Vance is so right and so wrong

Some of my readers are going to gasp in disbelief, but I’ll say it anyway: I am not perfect.

I’m overweight, I drink too much, I’m messy, and these are just my minor failings. But because I’m aware of them, I’m always grateful for criticism and advice – provided these are offered politely and in good faith.

Alas, when those conditions aren’t met, another weakness of mine comes to the fore: I’m short of temper and inclined to swear at the slightest provocation. Hence, even if I realise that my impolite critic is right, I’m certain to tell him exactly what he can do with his remarks.

Extrapolating from me to my country and then to my continent, I feel like swearing at JD Vance after the speech he delivered in Munich. This though I agree with many things he said.

Trump and his emissaries ought to remind themselves of Georges Buffon’s maxim: le style c’est l’homme même. The style is the man himself or, in the populist parlance they affect, it ain’t just what you say, but how you say it.

“There’s a new sheriff in town,” announced Vance in the language of Western flicks favoured by his boss. That I suppose is true, but it doesn’t mean American politicians should talk in the language of ill-bred gunslingers.

However, this once I’m prepared to overlook the censorious tone Trump and his people adopt when talking to their allies and concentrate on the content of Vance’s oration.

His heart is largely in the right place, but at times it parts ways with his mind. He started well:

“The threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor. What I worry about is the threat from within. The retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values: values shared with the United States of America.”

I couldn’t agree more. Great civilisations don’t perish just because of an outside threat. They do so when an outside threat coincides with a period of internal decay and concomitant decline in self-confidence. These can do their suicidal job even on their own, but an outside threat can make ruin faster and surer.

While objecting to the tone of Vance’s remarks and indeed his right to make them (if the US wants to leave Europe to its own devices, it thereby forfeits the privilege of offering unsolicited advice), I could happily sign my own name under most of them.

Yes, Europe should stop illegal immigration, and it should definitely spend more on its defence. How much more? When survival is at stake, there is only one possible answer to that question: as much as it takes. Europe has been riding America’s coattails for too long and it should learn how to stand on its own hind legs.

And yes, the ongoing orgy of wokery debauches Europe, undermining such vital aspects of Western identity as free speech. But what is the root of all such aspects, the ubiquitous sine qua non of this identity? In common with most Americans, Vance believes it’s democracy, a method of government he misconstrues as being co-extensive with virtue and hence self-sufficiently redemptive.

This leads him into conceptual cul-de-sacs. For example, Vance cites the case of a 51-year-old British veteran who was arrested, charged and fined for “the heinous crime of standing 50 metres from an abortion clinic and silently praying for three minutes, not obstructing anyone, not interacting with anyone, just silently praying on his own.”

Vance is absolutely right: HMG’s commitment to protecting abortion clinics from even such innocuous opprobrium is indeed revolting. It strikes at the very foundations of our Judaeo-Christian civilisation.

However, one value the cordon sanitaire around abortion clinics doesn’t violate is democracy. On the contrary, the cops who arrested the veteran affirmed it by complying with an act passed by a democratically elected Parliament in full compliance with democratic procedure.

This should remind Mr Vance that, in the civilisational order of priorities, democracy appears low down the list, if at all. Other commitments supersede it by a long way.

As a practising and thinking Catholic, he knows this as well as I do. But, as an American politician, Vance worships at the altar of God only in private. In public, he worships at the altar of democracy – and the First Amendment that protects it from religious encroachments. Is he aware of the possibility of inherent contradiction? Perhaps not.

“We must do more than talk about democratic values,” continued Vance. “We must live them.” That, according to him, is something Romania failed to do:

“The Romanian Constitutional Court made a startling decision: It cancelled the country’s presidential elections… citing a newly declassified intelligence report that pointed to Russian election interference on behalf of Călin Georgescu, an obscure far-right nationalist who unexpectedly became the favourite to win after the first round of voting.”

Moreover, “the very same thing could happen in Germany too,” and this is something Mr Vance can’t countenance under any circumstances: “For years we’ve been told that everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values. Everything from our Ukraine policy to digital censorship is billed as a defence of democracy.”

Mr Vance’s commitment to democracy über alles is misplaced, specifically in the cases he cites. It’s also selective: before he became Vice President, Sen. Vance had been the most consistent opponent of any aid to the Ukraine, which is after all a democratic country heroically fighting against a fascist dictatorship.

The same fascist dictatorship invests billions in a massive disinformation and trolling campaign to promote extremist pro-Putin candidates in all European elections, including those Vance mentioned. Romanian authorities have laid bare the extent of Russia’s hybrid warfare aiming to undermine the very democratic institutions Vance holds so dear.

Unfortunately, they had failed to nip Russian interference in the bud. When they came to their senses, it was too late for half-measures. The only way to prevent their country from becoming a Russian satellite was to cancel the compromised elections and start from scratch. That’s unfortunate, but better than killing freedom in the name of democracy.

Vance’s reaction to that belated but correct decision is both frivolous and dishonest: “Now, to many of us on the other side of the Atlantic, it looks more and more like old, entrenched interests hiding behind ugly Soviet-era words like misinformation and disinformation, who simply don’t like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion or, God forbid, vote a different way, or even worse, win an election.”

Putin’s puppets must indeed be prevented from winning elections in free countries. But not because they have “an alternative viewpoint”, but because they aren’t free agents. They are agents of a hostile power trying in word and deed to stamp out freedom in Eastern Europe, for a start.

If Vance doesn’t understand this, he needs a remedial course in European politics. If he knows it but still insists on upholding the rights of avowed enemies of democracy to impose their evil rule, he needs a remedial course in morality.

As for “ugly Soviet-era words like misinformation and disinformation”, the Trump administration has indefinitely banned the Associated Press from the Oval Office and Air Force One. Why?

Because the wire service refuses to comply with Trump’s vindictive whim and refer to what has for centuries been called the Gulf of Mexico as the ‘Gulf of America’. That, according to Trump’s deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich, “is not just divisive, but it also exposes the Associated Press’s commitment to misinformation.”

Hey chaps, fair is fair. If the Romanian government is scolded for citing “ugly Soviet-era words like misinformation and disinformation” when trying to curtail the advance of fascism in Europe, then surely Vance’s colleagues shouldn’t use such offensive terminology about a reputable wire agency? It does tend to be anti-Trump, but that’s just an “alternative viewpoint”, isn’t it?

In fact, the AP is taking a conservative stance against arbitrary name changes. This is a crime I’m guilty of myself (I did tell you I’m not perfect).

That’s why I sometimes anger my Ukrainian friends by sticking to traditional English usages and writing ‘Kiev’ not ‘Kyiv’, ‘Kharkov’ not ‘Kharkiv’ and ‘the Ukraine’ instead of ‘Ukraine’. I also write ‘Peking’, not ‘Beijing’, which would anger my Chinese friends if I had any.

Mr Vance commendably wants to be on the side of the angels, but he needs to sort out who they are in Europe. Otherwise he may end up supporting the cause of demons, such as Georgescu, AfD – and their paymaster Putin.