Europe as a Paradise of Krugman's Very Serious People

Europe is still romanticized in the minds of the Left, but this is out of date. True they still have a much bigger welfare state in Western Europe than in the US but this is sort of a relic of a social democratic past rather than anything to do with politics in today's Europe.

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/12/is-donald-trump-party-in-americas-future.html

There was a lot of talk on today's Morning Joe about how much Trump's comments have been criticized internationally and specifically in France.

It is an unfortunate reality that for ISIS and friends Trump will be made the face of Americans. As Tom Brown says, the Right in different countries are in secret conspiracy. The more ISIS inspired violence the more this helps the Right in the Western countries; the more the Right rises in the Western countries the more this buffers ISIS and friends.

But there is some irony in France criticizing Trump's comments seeing how well France's own Trump-Marine La Pen and her National Front party did in France over the weekend.

Krugman points out that the dominance of the Very Serious People in Europe and the rise of Far Right and Far Left parties is related.

"Kevin O’Rourke weighs in on the big showing of Marine Le Pen and friends in the French elections; like me, he argues that it has a lot to do with Europe’s economic failures."

"Let me add, however, that it’s not just a matter of times being bad. It’s also important to realize the way in which traditional sources of authority have devalued themselves through repeated policy failure. Europe, much more than the U.S., is run by Very Serious People, who tell the public that it must accept Schengen, austerity, and regulatory harmonization (the eurosausage!), and that these are the right things to do because those who understand how the world works say so. But if things keep going badly, this authority based on the presumption of expertise erodes, and politicians who offer more visceral answers gain support."

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/08/vsps-and-the-fn/?module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=Opinion&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs&region=Body

There's a lot of truth in this. The euro experiment has proven to be a total disaster. The more the euro talking heads cling to their talking points despite reality, the more the more visceral talk of Left and Right will resonate. 

For this reason, as I've argued often, the US actually is the liberal hope today much ore than Europe which is fairly hopeless politically speaking.