Is the Bush Administration More Unpopular in Europe Than the Reagan Administration?

7-9-04 | Pinochet

[pinochet]

With the recent outbreak of Anti-Americanism in Europe, conservatives have dismissed the whole trend as "nothing new", because we saw it before in the 1980s. But I am afraid that the present trend is more serious than most of us conservatives realize.

I talked a couple of days ago with an American businessman from Missouri, who has been making regular business trips to Europe over the last 30 years. He returned last week from a trip to England, Germany, Italy, and the Czech Republic. He is no leftie. Those of us who know Republicans from Missouri, the "show me" state, know that they are not the RINOs you see in California, New York or New England. The gentleman is question is a conservative, even by Missouri standards.

He informed me that the situation in Europe is so bad, he has never seen anything like it. After we both made comparisons to the 1980s, he much prefers things the way they were, during the Reagan years.

We conservatives often exaggerate European dislike for Reagan. But the people who hated Reagan were mostly far-left anti-nuclear protesters, and the snobbish European intellectuals. But Reagan was loved by common Europeans. When he made his speech at the Berlin Wall in 1987, the people who cheered his speech were West Germans, not Americans. Reagan easily entered pubs in Ireland, and mingled with his fellow Irishmen (his father's people). And you all remember the scene when Reagan walked the streets of Moscow with Gorbachev, shaking hands with ordinary Russians.

What is even more surprising, is that Reagan got along great, not only with his close British friends, Maggie and Lizzie, but also with the French socialist President, Francois Mitterrand. Both Mitterand and Reagan worked for the cause of human rights in the Soviet Union, and spoke out on behalf of Soviet dissidents. And who can forget the D-day speech in France in 1984? Hardened French veterans of WW-2, who fought with DeGaul's Free French forces were weeping. Helmut Kohl of West Germany was his buddy, as was Canadian Prime Minister, Mulroney. I think my favorite Reagan photo is when he went horseback riding with the Queen of England.

These are the things we discussed with my friend from Missouri. And as we talked, he shook his head, and held it in his hands in despair, after having heard some extremely hateful things being said about the Bush administation by respectable European corporate executives, during his recent trip.

[pinochet]

And what do Europeans think of Michael Moore? They are treating him as the Second Coming of Christ. The people doing this are not only the looney left. The corporate executives feel the same way. What saddened my friend most, was that the Czechs, whom Americans freed from communism, are just as rabidly anti-Bush as the West Europeans. Czechs are not the people we think about, when we talk of Euroweenies.

Somehow, I feel the Europeans used us to free them from the threat of communism, and now they have dumped us after we are no longer useful to them.

[CROSSHIGHWAYMAN]

The only good Europeans are the ones who left Europe to become Americans.

[G.Mason]

Most "children" believe their parents should be their best friends.

It take time for them to understand parents love them dearly, care and nurture them, but are not their "friends".

[My2Cents]

They lionize Michael Moore's farce, but consider Mel Gibson's "The Passion" to be "hate speech."

If I were despised by the Euros, I'd consider it a badge of honor.

[dyed_in_the_wool]

Didn't read the article, but re: the title...God I hope so.

[Badeye]

"Is the Bush Administration More Unpopular in Europe Than the Reagan Administration?"

Only to those too young to remember 1981 - 1986 or so. The protesters were out and counted in the tens of thousands back then whenever Reagan went there, especially after the nuke missile deployments.

I think this notion that Europe hates Bush more than it did Reagan is more a reflection of 24 hour cable news, which came to be after Reagan's time was over, than anything else.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

I want to think highly of the Brits, but the way they gripe about the war, they should get some sharp chedder cheeze and really enjoy their whine.

Here is EDWARD/Skerry's answer to the war, the answer that would make Europe happy:

[Jim Noble]

In the 1980s, the pathetic little weaklings in Europe were afraid that if they showed us their true feelings, we would abandon them to the USSR.

They're not afraid anymore.

But they're still pathetic little weaklings.

[Dr. Frank fan]

What "Europeans" think of the President of the United States is irrelevant. It is only their arrogance and impotence which causes them to assume/fantasize that it is. Do not flatter/indulge them by being fooled into agreeing with them.

[miloklancy]

I actually think it is a good thing that Europe doesn't like our President. An old high school class mate of mine recently came back from Europe and mentioned how resentment for Americans over there is at an all time high. I stopped and thought about it. They don't like us and I don't care much for them either. They refuse to spend any money to defend themselves and enjoy our security blanket at cost to us. Their economies are unmittagated disasters, with as much as 30% unemployment rates. They negotiate and cater to terrorists. They spend two months out of the year sitting on their buts in the French Rivera. I think it is high time we yank the security blanket out from underneath of them and forge alliances only with British and the former East block countries, who are grateful to us for ending the Cold War.

[Cold Heat]

He informed me that the situation in Europe is so bad, he has never seen anything like it.

I think we should liberate them again!

Right now, declaring war on France sounds like a good start.

[FrankR]

I think we must all bear in mind that millions of Europeans LEFT Europe to come to America. They didn't want to let us go...we had to fight a war in the early days to get our independence from England. We won.

I spent three years in Europe, and it was very interesting, picturesque, and educational...but I wouldn't want to live there. If one, single thing in my 59 years made me realize WHY I love America...it was spending 3 years in Europe.

Now, whether Europe "likes us" or not, is inconsequential. They're afraid of the terrorists, just like the were of Hitler. All the "oil-for-food scams" seem to involve the UN and certain countries...not the US.

I have just one thing to say to those Europeans who "hate us"...we're America, and you're not.

[CasearianDaoist]

Mitterrand hated the USA and Hated Reagan. The truth is that the EU has pumped itself up with France directed Pro-EU and Anti-Us propaganda in the educing years since Reagan and now the EU is in real risk of failing. On top of that, the generation of 68 is now in power. They would feel this about any America president that stood for America first. The clear fact that Bush knows that Europe's irrelevance increases from year to year and does not fear telling them so just ratchets up their ire all the more. Europe will fade into irrelevance but not before they cause even more mischeif for us.

In the end Bush will be lauded for his courage and vision and the Euros will once gain be shown up for the cads and worms they are.

If you add in the Mix the facts that outside of a very few British papers the EU's media is extremely left wing and when Reagan was in power most of Europe had right of center Government - most particularly Germany.

The EU will flounder for another few years and during that time all of their problems will be our fault, our fault and the "Jooos" of course.

Given a state of affairs where they expect to compete with us as a strategic power but yet have us somehow remain in a position that we maintained prior to the realization of the EU, it is best to slowly withdraw from Europe and prepare for the confrontation that surely must follow.

The Euros are not our friends anymore, at least not in "Old Europe." In time they will coerce and bribe "New Europe" into joining them against us.

[EggsAckley]

Every time I've been to Europe I sense a strong dose of jealousy, pure and simple. In Italy the women hate American women, and yet they do everything they can to LOOK American. I think there are more redheaded women in Italy than there are in Scotland!

[Wolfstar]

But I am afraid that the present trend is more serious than most of us conservatives realize.

And we're supposed to do what about this, exactly? Elect Kerry-Edwards just to make the Euro-weenies happy and "love" us? Screw that!!!!

 

My tagline until the election:
A vote for Kerry-Edwards is a vote for Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Jacques Chirac, the UN, and Hollyweirdos like Michael Moore and Whoopie Goldberg. A vote not cast, or a vote cast for a minority party, is a vote for Kerry-Edwards (unless you’re a liberal/Leftist who’ll vote for Nader, the Greens, or stay home.)

[MoscowMike]

Howdy

What one must understand is that socialism is fighting for its life like a cornered rat. Without America joining Europe in economic enslavement, socialist economies in Western Europe face the grim prospect of economic depression or sweeping economic reform, in either case tens of millions of human lives will be greatly disrupted.

For example, France's economy hovers on the brink of depression with a 0.1% GDP growth rate.

When America chose President Bush over albert gore by an eyelash, socialism was dealt a terrible blow, and the true believers in collectivism have reacted like cornered rats.

European societal traditions of popular servitude to an entrenched elite class run deep, they favor collective economic security afforded by a servile relationship to government. Americans have a tradition making individual human liberty and unfettered opportunity paramount, and that framework has proven the superior philosophical basis for just governance on the basis of any objective reading of history. Slaves are neither troubled by want when owned by benign overlords nor threatened by untoward outcomes by irresponsible choices but neither have they much hope of advancing the fortunes of their families through dedication and sacrifice. Sons and daughters of American liberty are threatened by the prospect of worse poverty because of bad choices, but we also have unlimited access to our dreams.

The ardent desire of European leftists is that America should abandon individual human liberty and remove the example of a superior form of governance in favor of socialism, in order to protect their cherished traditions of servitude by removing competition which cannot be defeated on the basis of merit.

Misery loves company.

Make no mistake, the destruction of the last vestiges of the leftist school of political philosophy which has been the most potent force of destruction of human life in the twentieth century is as violent an act of historical evolution as was the most harrowing confrontations of the cold war.

This is the source of worldwide anti American hysteria, Old Europe and like minded leftist populations around the globe are struggling like cornered rats to reverse the verdict of history which categorically repudiates the diseased work product of karl marx, this is the death of an obsolete, failed political movement. Death is never pretty.

[hinckley buzzard]

"In the 1980s, the pathetic little weaklings in Europe were afraid that if they showed us their true feelings, we would abandon them to the USSR.
They're not afraid anymore."

I tend to agree. Europeans' envy and hostility against America was suppressed during the Cold War, at least for public consumption. Plus, Europe was economically much more dependent on us then.

But I remember being in Europe the summer of 1963, and hearing all sorts of smirk-faced, hostile anti-American commentary, even as they phonetically memorized rock tunes and adulated JFK.

It also was Frenchy DeGaulle's assault on the US Dollar that led Nixon to close the gold window and set the dollar loose in 1970-71.(His intent was to force the US to redeem all the French-held dollars for gold, which would have emptied Fort Knox and destabilized the world dollar market.)
This, after the US had intervened to save the Franc, in 1966. Some allies.

If European opinion seems more rancid now, it is only because more wraps have fallen away. That's a good thing. It is better to know than not to know.

Whenever we worry about "being liked" we should take to heart the observation of Dr. Rice: "Europe's values are not our values."

[pinochet]

"...Mitterrand hated the USA and Hated Reagan..."

There were sharp ideological disagreements between the two. But both governments outspoken in support of Sakharov and other Soviet dissidents.

Even you will agree that the Mitterand/Reagan relationship, was not as bad as the Bush/Chirac relationship.

Reagan was a right-winger and Mitterand was a socialist, yet, both got along better than Bush and Chirac, who are both conservatives as defined by the politics of their respective countries.

[Dave Olson]

I wonder if it's due to fear -- not so much of Bush as the Muslim population in Europe. They see Bush at war against radical Islamists and fear that if they do not denounce him, they may end up with car bombs going off in their citys.

[sixgunjer]

I returned Tuesday from three weeks in Europe. The reason for the trip was to take aid from England to a small church in Hungary. I was really unprepared for how European Christians lean to the left (these weren't Church of England types, either). The first day I got there I was asked where the weapons of mass destruction were. That was only the beginning of a spate of anti-American comments I endured for most of the three weeks. Most were in the form of "stupid American" jokes right in front of me. I was even informed by a girl who worked for an American-owned power production plant in Hungary that the reason for global warming was because America didn't sign the Kyoto treaty. The pastor of the church in Hungary made it perfectly clear that he did not like President Bush, but said that he loved me (I guess that is because I shelled out the bucks to buy their small church building a few years ago). I couldn't mention anything American without it being blamed for world problems. They even made fun of our "big American refrigerators," and our vehicles that got poor fuel mileage. Mind you, the comments weren't constant, but they were predictable.

I didn't return fire because my purpose was to help the church, and I didn't want to cause divisions in it. But it really drained my enthusiasm for the trip.

I will only return to Europe under direct and clearly specific orders from God. If I had my way, I would remove all of our troops from ALL European countries and ask that the bodies of Americans lost in both World Wars be exhumed and returned to their home states. Europe is not capable of defending itself, but I am sure they will be with us when they need us.