re: #138 marjoriemoon

I’m with you until the last line.

They aren’t making us look any better in the eyes of the international community. Not that that means much to me. I’m not sure the Europeans liked us so much to begin with and that was way before our most unpopular president (GWB), when America-bashing was all the rage.

At any rate, I’m betting on the American People to reject this. I don’t think we as a nation accept this bigotry and pig-headedness. I do think you’re 100% correct about how it came to be, though.

RE: Europe.

I think what America witnessed during much of the cold war (the embrace of American culture/ideas by Western Europe) was a historic anomaly.

Losing Europe’s “respect” (to the degree that actual respect as cultural and political peers) was in the cards the moment the Berlin Wall fell, IMO. We have our old cultural habits with a degree of concomitant xenophobia just as the Europeans do. Western Europeans will always lecture people in the new world and especially the US. And Americans will always be bugged by that and both seek Europe’s esteem while also snarking at European “elitism”.

All cultures in asserting who they are assert who they aren’t, so in whatever way a culture is inclusionary it is exclusionary. No avoiding it. The European esteem held during the Cold War was more motivated by fear of the Russians, IMO, than genuine cultural affinity, IMO.