Vice President J.D. Vance’s recent speech to the Munich Security Conference is receiving such a frenzied response in Europe that one can only assume that “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words could never hurt me” must not translate into German.
Vance’s core argument was simple: It’s hypocritical to rally the free world around defending democracy if Western democracies themselves abandon democratic values, from ignoring voters’ concerns about mass migration, to fining citizens for silently praying, to jailing activists for expressing controversial opinions, to even annulling the results of a presidential election.
In response to Vance’s remarks, one unnamed European diplomat told the Financial Times he now views the United States as an “adversary,” while a Democrat congressman compared Vance’s rhetoric to Adolf Hitler.
But what no…
