"Imagine what a Huguenot state could have achieved."
The cultures of Scandinavia and the Netherlands were in large part defined by Protestant values; likewise, the cultures of Spain, Italy and Portugal were profoundly shaped by Catholicism. If the former nations had remained Catholic, or the latter group had become Protestant, their cultures would now be very different from what they are.
I've always thought that France is the great exception here, since the dominant determinant in its modern history was secularisation at an unusually early stage; even before the Revolution, a wary scepticism was a longstanding feature of much of its intellectual culture. I think if France had accepted the Reformation, it would be less different from what it is today than almost any other country.
Still, a French Huguenot colony would have been something else, since religion would have been a core part of its identity in a fashion oddly alien to "the eldest daughter of the Church".
The other interesting case is the German-speaking countries, confessionally mixed, but with normative Protestant values culturally dominant. This is even somewhat the case in overwhelmingly Catholic Austria.
Isn’t Greenland a colony?? Isn’t colonialism evil?? Trump is correct about Greenland, it is strategically important and Denmark can’t defend it. BTW the US has been trying to obtain Greenland for decades
Things are “shambolic” in Minnesota because of criminal liberal activities. Your “intelligent” liberals are the source of violence, fraud, and corruption.
Madjack, I am a paid subscriber to EW but I am having trouble, doubts about him. I think he doesn’t get it. It takes a monster to fight a monster and Trump is undoubtedly, unquestionably the best and only Pol capable of doing this job. It is nothing less than the demolition of an entire order, the destruction of leviathan. This order has wrought havoc on the entire west. This author is arguing for colouring within the lines, rules and civility. His argument is null and void. His argument against Trump is sure to fail.
This is what it looks like - Trumps destruction of convention - learn to love it.
Agreed. I appreciate his view from “across the pond” but we are all trapped by our times and culture. I grew up as a conservative WASP. I am appalled that I find myself supporting and advocating for, of all people, Donald Trump! Strangely he is the one who has arisen to stand against the abundant evil of our age. God has a sense of humor.
His incivility is off putting to you, but not me, in truth, it’s the opposite.
“The Civilized man is more experienced and wiser savage.”
Henry David Thoreau
They are artful and able to hide behind their education and manners. He is a comeuppance extraordinaire and I love it. TDS is the best part. Saving our world is good too.
Well Bessent, his treasury secretary, is a former partner at Soros Fund Management.
But if you really want to go into conspiracy land note that Bessent’s mother was a McLeod while Trump’s mother was a MacLeod. Basically it’s a Hebridean conspiracy…😉
An honour and privilege Greg. A lifetime spent in harsh realism, brutal truths and Scottish empiricism is now behind me.
That said, I would disagree with Ed on Trump not being a Russian asset. I think it’s more subtle than that. He’s not an “asset” in the conventional sense but his business interests and links to asset-backed ventures (ie, property) and cash-driven businesses (gambling) coupled with links to theRussian oligarchy suggest connections where, if you dig deeply, you’ll discover all kinds of stuff. I spent a couple of years working for a Moscow-based organisation and the links between politics and business (like most emerging markets) are closely intertwined. Trump has worked this world - in fact, one of his sons (can’t recall which one but I think it was Eric) admitted more than a decade back that they were backed by Russian money. Pre-2015 this didn’t raise any eyebrows. It’s hiding in plain sight.
And Trump surely has some Dutch ancestry too and indeed a Dutch phenotype: tall, blue eyes, blond hair (once upon a time); comes from New Amsterdam; likes doing deals; speaks bluntly - even his name is Dutch, shared with their famous Admiral Tromp!
I used to enjoy his articles, but Brexit finished him. He used to write about David Cameron's essay crisis (ie last minute) politics, on the confident assumption that Cameron would keep us in the FT favoured EU.
Morning Ed. I’m chuffed to bits, as footballers no longer say, with the mention.
First of all, thoughts and prayers for the Guildford bookshop workers, I hope they’re receiving trauma counselling after finding the evil secret history of their workplace, and that at least some of their friends and family will still speak to them.
On the Huguenots and South Africa, I’ve just finished George Owers’ fantastic “The Rage of Parties” about the emergence of the Whigs and Tories in the aftermath of the Restoration and the Glorious Revolution. From the start, among other differences, the Whigs were in favour of “engagement” with Europe (ie war with France), while the Tories didn’t see the benefit and begrudged the cost.
The popularity of the Whig policy had been greatly enhanced by the arrival of Huguenots expelled by Louis XIV, who revitalised high-end manufacturing, improved the connections with continental trade and added to the strength of British banking and finance, greatly assisting the capacity of the state to wage war on the continent, by paying for Protestant armies from Holland and Germany as well as their own.
The Tories had a suspicion of finance as it was dominated by people-not-like-us…dissenter clans (40% of the founding directors of the Bank of England), Jews and European Protestants from Holland and Switzerland, ultimately paid for by dunderheaded English landowners (and their tenants).
The perceived contribution of the Huguenot arrivals to Marlborough’s brilliant victories over France softened English attitudes to welcoming persecuted Protestant refugees from Europe. Louis’ latest victims were the “Palatines” - I had never heard of them before, who lived in German states in the Rhineland that Louis was trying to incorporate and purge of religious deviation. New Huguenots? Step this way, refugees welcome.
Unfortunately rather than skilled and sophisticated manufacturers and merchants, the Palatines principal skills turned out to be cultivating vines. In a war burdened English economy, the appearance of an additional group of culturally distinct unemployables, whose initial treatment was contrasted with the lack of provision for the domestic poor, was a disaster for the Whigs. With the Tories winning an electoral landslide, it was possible to end the war, and one of the fruits of victory was “encouraging” the Palatines to go home.
Extremely long preamble, but given that one of the few remaining strengths of the South African economy is wine making, maybe some of those “Huguenot” settlers were actually Palatines?
Nice to see the LBK article here, lol. Crazy story. Herxheim is like a European version of the Aztec human sacrifices. There's a weird impulse among scholars to explain Herxheim as some kind of elaborate "reburial ritual" or whatever when it was pretty obviously a cannibalism buffet IMHO. Or at least I think that's the parsimonious explanation.
"What was it about 1914-45 that made you think humans tend to live in peace with each other?"
I looked into this a bit and apparently there was a desire among academics in the postwar era to prove that the preceding several decades were anomalous. People just didn't want to (understandably IMHO) accept that what had happened in the World Wars was pretty ordinary, just with better technology. (Read up on the 30 Years' War and then imagine what it would have been like with poison gas, machine guns, aerial bombardment, and rail cars.)
You get Peace when the Scholars are in charge (as in Imperial China) or the Merchants are (as in the Imperial British Peace of 1815-1914).
It's a case for Empire. US decline is making the world edgier.
More often the Soldiers are in charge .Partly because different groups of people rightly distrust each other, partly because both sexes are sexually excited by the military - men, by being toughies in uniform, women by those uniformed toughies.
I don't know if it sounds like too much of a conspiracy theory, but it seems to me that an unspoken priority of American foreign policy since the 1990s has been to stop Russia coming in from the cold. There are only four possible superpowers in the world: the United States, China, India (but not yet), and a Europe in which Germany and Russia are allies. Preventing the emergence of the latter was, surely, one way of prolonging the unipolar moment.
Almost right from the start, the Russians were treated as vanquished enemies rather than repentant sinners. Europe has participated in this, despite the fact that a hostile Russia is much more dangerous to us, since we live next door, than to the Americans. Perhaps this course of action was inevitable once the EU and NATO expanded to include countries in the former Soviet bloc that regarded Russia with well-grounded hostility and suspicion. Having said that, I wonder where we'd be now if there had been an effort at reconciliation between Europe and Russia after the Cold War similar to the efforts made to achieve Franco-German reconciliation after World War II.
Personally (and I mean no disrespect to the Americans in saying so), even though we share a common language and historical background, and despite the pervasive influence of the United States on modern British (and wider European) life, I still find American culture remarkably alien. The way the Russians think, act and behave also seems alien to me in many respects, but somehow less so despite everything. I feel more kinship with the culture that produced Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky than to the postcolonial heresy across the Atlantic. Historic Western civilisation - the civilisation that I feel myself to be part of - is a thing that stretches from the Algarve to Vladivostok.
That was my primary feeling on my recent visit, and I started writing a piece on it but got waylaid. I was waiting for my family in McSorley's in Manhattan and got talking to a couple from Dusseldorf and it was rather like when one meets a compatriot on holiday. Germany, France and especially the Netherlands are far less alien to us, despite the language.
The remarkable thing about historic Western civilisation is that it combines the tragic vision we inherited from the Ancients with the hope we gained from Christianity. What makes America so alien is that it lacks the tragic element. Some other civilisations (e.g., East Asia) have the tragic vision without the hope.
The Cold War was a conflict between two ideologies with no tragic vision. Communism was actually rather remote from the civilisational norms of Russia, which traditionally found hope only in spiritual consolation. It was even more so from those of China, which no doubt explains why Chinese Communism targeted Chinese culture so insistently.
The purpose of NATO, they used to quip, was to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down. More seriously, the US was a keen (founder) member of NATO - it was always by far the lead nation - because for its own reasons it didn’t want Western Europe “going Communist”. Once the Berlin Wall came down, we saw a new phase: US troops and weapon systems operating as close to Russia as Poland and Lithuania, under the NATO umbrella. Why? That’s a big Q, but now that Russia has ground down NATO-trained and NATO-equipped Ukrainian troops, it seems the White House sees no value in hanging out with its Euro-buddies any more, preferring to shore up its position in its own continent. I don’t blame them.
Many rambling comments one newsletter, so let me offer my own rambling thoughts in exchange.
1. Trump won't be around forever. He is term limited and at most has three years left in office. Even if Vance succeeds him, a Vance administration won't be as diplomatically chaotic although likely even more isolationist. But I do agree it is unknown what the GOP will be like post Trump as there really is only one Trump. Even in American politics, there should be a reaction against Trump, but there should also be a reaction against the reaction against Trump. It may play out for multiple cycles.
2. Why are cleverer (or more educated?) people more likely to be liberal? Because they can afford to be liberal. In my solidly educated upper middle class America, the vote is lean centrist Democrat to strong progressive beliefs, but in everyday conduct and work ethic and morality, people are exceedingly conservative. Marriage rates are high/divorce low, children grow up in solid family structures, expectations for academic performance high, professional discipline high, people are healthy and fit and exercise, vices are kept to a minimum or discreetly indulged out of sight. However, the problem is that this socio-economic bloc refuses to ordain those values on the lower half of American society, and does not act as the inspirational leadership class it should (and did in the past, up till the 1960s). They reap all the rewards of self-discipline, rugged individualism while voting against it, har har har.
3. I have always wanted to see a google street view of a city using the archives of old photographs to recreate the street scenes. Imagine using google street view to stroll down London or New York or Boston or any other major 19th century city in, say, the 1890s? Whoa!
I often wonder if the perception of smart left wingers is partly about question wording and who is seen as representatives. If you were to ask 50 year old high IQ engineers, lawyers and accountants I bet they would have very different views on education, hereditary nature of traits and welfare from academics or 20 year olds at Oxbridge.
Sir, you are my favourite Substacker by far, but on Trump and Greenland/Europe, I think you need to have a lie down in a darkened room with a damp flannel on your head! Greenland is in North America, not Europe; it is an island colony, not part of Denmark; the US took it over in WWII and still have troops there; it is sparsely populated with a native population who are whatever the current term is for eskimos, with a lifestyle to match (which carries on whoever owns their island). I personally doubt it even qualifies for NATO protection, for the same reason that NATO didn’t get involved in the Falklands War in 1982. Everyone, just calm down!
That's not how anyone sees it over here. Even if Denmark has no 'right' to Greenland, once countries start making territorial demands of others it gets into dangerous territory. the US has all the military requirements it needs in Greenland. They could always veto any Danish concession to China/Russia (as they seem to finally be doing over the Chagos). It's entirely unnecessary and distracts from the real things that need to be done.
Have you slightly misunderstood Noel’s point, Ed? I took me a few moments to get what he is saying, which is: if Trump hadn’t hinted at force, Trump could easily obtain the Arctic island via a referendum.
I’m a Brit! A Limey! Aren’t you being a bit like the people near you that you mention in the recent podcast, who say they don’t know anyone who voted for Brexit?
Well, here is a counterfactual: the Trump administration does and says everything that it is doing and saying about Greenland, but never puts the use of force on the table. I think that's the red line what caused understandable commotion in Europe.
A Trump administration that was making a concerted effort to bribe the Greenlandic population might already be well on its way to winning a referendum.
Hello again. Took me a while to get your “drift” as we say over here - one language, two cultures - but yes, I agree. So why do you think he/they did float the possibility of the use of force?
But I have two guesses, which are flip sides of the same coin. The charitable one is that he is employing a Nixonesque "madman" strategy. In this interpretation, he doesn't want to offer Greenlandic households a million dollars per (that's a $20 billion range) if he doesn't have to. So he's trying to come across as a little crazy in order to get them to come to the table without forcing him to pre-announce a very large carrot.
In this view Trump is trying to avoid the Obama problem of "negotiating with himself," where President Obama would run down the game tree, figure out what the likely end will look like, and start discussions there.
The problem with that view is that it ignores the fact that it's one thing to act crazy dealing with some stranger over a one-off deal, it's quite another to come across as nuts to a long-standing business partner with whom you own several LLCs. (Historic parallel: even if you think Nixon's strategy made sense, Denmark isn't North Vietnam, and Denmark's European allies aren't the Communist Bloc.) And while Obama might have started negotiations from too high a point, he never threatened foreign allies or domestic opponents.
So that leaves the second guess: President Trump honestly thought it might have worked at no cost to American interests. After all, his business career is full of plays like that, right? And he's rich! But that is more than slightly disturbing.
If there's another interpretation, then I'm open to hear it.
People, esp on the Right, are angered and frightened by Trump's antics ?
Presumably because surprised.
But Why ? Those antics are 100% in character, 100% predictable.
Nor has Trump revealed anything whatever new about NATO or the Western alliance. Both those things have always been transparently a racket, existing for the sole benefit of the USA, with its kittens huddled beneath it.
Now those kittens make mock-heroic speeches (Starmer, Macron. Carney).
What's not to laugh about ? It's first rate farce.
And thanks to the Donald for tearing off the plaster facade that hid the humbug.
No haranguing by a US president, either "we are all in this together" or "you suck and need to change your ways" is going to make the slightest difference to the future of Europe. You need to create a more dynamic economy by deregulating and getting rid of you destructive "net zero" energy policies. And avoid social disintegration by changing your insane immigration policies. Good luck with all of that.
I have cognitive dissonance because the narrative I hear on the British online right is that there's a right-wing vibe shift, woke is over, the Overton window has shifted, the left is out of touch and intellectually stagnant, and Reform winning the next election is a sure thing.
But if you look at the Politico Poll of Polls it's:
Reform: 26%
Conservative: 18% (!)
Labour 18% (!)
Green: 16% (!)
Liberal Democrat: 13%
Scottish Nationalist: 3%
Welsh Nationalist: 1%
Right-wing parties: 44%
Left-wing parties: 53%
A 9 point advantage to the left!
Reform would still win the next election, due to the first-past-the-post electoral system. But the number of people intending to vote Reform peaked in August-October 2025 and has been gradually declining since then. And when an actual election happens, people might vote tactically, or there might be agreements between left-wing parties to try to stop Reform winning. Not to mention 16 and 17 year olds will be voting for the first time (and Commonwealth citizens can vote too, right?).
I feel like now that Twitter is right-wing, maybe the British right are suffering from the same complacency and out-of-touchness they accuse the left of, assuming that their own little bubble represents British public opinion more generally, and that they have nothing to learn from people on the left. Perhaps there should be more right-wing posters on Bluesky?
A thoughtful comment. However, I disagree. There were regional elections about a year ago in which Reform did spectacularly well - in the county of Kent, for example, Reform now controls the county council after winning all but a handful of districts (the opposition wins were split between Green, Liberal, Labour and I think one Independent). I expect the Labour Party to collapse soon, with their liberals voting for the Lib-Dems, younger people going Green, the white working class going for Reform, with the Muslim caucus itself fragmenting (I think Reform are after the conservative, patriotic, non-radical Muslim electorate, as well as the conservatives generally).
Perhaps because the liberal (i.e. leftie) view of society is a top-down view, built upon there being an order-giving class (the expert clerisy) and an order-taking class (the deplorables), with them naturally belonging to the former.
Ed, how would a unified Europe, even a rightward leaning one, handle mass migration? It seems to me that a European super government inevitably behaves exactly as Brussels already does.
I don't think RW pan-Europeanism would be compatible with a united Europe in any way, just one with a closer military alliance. it's hard to know what shape the EU will be in a few years; there will be some form of European community of nations, but I'm not sure it will be the same.
"Imagine what a Huguenot state could have achieved."
The cultures of Scandinavia and the Netherlands were in large part defined by Protestant values; likewise, the cultures of Spain, Italy and Portugal were profoundly shaped by Catholicism. If the former nations had remained Catholic, or the latter group had become Protestant, their cultures would now be very different from what they are.
I've always thought that France is the great exception here, since the dominant determinant in its modern history was secularisation at an unusually early stage; even before the Revolution, a wary scepticism was a longstanding feature of much of its intellectual culture. I think if France had accepted the Reformation, it would be less different from what it is today than almost any other country.
Still, a French Huguenot colony would have been something else, since religion would have been a core part of its identity in a fashion oddly alien to "the eldest daughter of the Church".
The other interesting case is the German-speaking countries, confessionally mixed, but with normative Protestant values culturally dominant. This is even somewhat the case in overwhelmingly Catholic Austria.
Hilaire Belloc thought that the growth of religious scepticism in France, was a reaction to the tyranny and religious bigotry of Louis XIV.
Not least because they failed ! - due to a few crucial errors of judgement by him.
But in 1700, political meddling in religion had made England even more sceptical than France.
But English Protestantism had the spiritual resources for a religious revival (Wesley and others) c.1750.
French Catholicism didn't. Its lethargy and corruption caused the Revolution.
Isn’t Greenland a colony?? Isn’t colonialism evil?? Trump is correct about Greenland, it is strategically important and Denmark can’t defend it. BTW the US has been trying to obtain Greenland for decades
Things are “shambolic” in Minnesota because of criminal liberal activities. Your “intelligent” liberals are the source of violence, fraud, and corruption.
Madjack, I am a paid subscriber to EW but I am having trouble, doubts about him. I think he doesn’t get it. It takes a monster to fight a monster and Trump is undoubtedly, unquestionably the best and only Pol capable of doing this job. It is nothing less than the demolition of an entire order, the destruction of leviathan. This order has wrought havoc on the entire west. This author is arguing for colouring within the lines, rules and civility. His argument is null and void. His argument against Trump is sure to fail.
This is what it looks like - Trumps destruction of convention - learn to love it.
Agreed. I appreciate his view from “across the pond” but we are all trapped by our times and culture. I grew up as a conservative WASP. I am appalled that I find myself supporting and advocating for, of all people, Donald Trump! Strangely he is the one who has arisen to stand against the abundant evil of our age. God has a sense of humor.
His incivility is off putting to you, but not me, in truth, it’s the opposite.
“The Civilized man is more experienced and wiser savage.”
Henry David Thoreau
They are artful and able to hide behind their education and manners. He is a comeuppance extraordinaire and I love it. TDS is the best part. Saving our world is good too.
I want to start a 'Trump is an agent of George Soros' conspiracy. Are you in?
Well Bessent, his treasury secretary, is a former partner at Soros Fund Management.
But if you really want to go into conspiracy land note that Bessent’s mother was a McLeod while Trump’s mother was a MacLeod. Basically it’s a Hebridean conspiracy…😉
But is there a golfing link ?
I see what you did there…
Welcome to the circle, Richard. You are officially conspirator #2
An honour and privilege Greg. A lifetime spent in harsh realism, brutal truths and Scottish empiricism is now behind me.
That said, I would disagree with Ed on Trump not being a Russian asset. I think it’s more subtle than that. He’s not an “asset” in the conventional sense but his business interests and links to asset-backed ventures (ie, property) and cash-driven businesses (gambling) coupled with links to theRussian oligarchy suggest connections where, if you dig deeply, you’ll discover all kinds of stuff. I spent a couple of years working for a Moscow-based organisation and the links between politics and business (like most emerging markets) are closely intertwined. Trump has worked this world - in fact, one of his sons (can’t recall which one but I think it was Eric) admitted more than a decade back that they were backed by Russian money. Pre-2015 this didn’t raise any eyebrows. It’s hiding in plain sight.
And Trump surely has some Dutch ancestry too and indeed a Dutch phenotype: tall, blue eyes, blond hair (once upon a time); comes from New Amsterdam; likes doing deals; speaks bluntly - even his name is Dutch, shared with their famous Admiral Tromp!
We need a Hungarian connection though
Janan Ganesh is the Pepys of Cool Britannia’s fading afterglow.
😁…or Adrian Mole?
I used to enjoy his articles, but Brexit finished him. He used to write about David Cameron's essay crisis (ie last minute) politics, on the confident assumption that Cameron would keep us in the FT favoured EU.
Morning Ed. I’m chuffed to bits, as footballers no longer say, with the mention.
First of all, thoughts and prayers for the Guildford bookshop workers, I hope they’re receiving trauma counselling after finding the evil secret history of their workplace, and that at least some of their friends and family will still speak to them.
On the Huguenots and South Africa, I’ve just finished George Owers’ fantastic “The Rage of Parties” about the emergence of the Whigs and Tories in the aftermath of the Restoration and the Glorious Revolution. From the start, among other differences, the Whigs were in favour of “engagement” with Europe (ie war with France), while the Tories didn’t see the benefit and begrudged the cost.
The popularity of the Whig policy had been greatly enhanced by the arrival of Huguenots expelled by Louis XIV, who revitalised high-end manufacturing, improved the connections with continental trade and added to the strength of British banking and finance, greatly assisting the capacity of the state to wage war on the continent, by paying for Protestant armies from Holland and Germany as well as their own.
The Tories had a suspicion of finance as it was dominated by people-not-like-us…dissenter clans (40% of the founding directors of the Bank of England), Jews and European Protestants from Holland and Switzerland, ultimately paid for by dunderheaded English landowners (and their tenants).
The perceived contribution of the Huguenot arrivals to Marlborough’s brilliant victories over France softened English attitudes to welcoming persecuted Protestant refugees from Europe. Louis’ latest victims were the “Palatines” - I had never heard of them before, who lived in German states in the Rhineland that Louis was trying to incorporate and purge of religious deviation. New Huguenots? Step this way, refugees welcome.
Unfortunately rather than skilled and sophisticated manufacturers and merchants, the Palatines principal skills turned out to be cultivating vines. In a war burdened English economy, the appearance of an additional group of culturally distinct unemployables, whose initial treatment was contrasted with the lack of provision for the domestic poor, was a disaster for the Whigs. With the Tories winning an electoral landslide, it was possible to end the war, and one of the fruits of victory was “encouraging” the Palatines to go home.
Extremely long preamble, but given that one of the few remaining strengths of the South African economy is wine making, maybe some of those “Huguenot” settlers were actually Palatines?
Nice to see the LBK article here, lol. Crazy story. Herxheim is like a European version of the Aztec human sacrifices. There's a weird impulse among scholars to explain Herxheim as some kind of elaborate "reburial ritual" or whatever when it was pretty obviously a cannibalism buffet IMHO. Or at least I think that's the parsimonious explanation.
"What was it about 1914-45 that made you think humans tend to live in peace with each other?"
I looked into this a bit and apparently there was a desire among academics in the postwar era to prove that the preceding several decades were anomalous. People just didn't want to (understandably IMHO) accept that what had happened in the World Wars was pretty ordinary, just with better technology. (Read up on the 30 Years' War and then imagine what it would have been like with poison gas, machine guns, aerial bombardment, and rail cars.)
You get Peace when the Scholars are in charge (as in Imperial China) or the Merchants are (as in the Imperial British Peace of 1815-1914).
It's a case for Empire. US decline is making the world edgier.
More often the Soldiers are in charge .Partly because different groups of people rightly distrust each other, partly because both sexes are sexually excited by the military - men, by being toughies in uniform, women by those uniformed toughies.
I don't know if it sounds like too much of a conspiracy theory, but it seems to me that an unspoken priority of American foreign policy since the 1990s has been to stop Russia coming in from the cold. There are only four possible superpowers in the world: the United States, China, India (but not yet), and a Europe in which Germany and Russia are allies. Preventing the emergence of the latter was, surely, one way of prolonging the unipolar moment.
Almost right from the start, the Russians were treated as vanquished enemies rather than repentant sinners. Europe has participated in this, despite the fact that a hostile Russia is much more dangerous to us, since we live next door, than to the Americans. Perhaps this course of action was inevitable once the EU and NATO expanded to include countries in the former Soviet bloc that regarded Russia with well-grounded hostility and suspicion. Having said that, I wonder where we'd be now if there had been an effort at reconciliation between Europe and Russia after the Cold War similar to the efforts made to achieve Franco-German reconciliation after World War II.
Personally (and I mean no disrespect to the Americans in saying so), even though we share a common language and historical background, and despite the pervasive influence of the United States on modern British (and wider European) life, I still find American culture remarkably alien. The way the Russians think, act and behave also seems alien to me in many respects, but somehow less so despite everything. I feel more kinship with the culture that produced Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky than to the postcolonial heresy across the Atlantic. Historic Western civilisation - the civilisation that I feel myself to be part of - is a thing that stretches from the Algarve to Vladivostok.
That was my primary feeling on my recent visit, and I started writing a piece on it but got waylaid. I was waiting for my family in McSorley's in Manhattan and got talking to a couple from Dusseldorf and it was rather like when one meets a compatriot on holiday. Germany, France and especially the Netherlands are far less alien to us, despite the language.
The remarkable thing about historic Western civilisation is that it combines the tragic vision we inherited from the Ancients with the hope we gained from Christianity. What makes America so alien is that it lacks the tragic element. Some other civilisations (e.g., East Asia) have the tragic vision without the hope.
The Cold War was a conflict between two ideologies with no tragic vision. Communism was actually rather remote from the civilisational norms of Russia, which traditionally found hope only in spiritual consolation. It was even more so from those of China, which no doubt explains why Chinese Communism targeted Chinese culture so insistently.
The purpose of NATO, they used to quip, was to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down. More seriously, the US was a keen (founder) member of NATO - it was always by far the lead nation - because for its own reasons it didn’t want Western Europe “going Communist”. Once the Berlin Wall came down, we saw a new phase: US troops and weapon systems operating as close to Russia as Poland and Lithuania, under the NATO umbrella. Why? That’s a big Q, but now that Russia has ground down NATO-trained and NATO-equipped Ukrainian troops, it seems the White House sees no value in hanging out with its Euro-buddies any more, preferring to shore up its position in its own continent. I don’t blame them.
Many rambling comments one newsletter, so let me offer my own rambling thoughts in exchange.
1. Trump won't be around forever. He is term limited and at most has three years left in office. Even if Vance succeeds him, a Vance administration won't be as diplomatically chaotic although likely even more isolationist. But I do agree it is unknown what the GOP will be like post Trump as there really is only one Trump. Even in American politics, there should be a reaction against Trump, but there should also be a reaction against the reaction against Trump. It may play out for multiple cycles.
2. Why are cleverer (or more educated?) people more likely to be liberal? Because they can afford to be liberal. In my solidly educated upper middle class America, the vote is lean centrist Democrat to strong progressive beliefs, but in everyday conduct and work ethic and morality, people are exceedingly conservative. Marriage rates are high/divorce low, children grow up in solid family structures, expectations for academic performance high, professional discipline high, people are healthy and fit and exercise, vices are kept to a minimum or discreetly indulged out of sight. However, the problem is that this socio-economic bloc refuses to ordain those values on the lower half of American society, and does not act as the inspirational leadership class it should (and did in the past, up till the 1960s). They reap all the rewards of self-discipline, rugged individualism while voting against it, har har har.
3. I have always wanted to see a google street view of a city using the archives of old photographs to recreate the street scenes. Imagine using google street view to stroll down London or New York or Boston or any other major 19th century city in, say, the 1890s? Whoa!
i’d never leave the house again
"‘Hello I am mental’ (posted by the President of the United States)". Is that picture for real?
he posted the picture. The caption is mine
Trump turning his bragadocious ways into a gaudy artform.
I often wonder if the perception of smart left wingers is partly about question wording and who is seen as representatives. If you were to ask 50 year old high IQ engineers, lawyers and accountants I bet they would have very different views on education, hereditary nature of traits and welfare from academics or 20 year olds at Oxbridge.
Sir, you are my favourite Substacker by far, but on Trump and Greenland/Europe, I think you need to have a lie down in a darkened room with a damp flannel on your head! Greenland is in North America, not Europe; it is an island colony, not part of Denmark; the US took it over in WWII and still have troops there; it is sparsely populated with a native population who are whatever the current term is for eskimos, with a lifestyle to match (which carries on whoever owns their island). I personally doubt it even qualifies for NATO protection, for the same reason that NATO didn’t get involved in the Falklands War in 1982. Everyone, just calm down!
That's not how anyone sees it over here. Even if Denmark has no 'right' to Greenland, once countries start making territorial demands of others it gets into dangerous territory. the US has all the military requirements it needs in Greenland. They could always veto any Danish concession to China/Russia (as they seem to finally be doing over the Chagos). It's entirely unnecessary and distracts from the real things that need to be done.
Have you slightly misunderstood Noel’s point, Ed? I took me a few moments to get what he is saying, which is: if Trump hadn’t hinted at force, Trump could easily obtain the Arctic island via a referendum.
Sorry I was replying to you! long day
I’m a Brit! A Limey! Aren’t you being a bit like the people near you that you mention in the recent podcast, who say they don’t know anyone who voted for Brexit?
fair enough!
Well, here is a counterfactual: the Trump administration does and says everything that it is doing and saying about Greenland, but never puts the use of force on the table. I think that's the red line what caused understandable commotion in Europe.
A Trump administration that was making a concerted effort to bribe the Greenlandic population might already be well on its way to winning a referendum.
Hello again. Took me a while to get your “drift” as we say over here - one language, two cultures - but yes, I agree. So why do you think he/they did float the possibility of the use of force?
I wish I knew!
But I have two guesses, which are flip sides of the same coin. The charitable one is that he is employing a Nixonesque "madman" strategy. In this interpretation, he doesn't want to offer Greenlandic households a million dollars per (that's a $20 billion range) if he doesn't have to. So he's trying to come across as a little crazy in order to get them to come to the table without forcing him to pre-announce a very large carrot.
In this view Trump is trying to avoid the Obama problem of "negotiating with himself," where President Obama would run down the game tree, figure out what the likely end will look like, and start discussions there.
The problem with that view is that it ignores the fact that it's one thing to act crazy dealing with some stranger over a one-off deal, it's quite another to come across as nuts to a long-standing business partner with whom you own several LLCs. (Historic parallel: even if you think Nixon's strategy made sense, Denmark isn't North Vietnam, and Denmark's European allies aren't the Communist Bloc.) And while Obama might have started negotiations from too high a point, he never threatened foreign allies or domestic opponents.
So that leaves the second guess: President Trump honestly thought it might have worked at no cost to American interests. After all, his business career is full of plays like that, right? And he's rich! But that is more than slightly disturbing.
If there's another interpretation, then I'm open to hear it.
Food for thought. I wonder if he is, in a very dramatic way, signalling the US’s disengagement from NATO?
People, esp on the Right, are angered and frightened by Trump's antics ?
Presumably because surprised.
But Why ? Those antics are 100% in character, 100% predictable.
Nor has Trump revealed anything whatever new about NATO or the Western alliance. Both those things have always been transparently a racket, existing for the sole benefit of the USA, with its kittens huddled beneath it.
Now those kittens make mock-heroic speeches (Starmer, Macron. Carney).
What's not to laugh about ? It's first rate farce.
And thanks to the Donald for tearing off the plaster facade that hid the humbug.
No haranguing by a US president, either "we are all in this together" or "you suck and need to change your ways" is going to make the slightest difference to the future of Europe. You need to create a more dynamic economy by deregulating and getting rid of you destructive "net zero" energy policies. And avoid social disintegration by changing your insane immigration policies. Good luck with all of that.
I have cognitive dissonance because the narrative I hear on the British online right is that there's a right-wing vibe shift, woke is over, the Overton window has shifted, the left is out of touch and intellectually stagnant, and Reform winning the next election is a sure thing.
But if you look at the Politico Poll of Polls it's:
Reform: 26%
Conservative: 18% (!)
Labour 18% (!)
Green: 16% (!)
Liberal Democrat: 13%
Scottish Nationalist: 3%
Welsh Nationalist: 1%
Right-wing parties: 44%
Left-wing parties: 53%
A 9 point advantage to the left!
Reform would still win the next election, due to the first-past-the-post electoral system. But the number of people intending to vote Reform peaked in August-October 2025 and has been gradually declining since then. And when an actual election happens, people might vote tactically, or there might be agreements between left-wing parties to try to stop Reform winning. Not to mention 16 and 17 year olds will be voting for the first time (and Commonwealth citizens can vote too, right?).
I feel like now that Twitter is right-wing, maybe the British right are suffering from the same complacency and out-of-touchness they accuse the left of, assuming that their own little bubble represents British public opinion more generally, and that they have nothing to learn from people on the left. Perhaps there should be more right-wing posters on Bluesky?
A thoughtful comment. However, I disagree. There were regional elections about a year ago in which Reform did spectacularly well - in the county of Kent, for example, Reform now controls the county council after winning all but a handful of districts (the opposition wins were split between Green, Liberal, Labour and I think one Independent). I expect the Labour Party to collapse soon, with their liberals voting for the Lib-Dems, younger people going Green, the white working class going for Reform, with the Muslim caucus itself fragmenting (I think Reform are after the conservative, patriotic, non-radical Muslim electorate, as well as the conservatives generally).
Why are clever people more liberal?
Perhaps because the liberal (i.e. leftie) view of society is a top-down view, built upon there being an order-giving class (the expert clerisy) and an order-taking class (the deplorables), with them naturally belonging to the former.
The conservative (i.e rightist) view of society is also a top-down one, those in charge having money, everyone else being a deplorable without money.
The horror of today's Western world is that these rival tyrannies are fused together into an intolerable whole; two for the price of one.
And, even more horribly, many of the elite are proud members of both tyrannies simultaneously.
Ed, how would a unified Europe, even a rightward leaning one, handle mass migration? It seems to me that a European super government inevitably behaves exactly as Brussels already does.
I don't think RW pan-Europeanism would be compatible with a united Europe in any way, just one with a closer military alliance. it's hard to know what shape the EU will be in a few years; there will be some form of European community of nations, but I'm not sure it will be the same.