JD Vance Makes "Our Democracy" Real

Speaking at a security conference in Munich, Vice-President JD Vance has given an astonishingly frank and serious speech to an audience of European government officials. Sample statement, from early in the speech:

The threat that I worry the most about vis a 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 was struck that a former European commissioner went on television recently and sounded delighted that the Romanian government had just annulled an entire election. He warned that if things don’t go to plan, the very same thing could happen in Germany too.

Now, these cavalier statements are shocking to American ears. 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. But when we see European courts cancelling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we’re holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard.

But Vance also looked to America: “I will admit that sometimes the loudest voices for censorship have come not from within Europe, but from within my own country, where the prior administration threatened and bullied social media companies to censor so-called misinformation.” His example was the much-censored claim that Covid-19 may have come from a lab in China, which Vance called “an obvious truth.”

Full transcript here. Full video:

The response is depressingly predictable:

Zero engagement with the substance of the speech; endless pearl-clutching over tone and emotions. Vance “turns on” Europe, Vance “berates” Europe, tensions rise. Reuters framed it as an attack on Europe:

But Vance spoke truthfully, accurately, and directly from the core of a tradition of liberty. He described, among many other things, the British government’s decision to arrest and prosecute people for praying silently near abortion clinics, without obstructing the operation of the clinics. That happened — people are being convicted for “a silent thought, in essence, in their head.”

Here, watch British police make one of those arrests:

Vance spoke about freedom and repression, calling for openness in culture and politics. It was a speech that was worthy of Václav Havel, a demand for an end to repressive policy in Europe and in the United States. Government officials and political journalists are finding it deeply upsetting, and framing it as an attack. How interesting.

The sun is coming out. Notice the vampires.