Europe wants Trump to stand with them? Try free speech and toleration of dissent

European elites are furiously angry about President Donald Trump’s rapid shift away from the traditional transatlantic relationship. Rebuilding their countries’ militaries will be one way to prove that the relationship remains valuable to the United States. Rebuilding the concert on democratic values, however, is as important – and perhaps harder for those elites to accomplish.

That will mean moving more towards the American understanding of free speech and toleration of public dissent. But ultimately it will also require making peace with the continent’s populists rather than freezing them out through the “cordon sanitaire”.

European leaders know that this is what Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance have said. But they have little understanding as to why that is so. A brief explanation, however, makes this sentiment crystal clear.

Euro-elites rarely seek out or have any but the remotest familiarity with the conservative-populist alliance that now dominates the Republican Party. Even the Washington diplomatic corps usually relies on long-established Republican personalities to take their temperature of the GOP.

That’s a huge error, as those people are nearly uniformly anti-Trump and anti-populist. The 2024 Republican presidential primary results for the D.C. region tell you all you need to know about how skewed a view of the GOP that reliance provides.

The establishment GOP’s favourite, former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, won the D.C primary with 63 per cent of the vote. She also carried the cities in Northern Virginia that D.C. Republicans prefer to live in – Arlington, Alexandria, and Falls Church – with between 71 and 75 per cent.

Nationally, however, Haley got annihilated. She lost every primary except the D.C. and Vermont races. Texas, the second largest state, gave Trump a 77 per cent win, while neighbouring Oklahoma gave Trump 81 percent. Trump won every other state before she dropped out, never failing to receive at least 56 per cent after the pivotal New Hampshire primary.

The failure to grasp where the Republican voter, as apart from the Republican professional staffer or consultant, stands is a large reason why European diplomats and leaders are so shocked by Trump.

Haley should be understood as the American stand-in for the traditional Christian Democratic and centre-right parties that have been in steady decline in Europe. Trump, on the other hand, should be seen as representing the conservative-populist parties that have been gaining ground.

Trump and his team see themselves that way, too. They have been on the receiving end of the American version of the continent’s “cordon sanitaire” for years.

Cultural conservatives wanted Republican leaders to push for the conservative Christian values they cherish. Instead, they got talk and little action.

Populists wanted attention paid to the declining manufacturing regions of the country. Republican economic elites refused to listen, urging adoption of more of the same trade policies that destroyed these communities to begin with.

Trump himself was obviously the personal target of the elites’ ire. Denounced vociferously almost hourly in the traditional media, held in obvious disdain by most GOP elected officials, subject to the most scurrilous attacks with no apologies once they were disproven – Trump weathered it all and triumphed.

His followers were decried as racist, fascist bigots who were the dumb dregs of America. Coupled with the ongoing denigration of traditional Christians in the popular media, they came to identify personally with Trump.

European elites may not be pious, but all are surely familiar with Handel’s Messiah. “Despised and rejected” – that is how Trump’s cohort view themselves. 

With his election, though, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. And neither Trump nor his followers have forgotten the treatment they received.

This mindset gives them a strong affinity with the conservative populists in Europe. They see people who often make similar arguments to them on culture, immigration, the role of government, and foreign policy. 

They see people who are also attacked mercilessly in elite corners, often attacked by the same people who attacked or disdained Trump and even George W. Bush.

They see some leaders subjected to legal proceedings to prevent them from running or governing much as Trump was.

All of these beliefs mean they tend to overlook the ways in which some parties or leaders are genuinely different from American conservative populists. They have been labelled as fascists and assume anyone so labelled in Europe has been wrongly besmirched.

They may in some cases be wrong. But in politics, perception is reality. 

The result is that Trump and his team will not look kindly on a continent that lifts mightily to prevent people just like them from sharing in power.

The decision to bar Călin Georgescu from running in Romania’s rescheduled presidential race looks to these eyes as identical to Democratic efforts to keep Trump from running for purportedly engaging in an insurrection in violation of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

Refusing even to negotiate with the Alternative for Germany is viewed as a verdict on Trump. 

Forming an alliance with the far-left, antisemitic La France Insoumise to prevent France’s Marine Le Pen and her party from winning last year’s parliamentary vote look to be a French version of the same tactics employed by “Never Trump” Republicans to stop the president’s victory.

This symmetry in alignment between American and European populist conservatives will not go away, nor will it be shunted aside by the Trump Administration.

If Europe wants Trump to re-engage with NATO and the European Union, it will need to make the case that Europe really does share democratic values with America. And that means ending the cordon sanitaire.

Many countries have already done this. Conservative populist parties are part of coalitions or provide outside support for centre-right governments in Sweden, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Croatia, Bulgaria, and even Belgium. 

Denmark, Norway, and Poland have been governed by or included conservative populists in their governments. Spain’s centre-right party, Partido Popular (PP), governs with the conservative-populist Vox in some regions as well.

It remains an article of faith, though, in France and Germany. As long as the EU’s two largest nations – and by extension, the EU itself – remain steadfastly opposed to conservative populist government participation, the cordon remains a stumbling block to improved relations with the United States.

Elites in Berlin, Paris, and Brussels will not want to change their stance. But then they must take the risk that Trump will decide the region is no longer close enough to America to justify expending time, treasure, and men in its defence.