Last week at an event at the European Parliament, an MEP asked me a question that I hear often: “Does JD Vance hate Europe?”
My guess is that he does not hate the Europe of tête de veau in a Rive Gauche brasserie in Paris, of Sunday mass at the Duomo in Milan, of Alpine lakes in Switzerland, or of paintings at the Alte Pinothek in Munich. What he hates is Brussels, or rather, “Brussels”—the symbol of official, bureaucratic Europe, and the dictatorship of managerial liberalism administered from there. He hates the Europe of decrees from the European Commission, of the Digital Services Act circumscribing the access of EU citizens to knowledge and information, and of the EU ruling class refusing to face the overwhelming problem of mass migration, and act to stop it.
