Published March 12, 2025
European elites are furiously angry about President Donald Trump’s rapid shift away from the traditional transatlantic relationship. Rebuilding their countries’ militaries will be one way to prove that the relationship remains valuable to the United States. Rebuilding the concert on democratic values, however, is as important – and perhaps harder for those elites to accomplish.
That will mean moving more towards the American understanding of free speech and toleration of public dissent. But ultimately it will also require making peace with the continent’s populists rather than freezing them out through the “cordon sanitaire”.
European leaders know that this is what Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance have said. But they have little understanding as to why that is so. A brief explanation, however, makes this sentiment crystal clear.
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Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, studies and provides commentary on American politics. His work focuses on how America’s political order is being upended by populist challenges, from the left and the right. He also studies populism’s impact in other democracies in the developed world.
