Europeans green with envy at U.S. over election

The Australian blog New South Wails (the state I’m in) links to yesterday’s VFR entry, “Obama’s election energizes Europe to dispossess the white race,” and adds a lot more material on the same theme from an International Herald Tribune article, “Can Europe Produce an Obama?” Among others, there is this amazing quotation:

… said Dominique Moïsi, a French political analyst. “And now we have to think, too, about our identity in France—it’s the most challenging election ever. We realize we are late, and America has regained the torch of a moral revolution.”

The pretentious French, always concerned above all else with being at the cutting edge, not of societal evolution, but of politically correct moral fashion, are humiliated and bothered to see the cowboy hyperpower surpass them in that regard. They must catch up, they must do something, they must—what?—deliberately try to cultivate lots of nonwhite high level government officials, even a nonwhite French president?

It is interesting, and one of the possible silver linings of Obama’s election, that the Europeans, whose entire political identity at times seems to be based on their sense of moral superiority to the U.S., now consider America their moral superior! The gods are chortling.

To hand it to the Democrats, they have said all along that Obama’s election was urgently needed in order to improve America’s image abroad. It certainly has done that. Whether we should want to improve our image with these leftist Eurobots is another questions.

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Leonard D. writes:

You write:

“It is interesting, and one of the possible silver linings of Obama’s election, that the Europeans, whose entire political identity seems to be based on their sense of moral superiority to the U.S., now consider America their moral superior!”

Their political identity is progressivism; all other variants of Christianity are practically dead in Europe. Usually they look down on us just as American leftists look down on Republicans, and for the same reasons. But progressivism is American as apple pie; Euros are not anti-American so much as they are ultra-American. Their reaction to Obama shows this. When America lives up (or down, depending on your point of view) to our progressive beliefs, they love us. Otherwise they don’t.

So yes, we stole a march on them in a sense. (Of course, there’s nothing to be proud of, in winning a race to the bottom.) Don’t worry, though, they’ll be back to their normal stance soon enough. They’ll always love and support Obama. But inasmuch as he fails to solve rapidly all of the world’s problems, they’ll blame that on the Republicans, our system of government, and knuckle-dragging America in general. And they’ll return to feeling smug and superior to us because we are not progressive enough.

LA replies:

That’s a very good point. We should not forget that it was originally the U.S. that imposed its hyperliberalism on Europe, and that the Europeans, good students that they were, then surpassed us.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 14, 2008 09:42 AM | Send