Speaking about terrorism at the
Conservative Political Action Conference in February, Donald Trump said this,
quoting his mysterious friend Jim, “a very, very substantial guy”: “I said,
‘Jim, let me ask you a question, how's Paris doing?’ ‘Paris? I don't go there
any more, Paris is no longer Paris.’ That was four years, four or five years,
hasn't gone there. He wouldn't miss it for anything. Now he doesn’t even think
in terms of going there.”
What happened to Paris?
Although “Jim” stopped going to Paris, the number
of international visitors has continued to rise every year. Paris falls
behind only London as Europe’s most visited city. More
people visited Paris in 2015 than New York. What happened to Paris?
Nothing.
The countries of Western Europe have been
our closest allies for 70 years. Along with Canada, Australia and Japan, they
most closely share our fundamental political values. After Canada, the European
Union is America’s biggest
trading partner. Why would Trump make a gratuitous attack on Paris?
Paris endured terrible terrorist attacks in
January
and November
2015: 130 people were killed in November, most of them in a crowded theater.
Fear of terrorism might be a reason to avoid Paris, as well as Fort Lauderdale,
New York, Boston, Orlando, Dallas, and San Bernardino, just to name a few places in
America where terrorists have recently attacked. That doesn’t explain why “Jim”
stopped going to Paris four years ago.
Conservatives are unhappy with Europeans
and often seek ways to criticize them, especially the French. When France did
not support President George Bush’s decision to invade
Iraq in 2003 in the United Nations, Republican congressman Bob Ney renamed
French fries in the Congressional cafeterias “Freedom fries”. More
generally, the idea that liberals liked French food has been used by
conservatives to characterize liberals as not manly, elitist, un-American (and they
still do it!).
Most of Europe offers a model of government
and society that appears decidedly un-American to conservatives. Universal
health care, strong social and economic support for the less fortunate, much
less economic inequality, and broad government regulations protecting consumers
and the environment are fundamental elements of the social democratic systems
developed and supported for decades by liberal and conservative parties in
western and northern Europe. Generous policies on immigration and refugees
contrast with Trump’s emphasis on building walls. The unique model of
international cooperation represented by the European Union and the euro offers
such a striking contrast to the American exceptionalism promoted by the
Republican Party that conservatives seek every opportunity to predict the
downfall of the EU and the failure of the euro.
Trump’s “America first” ideology justifies
his attacks on everyone else. No major nation has been spared unprovoked
criticisms based on mostly untrue “facts”. If all other countries are bad,
America must be the best. But this is bigger than Trump’s crude nationalism.
It’s tempting to believe that “Jim” and
Trump just made up the idea that their familiar Paris is gone in order to
bolster the claim that only America is good. But there may be something more
sinister behind this remark.
Paris has changed over the past few
decades, as have London, Berlin, Amsterdam and the other great cities of
Western Europe. They are not white any more. On the street, sitting in cafés,
in the subways, you can hear many languages and see many colors. About one out
of five Parisians is an immigrant. About 18%
of Berliners are non-European. London has 25% born outside of Europe, and
perhaps only 60%
of Londoners are white. Amsterdam is even
more diverse: more than half of its people do not have Dutch origin, and
over one third are non-Western. Maybe “Jim”, like many of Trump’s supporters,
is uncomfortable when he feels surrounded by non-whites.
Right-wing media push anti-European
attitudes by making up stories about how Western European immigration policies
have resulted in public insecurity. FOX
News claimed in 2015 that there were hundreds of dangerous “no-go zones” in
England and France, many in Paris, “neighborhoods where neither tourists nor
cops dare enter”. FOX apologized publically for its “regrettable
errors”, but only after a week of worldwide derision for false reporting.
More recently, Breitbart News created its
own alternative facts about Germany. In January, this headline
appeared on its website: “Revealed: 1,000-Man Mob Attack Police, Set Germany’s
Oldest Church Alight on New Year’s Eve”. Nothing in that alarming headline was
true.
Breitbart’s journalistic methods were clear
from its reference to a German news article as its source. That article presented
an entirely
different set of events. About 1000 people gathered in the center of
Dortmund to celebrate New Year’s Eve, including “families with children”. The
night was generally peaceful, and the police chief said he was “provisionally
satisfied” with “the peaceful course of events”. The usual New Year’s Eve
fireworks were set off, some of which landed near the policemen gathered to
provide security. One rocket landed in the netting covering restoration
scaffolding on the church, causing a small fire which was quickly doused.
In response to international criticism,
Breitbart did correct its article: the church in Dortmund is not Germany’s
oldest. Otherwise, “Breitbart News stands by all other substantive facts in
this article.” A few days later, Breitbart defended its
original article and called the normal news outlets “fake news”. Breitbart
is now preparing to open an office
in Germany.
We can expect Trump and his administration
to continue to condemn Europe. Both Steve Bannon and Trump’s appointee as
ambassador to the European Union, Ted Malloch, have openly expressed their
desire to break
up the EU.
They ought to visit Paris. It’s a wonderful
city, especially in the spring.
Steve Hochstadt
Berlin
Published in the Jacksonville
Journal-Courier, March 7, 2017
