of how Europe is dying. The continent, the birthplace of Western Civilization, is also walking away from many of the ideas and values that built it in the first place.

These ideas and values include Christianity, which has been dropping, especially in Western Europe, idea of distinct nationhood, and belief in free speech and the free change of ideas. Many of the architects of these erosions might argue that such developments are simply a transition away from the supposed strictures of religion, divisions of nationalism, and protections against “hate speech.”

But as we have seen, the erosion of religion does not make people happier and freer, nor does the erosion of national identity stop tribalism. And the only thing that European censorship is protecting, is the establishment social liberalism that is the default setting of governments of the continent.

To be honest, these problems are not far removed from the US. In fact, the US left has been pushing for these policies, and largely implemented many of them. It is only because the American right is strong enough to occasionally win in the US, and entrenched free speech rights in the US Constitution, that the US isn’t in quite as bad a shape as Europe is.

JD Vance touched on many of these topics in an interview with Laura Ingraham. He said that Europe is “teetering on civilizational suicide.” The continent is dominated by an ideology that, in the name of supposed tolerance is willing to champion policies that dilute what makes European civilization what it has been for thousands of years.

This ideology, that of cosmopolitan social liberalism, seems to view Western countries as little more than economic zones. Distinct national identity is a relic of the past, something that only leads to xenophobia and unnecessary division.

Pride in one’s nation and preserving its identity, particularly if you are a majority white nation, is latent acceptance of racism and white supremacy according to the vanguards of this ideology.

If Europe is not careful, their nations will be unrecognizable from the premises and people that created them. It can be argued that this is already the case. Ironically, it is largely American leaders who are recognizing and pointing this fact out.

But in the end, the US is not going to save Europe from self-immolation. We care about our country, which, while connected to Europe in certain ways, is quite distinct from the continent, for the better.

If the Europeans are ok continuing on the destructive path they are on, then they are free to bare the consequences. But if that is the case, the Europeans should expect less allowances from the US, which, when led by the political right, is drifting further way from Europe in terms of values.

JD Vance recognizes this. And while he is still making an attempt to speak out for the Europeans who still believe in saving themselves, the Vice President also recognizes that America may have to let Europe continue down their destructive path, and distance ourselves from that.

Europe is dying. America, at least for now, is not.