Eric S. Raymond@esrtweet
Hello, Europeans. The first thing you need to understand about the rant I'm about to utter is that I'm not MAGA, not a Trumpite, but a libertarian who has in the past nevertheless been strongly supportive of US military presence overseas. Because I want the wars that defend this country to be fought in somebody else's country, as far away from me as possible with a nice big ocean in the way.
Also relevant: I have a history of having lived in Europe and traveled there extensively. I was at one time bilingual in English and Spanish, and have been passably fluent in Italian and French as well. I could probably still find my way around London and Rome and central Paris reasonably well. So if you're tempted to tell yourselves that I'm some kind of parochial American hick, abandon that hope.
All that was set-up. So that, when I tell you that almost the entirety of the US electorate, not just Trump supporters, is increasingly fed up with your shit, take me seriously.
We've been cleaning up your messes and keeping the sea lanes open since 1917. And that was for you, not us - we, being very close to resource self-sufficient, don't need that investment so much. We've spent enormous amounts of blood and treasure on keeping you safe. We risked nuclear hellfire on our own cities for nearly 50 years to keep Soviet tanks from rolling through the Fulda Gap.
Even since the Cold War ended, we've subsidized your socialist-playpen welfare states and disastrous immigration policies by taking the need to maintain militaries more effective than a sack of wet farts off the table.
Now we've come looking for help keeping a bunch of rabid Islamic fanatics from getting nuclear weapons that are a clear and present danger to all of you even more than they are to us, and what do we hear?
"Waah! It's another Republican president we don't like, just like the last half dozen of them! So we're going to sulk in a corner, except when we're biting at your ankles with crap like airspace restrictions."
No. No, we're not going to take this anymore. It's not just conservatives who have had enough, it's moderates and people who used to be strong supporters of liberal internationalism.
Our citizen's willingness to pay higher taxes to protect you was upward-bounded by your gratitude. Now that we know your gratitude has effectively gone to zero, so does our willingness.
Don't expect this to change if the Democrats take power here. They are much less liberal-internationalist than Republicans now. While they might make mouth noises that soothe you, their overriding concern is the gaping, insatiable maw of their income transfer programs. They'll sacrifice subsidizing Europe's playpen socialism to feed their domestic version in a heartbeat. And there is no longer any significant Democratic constituency to argue against that.
In truth, three decades after the Cold War ended there is no American constituency at all for the massive subsidies you get. It frankly surprises me they lasted this long, that we were this patient with your cowardice and your bitchy whining.
This moment has been a long time coming. It's not Donald Trump sinking the transatlantic alliance, it is absolutely you.
