Yes, all of us living here in EU-land know our host countries are going to hell. You can tell by how distraught we are. [View all]

It's a long-standing tradition that Europeans whine. They complain. They bitch and moan about all that's wrong with their countries, whose only saving grace is that there is no other place on earth they'd rather live. The French are the best at this. "Nous sommes un pays de cons!" We are a country of idiots! Where on earth would you rather live? Live? Are you kidding? There is no place on earth better than France to live!!

Germany, NL, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, the Scandinavian countries, Poland, just about everywhere. Yeah, everybody complains, and the bureaucracy IS crushing. It's that old quote about democracy--it's the worst form of government, except for all the others. Anyone in France will tell you that France is the worst place to live in--except for the rest of the world, which is infinitely worse. It's their way of saying, Yeah, sure, we have our problems, too. Just the other day, my wife was at City Hall to get a document. It was mid-day, and there were no people there except those sitting bored behind their desks. She went up to a counter, was refused, and told to take a number. NOBODY there, and she was told to take a number!! So, she took a number and got served immediately. The Germans must train watching John Belushi doing "Samurai Delicatessen."

There are probably more Americans that are well-off than the entire populations of any one of many EU countries. Since most of them that aren't France or Germany have populations of less than 25 million people, that's not a hard number to reach.

Neo-fascist movements ARE gaining traction here, some more than others. But so far, except for Hungary, none of them have been accepted as legitimate partners in a national government. The rest would rather muddle through than let the extremist right in the coalition door. Maybe two rounds of Donald Trump in the USA have cured them of letting anything like that happen.

What most Europeans see through is the phoniness of it all. Rallies with clean-shaven 25 year old blond guys praising some "conservative (NOT!) " ideal that is practiced by exactly nobody, and exists exactly nowhere outside of their propaganda videos. Where some Americans say, "you can't be serious," Europeans take one look at our extremist right and say, "it's blatantly obvious that THEY aren't serious, and yet they are running your show. How can that be?"

Here in hell, or at the gates thereof, if Trump has determined we're not quite there yet, there are not millions of people desperate to move to the USA. Despite Republican propaganda, most of the USA isn't paradise on earth any more than France or Germany is.

It really DOES boil down to the Emperor's new clothes. Who in America is willing to say out loud that he has none, when the fact is that he really has none? Well, actually, plenty do. Unimpressed, educated, intelligent people like Rachel Maddow, Jon Ossoff, Jamie Rankin, Stephen Colbert, Sheldon Whitehouse, Jimmy Kimmel, Jasmine Crockett, AOC, Paul Krugman, Jim Acosta--people that the extremist right desperately wants silenced. Why? What terrifies the right so utterly that they feel a desperate need to have them silenced? Because they convince without screaming or lying.

In a devastatingly clever (Spanish) play on words, Basque poet/author Miguel de Unamuno told the Spanish fascists at the onset of the Spanish Civil war in 1936: "Ustedes vencerán porque poseen la fuerza bruta, pero no convencerán." He used the words "vencer (conquer) " and "convencer (convince) " brilliantly: You will conquer because you possess brute force, but you will not convince."

Ultimately, the Republicans won't convince, either. In Spain the victorious fascists did conquer. If you see today's Spain, where remnants of the old fascist ways are scarce if not extinct, the proof is there. In 1969, Franco celebrated 30 years of his fascist victory. I was there for that. This year, Spain will quietly celebrate fifty years after his demise. I will be around for that, too. I won't be around for fifty years after Trump, but if I'm around to experience the start of a national healing, along the lines of "we ain't never gonna let THAT happen to us again!" I'll be content with that. I know, too, that it's not going to start tomorrow.