Anti-Americanism: A Respectable Prejudice Supporting European Elites Quest For A Post-National Identity

There has been a lot of soul searching about the place of Europe in the current global environment. Political leaders on both sides of the Atlantic refer to Europe as if it is a clearly defined political entity with a fixed identity. Europe is frequently criticised or praised for this or that achievement as if it existed as a coherent political body.. The point that is frequently overlooked by such commentaries is that Europe lacks the political and historical coherence possessed by the nations of China and the United States.

There are at least 44 commonly recognised sovereign states in Europe, 27 of which are members of the European Union. For most Europeans their national identity trumps their affiliation to the EU. There is no European identity that exists as the cultural equivalent of Chinese or American. Only Europe’s nation states – such as France, Germany or Poland have identities that are comparable to those of China or the United States but not the EU.

Unlike the China or America, who possess a national identity, anything that resembles a European identity would be by definition a post-national one. In practice a post-national identity represents a shift from away from the nation-state as the primary source of belonging and represents the antithesis of a nation based identity.

For sections of the EU’s elites and their globalist inclined supporters, a post-national affiliation poses little problems. But for most people who dwell in Europe’s different communities a post-national identity has little meaning. Experience has shown that a post-national EU identity lacks the moral depth necessary to motivate the people of the continent. The technocratic managerial class who run the EU are all too aware that there is no great popular love for its institutions and that the development of a European identity remains a work in progress rather than a reality.

Over the decades one of the ways that supporters of a post national European identity have sought to promote their goals was through the cultivation of the negative prejudice of Anti-Americanism. That is the main reason why anti-Americanism has emerged yet again as a respectable prejudice in Europe. It is enthusiastically promoted through the mainstream media and widely endorsed by the continent’s cultural elites.

Since the turn of the year, Western Europe has been enveloped by a wave of Americanophobia. Brands like Tesla, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and other American products have been targeted by newly launched consumer-boycott campaigns. Newly designed mobile apps that allow shoppers to identify and boycott American products have seen a spike in downloads. ‘Bashing, boycotting, and backing away from `America are all now in vogue across Europe’ notes a feature in Euractiv[i].

At this year’s Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina the U.S. delegation faced boos and whistles from a crowd of over 65,000 people. As one of my contacts attending the event told me this reaction was entirely spontaneous and contagious. Sections of the European media reported with delight the booing of American Vice President at this event. The European Union’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told an interviewer, ‘Our public also has pride, a European pride’[ii]. It seems that for the bosses running the EU, Anti-Americanism served as a medium for cultivating European pride.

Mainstream European politicians and media personalities openly flout their animosity towards all things American. Typically, this reaction is interpreted as an understandable response to humiliation that Europe has suffered at the hands of President Donald Trump and his colleagues.

One of the aims of this essay is to challenge this view.

Drawing on the evidence of history, I argue that the current wave of anti-Americanism is not simply a reaction to Trump. Anti-Americanism has been around for a very long time and has been mobilized periodically to boost the cause of European unity. It has served as an ideological resource that the ruling elites have periodically harnessed to promote the cause of European unity and foster a continental identity.

In recent times when the EU has been exposed as a feeble and divided institution, anti-Americanism has been embraced as a medium for forging a measure of unity. This is a prejudice that transcends the usual Left and Right divide. The appeal of Anti-Americanism to sections of Europe’s elites is illustrated by the fact that from the 20^th century onwards both Left and the Right developed their own brand of anti-Americanism. As Sergio Fabbrini observed, in continental Europe ‘anti-Americanism seems to be one of the few public philosophies that can unite large sections of the left, the right and the Catholic Church’[iii].

In his fascinating study, L'Ennemi americain, Philippe Roger observed that in France, conservatives and monarchists joined forces with their ‘sworn domestic enemies, the Republicans and anti-clerical factions, in damning Americans - now see as a Tankee race apart, “hard and vindictive”, and far less compatible than the English or Germans’. Roger noted that 'Anti-Americanism was the only “French passion” that calmed the other passions....This reconciliation at the United States’ expense . . . would remain a constant of political intellectual life in France....At least they now knew whom to hate together’. Although the Anti-American ideology had greater intellectual resonance in France than in other parts of Europe, a version of this chauvinistic narrative gained traction throughout the nations of western Europe.

Anti-Americanism serves as a quasi-ideology that promises to unite the different factions of the European establishment. That is why a recent Financial Times commentary enthused that ‘Trump is Europe’s best enemy yet. Lack of a common foe enfeebled Europe, but not any more’. It added, ‘I’ve never previously seen Europeans feel so European” Sadly, it appears that it is the negative prejudice of Anti-Americanism that provides the social glue for binding together an otherwise disoriented and divided European elite.

It appears that the drawing of a moral contrast with America is is the pre-requisite for helping ‘Europeans to feel so European’. That Europe’s elites depend on drawing a moral contrast between itself and a morally inferior American enemy highlights the precarious character of its identity.

Anti-Americanism explained

In his study, Anti-Americanism in European Literature (2011), Jesper Gulddal noted that the foundation for the ideology of Anti-Americanism was established in the early 19^th century. It was at this point time that the familiar motifs of this ideology gained traction. Gulddal wrote that the five recurring themes in the European critique of American culture are its ‘historical rootlessness, materialism, vulgarity, religious fanaticism, and flawed democracy’ of this society[iv]. The supposed mental and moral deficits of American people have served to endow them with the status of cultural inferiority

Gulddal claims that as a distinct discourse, Anti-Americanism is ‘not national but continental, its purpose is not to reinforce a local sense of nationhood, but to define a common European identity against an imagined America’[v].

One of the first major thinker to draw attention to the way in which anti-Americanism served as a medium for assisting the emergence of a European identity was the political theorist, Hannah Arendt. In an essay written in 1954, she noted that in Europe, Anti-Americanism ‘is well on the way to becoming a new ism’. She warned that Anti-Americanism ‘its negative emptiness notwithstanding, threatens to become the content of a European movement’[vi]. Arendt’s use of the term ‘negative emptiness’ referred to the shallow emptiness of this new ‘ism’.

At the time Arendt speculated that ‘if it is true that each nationalism (though, of course, not the birth of every nation) begins with a real or fabricated common enemy, then the current image of America in Europe may well become the beginning of a new pan-European nationalism’. Though America served the role of a negative counter-image with a potential identity creating function this potential was never realised. Evidently on its own Anti-Americanism was insufficient to develop a stable European post-national identity. As Gulddal observed; ‘European identity is much easier to define in negative rather than positive terms, and it was therefore frequently conceived of via easy oppositions betwen Europe and America[vii]. The failure to provide a positive account of European identity haunts the EU to this day.

With the development of the EU the demand for the construction of a post-national identity became increasingly urgent. As Russell Berman observed in his study, Anti-Americanism in Europe (2013)

‘As the process of European unification progressed, anti-Americanism proved to be a useful ideology for the definition of a new European identity. Currently, the main way Europe defines itself as European is precisely by underscoring its difference from the United States’[viii].

The last time that anti-Americanism was systematically harnessed as a project for making ‘Europeans feel so European’ was in 2003, during the United States-led Iraq War. This war was deeply unpopular with public opinion in Western Europe. On 15 February 2003, millions of people marched on the streets of European capitals against America’s war in Iraq. Members of the EU’s political and cultural elites greeted this demonstration as the harbinger of the birth of what they called a trans-European society’. The French politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn hailed the genesis of a united Europe. He predicted in an article in Le Monde ‘On Saturday, February 15, 2003, a nation was born on the streets. This nation is the European nation’. His sentiment was echoed by numerous intellectuals insisted that now was the time to declare Europe’s independence from America.

In 2003, Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida—two of Europe’s most influential left-leaning intellectuals—published a manifesto that argued for Europe to adopt a common foreign policy. The question posed by this manifesto was how to gain popular support for the adoption of a ‘European identity’. It turned out that, despite large-scale demonstrations against American military intervention in Iraq, the people of Europe were not interested in embracing a post-national identity and had little love for the institutions of the EU. Nevertheless, a precedent had been set, and it was only a matter of time before anti-Americanism would be embraced by those looking for popular support for the consolidation of a powerful European identity. In effect, Europe would often define itself by highlighting its difference from the United States.

Anti-Americanism is not merely about Trump

The recent surge in anti-American sentiment is usually interpreted as a reaction to Trump’s aggressive behaviour towards Europe—specifically the threat to annex Greenland, impose tariffs on Europe and downgrade NATO commitments. These policies, and the ‘take it or leave it’ way they were communicated, had the effect of humiliating the EU’s political establishment. However, the current surge of anti-Americanism is not simply a reaction to these policies. As noted previously, the ideology of anti-Americanism has a long history and is deeply rooted within Europe’s elite culture.

Anti-Americanism has never been simply a reaction to an unpopular US president and administration. Anti-Americanism has always directed its animosity at all dimensions of American culture and society. The American sociologist Paul Hollander defined anti-Americanism as a ‘predisposition to hostility toward the United States and American society. He added that it was driven by:

‘a relentless critical impulse toward American social, economic, and political institutions, traditions, and values; it entails an aversion to American culture in particular and its influence abroad, often also contempt for the American national character … and dislike of American people, manners, behavior, dress …; a firm belief in the malignity of American influence and presence anywhere in the world’.

European anti-Americanism is not simply directed at the political regime prevailing in Washington but also at ordinary Americans.

Historically, anti-Americanism emphasised the moral inferiority of American people and their way of life. In effect—though respectable—anti-Americanism is a form of crude prejudice. This point was acknowledged by the British journalist Nick Cohen in his article for The New Statesman titled “Why it is Right to be Anti-American”. Writing in 2002, he observed: “Anti-Americanism is a prejudice, and it remains crass to identify a people with their government. But with no alternative to the present regime in Washington in sight, a depressingly convincing justification for anti-Americanism remains”.

Contemporary commentators are more than willing to embrace anti-American prejudice. Their hostility extends to ordinary American citizens who voted for Donald Trump. That is why old tropes about uneducated and coarse Americans are mobilised to morally condemn a whole society rather than just its political representatives.

It is important to realise that anti-Americanism has little to do with the reality of life in the United States. It is not a reaction to an external threat but a response to problems that are endogenous to Europe. The EU is plagued by this institution’s legitimacy deficit. Despite the best efforts of its proponents, anti-Americanism is unlikely to provide a solution to this problem. European citizens who are hostile to American policies do not necessarily want a more powerful EU. Instead of relying on prejudice and negative emotions, the leaders of the EU will have to find some positive arguments for gaining popular support for a united Europe.

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[i] https://www.euractiv.com/opinion/the-brief-its-not-pro-european-to-be-anti-american/

[ii] https://www.politico.eu/article/winter-olympics-european-pride-boo-jd-vance-kaja-kallas/

[iii] Fabbrini, S. (2002). The domestic sources of European anti-Americanism. Government and Opposition, 37, 3-14.

[iv]

Gulddal, J. (2011) Anti-Americanism in European Literature, Palgrave Macmillan p.20.

[v] Gulddal (2011) p.6.

[vi] See Arendt, H. (1954) ‘Dream and Nightmare’ in Arendt, H. (1994) In Essays in Understanding’ Schocken Books ; New York, p.416.

[vii] Gulddal (2011) p.168.

[viii] Berman, R. (2013) Anti-Americanism in Europe. 1st edn. Hoover Institution Press