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Notes -
The last gasp of the europoor
For years, I've been treated to a steady diet of smug elitism coming from effete liberal Europeans laughing at obese, gun-toting and bible-thumpin' Americans. This reached its crescendo during the George W. Bush administration, took a lull during the Obama years and was resurrected after Trump took office.
The American was an ignoramus, a loud-mouth, a religious fundamentalist and irreversibly stupid. Hopelessly inferior to us sophisticated and cosmopolitan Europeans. Did you know half of Americans don't even own a passport? Most don't even know a second language!? Ha! And don't get me started on their healthcare, their gun crime and all other sorts of social pathologies. America, you see, is a third world nation masquerading as a first world one.
But as the years went by, these smirks felt increasingly hollow. The economic distance - and with it, standard of living - between the two major partners is growing wider by the day. A young French econ professor at Wharton lays out the bad news over just how deluded his fellow Europeans are on this question. Prominent FT columnists have noted the same.
Yet, perhaps there is still time to save the last shreds of honor for us poor Europeans. For one, the gap in PPP terms doesn't seem to be changing much. Europe has been behind for a long time. In terms of total GDP, the situation is much the same. Another aspect is that Europeans tend to work fewer hours.
While some of these arguments may have some validity, they all feel like desperate excuses. I for one am very much happy to see the insufferable elitism of Europeans slowly being wiped off our collective smug faces. The uncouth and primitive barbarian across the ocean turned out to be smarter and harder-working all along.
Perhaps this can also lead to a more pro-capitalist liberalism in the US. For much of my upbringing, liberal Americans were typified by folks such as Michael Moore and his obsessive admiration of the European welfare state. Colbert's snark about the embarrassing Red State American always felt like an underhanded way to gain favor with declassé elites across the ocean. Ann Coulter's observation that liberal elites in the US loved soccer because it is European surely hit closer to home than many in the media were willing to admit.
Of course, there is still some amount of liberal American simping left in the bag. This is perhaps most obvious whenever there are discussions on urban policy and the words "walkable city" invariably comes up. (To be clear, I actually think Europe gets this part better than the US).
Outside of an increasingly narrowing set of areas where Europe still outperforms, we are slowly witnessing a reshuffling of the deck. The old illusions are slowly coming undone and reddit-tier arguments about the US being a third world hellhole are convincing fewer by the day. At long last, after years of insufferable and unjustified smug elitism, the europoor is finally unmasked as the sham living on a lie that he always was. And I couldn't be happier.
You take that back!
As for the state of the cities—yeah, things probably were best in the late 90s or maybe mid 2000s. But something happened in 2008, and it wasn’t a demographic transition.
I am curious as to why you think we’ve hit peak dollar. There’s still a lot of room for chaos in the rest of the world. None of our economic competitors do a very good job pretending to be a safe market. China’s got its protectionist holding companies, and the Euro is…the Euro.
＞You take that back!
I can understand pixie cuts, but I will admit to finding the haphazardly-shaven or buzz-cut-esque haircuts common in queer circles to be bizarre and unattractive.
Also the…jewelry. Why nose rings?
Full sleeve tattoos, nose rings, piercings, weird shaved on one side of the head haircuts, and rainbow dye colours. Kids these days!
Let's face it, we're just old 😁
I do think those kinds of things make you look ugly be you man, woman, or other, but 🤷♀️
One of my pet peeves is the way any unfavorable judgment of an aesthetic trend is treated as a consequence of the critic being old. I grew up with these trends and have hated them for my entire life.
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