Why Do I See So Many Europeans Talking Trash About Americans?
October 31, 2017
Alex Henderson, Periodista and Technical Writer
Ten years ago, during the disastrous Iraq War brought to us by the neocons of the Bush Administration, anti-French bigotry was pandemic in parts of Les Etas-Unis. Moronic phrases like “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” and “freedom fries” were considered intelligent discourse by the Fox News/AM talk radio crowd, and high school French teachers in the Bible Belt were receiving death threats from yahoos with Confederate flags. So I did the only sensible thing I could: I took a trip to Paris, spoke French, happily spent my money in Montmartre and Place de Italie and hung out with Parisians. While neocons wanted to boycott France, I wanted to do my part to support the French economy and defy les fascistes des Utas-Unis et le Parti Républicain.
There’s a major street in Paris called Boulevard Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And that speaks volumes about the close relationship that Europeans have had with the United States over the years.
After World War II, the American middle class was the envy of the world, including Europe. The U.S., problems and all, was viewed as a symbol of hope in Europe. But these days, many Europeans view the U.S. as a long-time friend who has become sadly dysfunctional.
I was in Italy just before the U.S. presidential election of 2008. To say that Italians were excited about the possibility of Barack Obama becoming president is an understatement. While far-right wingnuts in the U.S. hated Obama with a passion, many Italians viewed him favorably and hoped their friend, the U.S., would recover from the train wreck that was the Bush Administration. Conversely, many of the Italians I met in 2008 viewed Sarah Palin as symbolic of everything that was embarrassing about the far right and the modern-day Republican Party.
Europeans, on the whole, do not hate or look down on Americans. Rather, they feel badly for us, and they have many reasons to:
Medical bankruptcies? Check.
Lower life expectancy than other developed counties? Check.
Mass incarceration? Check.
Rampant obesity? Check.
A collapsing middle class? Check.
Extreme far-right Christian fundamentalists who want to turn the U.S. into a theocracy and crush anyone who doesn’t share their warped, perverted view of Christianity? Check.
A tax system that punishes the U.S.’ shrinking middle class and the poor while offering huge rewards to the 1%? Check.
Americans working twice as hard as their grandparents but living half as well? Check.
Ignorant culture warriors who are 55 and diabetic and would rather lose a foot to diabetes unnecessarily than acknowledge that a black president could do something right? Check.
College students graduating with crippling debt? Check.
Food deserts? Check.
A decaying infrastructure? Check.
Europeans are not “trash talking” the U.S. They are concerned about our well-being, and they have every reason to be.
