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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 1, 2025

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Europeans are proud.

I am not European, I am Slovak. There is no European identity even after decades of astroturfing. If anything, you have something I would mark as "global" identity vs national ones. In the past this globalist identity was called as "western" identity or something similar. In fact local elites at least in Eastern Europe used this word quite a lot in condescending way toward their own population - just westernize already. These elites were similar to Russian aristocracy of 19th century - people self colonized into some supranational identity used to berate their backwards alcoholic underclass. This supposed "European" elite would be as satisfied in Berlin or Paris as they would be in Sydney or Dubai or Tokyo and of course in New York or Los Angeles - as long as it caters to their sensibilities.

In fact with Trump election it was interesting to see how this supposed "Western" vocabulary collapsed - what is The West without USA? With USA throwing a wrench into the edifice, they just have "West" replaced by "European". But there is no such a thing, European identity has nowhere near such a power, it does not have the same legitimacy that USA and "The West" had during 20th century.

But, the Europeans appear to despise Trump and his politics. Even blue city democrats don't hate Trump as much. Eventually, the hostility becomes grating.

This is nothing new. "European" intelligentsia hated US political representation with vengeance for ages. People from Europe love their stories of redneck Americans, they watched with glee whenever any riot or scandal happened as it soothed their ego. The problem is, that at least in the past there was something to that as late as 80s/90s. French were proud of their cinematography, Germans were proud of their engineering and Scandinavians were proud of their social progress while they slowly imbibed US culture and systems. As of now, all these things are in the past. At least since 2000s all EU countries are stagnating. Manufacturing went to shit, cultural influence is overwhelmed not only by USA but also by Asian countries. There is no NOKIA or Ericsson anymore and there is no new innovative industry in Europe.

What remains is basically cultural heritage - architecture and so forth which turns Europe into one large open-air museum. But even this is not exactly coded as elite thing to do with self hatred around religion and colonialism. There are some paradoxes going on with some channels such as this one, trying to promote European achievements. Which is fine, but if you ask me, it would seem to represent more something like Eric Zemmour's candidacy speech as opposed to current EU elite progressive consensus. It is right-wing and nationalist coded.

So in short what if "Europeans" you talk about hate Trump. They hate themselves and their culture with the same intensity, if not even more.