In Decline and Fall: Europe’s Slow-Motion Suicide, a 2007 book about the dysfunctions of the EU, I often emphasized the problems of Europe by contrasting it to the US. Our economy was more open and dynamic, with GDP growth higher, regulatory regime less onerous, unemployment lower, and ease of doing business greater. We had problems with entitlement spending and high taxes, but nothing like the EU drunken-sailor governments, or the regressive VAT tax that helps subsidize social welfare transfers. We had problems with immigration, but nothing like those caused by the dangerous mix of unassimilated Muslims with jihadist proselytizing. We still had a vigorous presence of faith in the public square. And despite the costs, mistakes, and setbacks in the Middle Eastern wars, our military and its prowess were feared, and respected; the US was the dominant and indispensible power in the region and beyond.
Yes, there were ominous signs––expanding entitlements, excessive deficit spending, internal opposition to vigorously waging the war against militant Islam; a culture, media, and schools dominated by an ideology of national self-loathing and guilt; and the incessant assault on public faith. But despite all that, in the 2004 election, at the height of the bloody insurgency in Iraq, George W. Bush defeated John Kerry–– a “European at heart,” as French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy called the French-speaking Senator––who like his party looked longingly at the EU model of distrust for national identity and penchant for technocratic rule. America clearly was not interested in following the EU paradigm.
And then came Barack Obama.
