Europe and the US: Thanks America, That’ll Be All

31 comments

1. Thank you for Andy Warhol. Thank you for the Big Mac and the iPhone. Thank you, too, for Francis Ford Coppola, for Stanley Kubrick and Quentin Tarantino. Thank you for Angela Davis, Joan Mitchell and Susan Sontag. Thank you for F. Scott Fitzgerald, for Aretha Franklin, Edward Hopper and also for Levi’s 501s. And now: Goodbye.

   Yes, it was a grand American epoch, one that afforded us here in Europe with a hundred years of security, pleasure and stimulation. But every good thing must come to an end. Now, we can finally abandon our meek submission. We no longer have to skittishly acquiesce to each new crazed impulse from the prepotent, red-tied occupants of the White House. We must no longer listen, wide-eyed with horror, as the American vice president terminates our friendship. We don’t have to immediately contract the flu when someone in America coughs. In 1925, one-hundred years ago, the Americans gave us The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos, Hemingway’s first short stories, Josephine Baker’s first dance. America gave the world the first motel and the magazine The New Yorker. And it went on like that for ten decades.

   The spirit of the age found a home in America, and the west wind reliably blew all the benefits and aberrations of capitalism across the Atlantic, every new music style, every new art genre, every new student movement, every new take on the world. But now that lunacy has installed itself in Washington for the next four years, the time has finally come for Europe to once again try its hand at hosting the spirit of the age. After all, that arrangement worked out rather well for the 2000 years before Hemingway and the Big Mac.

   A brief reminder: When the Europeans conquered the American continent in the early 16th century, at a time when coyotes and grizzlies were still bidding each other good night where New York and Los Angeles would later appear – Raphael, Michelangelo and Leonardo were feverishly drawing, painting and building the Medici’s Florence, the spiritual center of the world. And this High Renaissance was itself just a “rebirth” of the venerated advanced civilizations of Greek and Roman antiquity a couple thousand years earlier.

   We have, in other words, a slightly larger slice of the cultural history pie than the North Americans. And yes, it is, in fact, astounding just how fast they were able to catch up in the 19th century and cruise on past in the 20th century – technically, militarily and culturally. But now the time has come to stop obsessing about the humiliations from the New World and reflect on our own roots and strengths here in the Old World.

   Never forget: Coffee existed even before Starbucks. And the computer was invented by Konrad Zuse, not Steve Jobs. The best books by Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Susan Sontag are set in Europe, Andy Warhol’s mother comes from the Carpathians, Bill Gates collects French impressionists, and the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is from Vienna.

   Since World War II, the European – and particularly the German – perception of the U.S. has always been a bit schizophrenic. As deeply objectionable as the McCarthy era, the Vietnam War and the Iraq invasion were, everything cultural and pop-cultural produced by America’s liberal universities, publishing houses, film and record studios was eagerly and reverently snapped by Europeans over the course of several decades. The products from America were usually a bit more original, more fun, more sophisticated – and simply better.

   Now, though, with the administration of Donald Trump, it’s not just American politics that is appalling, more appalling than ever before. Consumerism has also lost its shine, as it, too, seems infected by the Trumpian specter of illiberalism. It is spreading like an infectious disease. Those who use Instagram know that Mark Zuckerberg has kowtowed to Trump, those who order something from Amazon know that Jeff Bezos invited the president to his wedding – and every Tesla driver wants to punch the steering wheel every morning because their erstwhile mobile testament to coolness and climate awareness has suddenly become an enabler for Elon Musk’s chainsaw-wielding fever dream. It seems as if everything American has suddenly lost its innocence. Only the brave, recalcitrant journalists from the New York Times, the New Yorker and the Atlantic have not yet fallen under the broad veil of suspicion.

   Author: Florian Illie, 29. März 2025

2. So long, and thanks for all the films.

3. Spot on. Strike “The New York Times” from the last sentence and you’ve nailed.

4. Who likes Cola anyway. Let us stand. EVROPA INVICTA!

5. I have been longing for this ❣️

   America is the worst possible role model.
   100% corruption and greed.

6. so long, and thanks for all the fish

7. “So this is how the great american century ends, it’s not with a bang or with a whimper, it’s like some kind of tacky roadshow for the World Wrestling Federation.” MP Charlie Angus, March 5th, 2025.

   [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahUMBGaoVLs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahUMBGaoVLs)

8. You’re welcome. Bitte. De nada. Prego. I don’t know the French.

   This is not the end. Hope remains while we draw breath. We will persevere. You will bear witness.

   I am turning 49 this year. I have seen the country lurch forward and now back. Women were given seats of power. Men who loved men were given the right to marry. Women’s health was given, and partially taken. The judiciary, the press, and law came under attack. Some of us elected a petulant orange man-child. Some of us elected a black man. Some of us endorsed genocide. Some of us endorsed peace. Some believed in science, and others chose ignorance. I saw the fall of the USSR, a future without fear of nuclear war, and mourned it’s loss 3 years ago. I’ve seen millions lifted from poverty, and millions starve.

   None of this was expected. The good nor the bad.

   The path is crooked and overgrown, we are unsteady as we tread it, but still we walk it.

   Hope remains as long as there are those to live it.

   So I will thank you for being part of the world, and the shared, imperfect human experience.

9. Bravo!!!

10. At least we dont have to fight and die in America Pacific war 🙂

11. Meh we had a good run, didn’t we? What goes up must come down. This landing is particularly rough. Looking forward to the rise of Europe again. 

12. We were here before their conception, and we will be here long after their downfall.

13. Nice post, but it’s the money that moves the world. There is nothing comparable to Hollywood in the world and so the cultural hegemony of the USA will still be in force.

    When an empire falls, it takes much more than 4 years.

14. Here’s hoping we can fix this, the majority of us are against what’s going on, and the gullable rual voters were lied to. Please keep an eye on the capital tomorrow, we have been planning our largest protest so far.

15. The entire world was shaped by Europe and its ideals. There’s no piece of land on earth without a bit of influence from Roman law or European values wether it is in art, culture or government.

    Europe was always the lighthouse that people looked up to in times of storm and it’s about time it get’s its status back!

16. I was expecting something substantive, but this opinion piece was just “our culture rules, theirs drools”. No economics, no talk of military stuff, nothing. Just, to be honest, egoism.

    Cmon.

17. I used to love the US. I spent years of my life in the US, I almost left my country to live over there. I met great people, saw incredible nature and told my daughters “When you are 21, I’ll take you to New York”

    All this will remind as a fond memory of a past era. A former life I bid farewell. It was great while it lasted, but you’re now a complete derange lunatic I can’t keep in my life.

    Goodbye USA, Goodbye Love.

18. The US does have an incredible capacity to re-invent and re-new itself….but the challenges of the century cannot be solved with hopes and prayers. We really need to get our shit together, not just as Europeans but also as humans.

19. Well honestly europeans have much better quality of life than americans (and live longer). So it is not like the century benefited median american all that much if you exclude the wealthy elite.

20. I feel sick in the pit of my stomach.

21. I think we still need each other but the America that is trustworthy, the America that push science, the America that think through community and diversity.

    There is people over there that need hope that need support.

22. Great reading, thanks for sharing. Honestly i feel proud, i’m sure that our American friends cannot say the same.

23. It will hurt Europe to lose America, but it will hurt America so much more.

    The USD global reserve is likely at death’s door. With it will go American prosperity. BRICS is already working out possible currency standards to break from the dollar and now Trump is trying to use the dollar’s reserve status to strongarm trade. The choice to break from the USA has never been more appealing – and, because Trump decided to slap tariffs on the entire world at the same time – there’s never been a better opportunity to do so.

    If the dollar stops being the global reserve currency, America’s hegemony is officially dead. We have a huge consumer market, but Trump wants a balanced trade deficit so the appeal of delivering goods to that market is diminished twice over – once because of the tariffs and again because Trump is intentionally limiting trade and directly reducing the amount of exposure you can get on the American market.

    He’s banking on the appeal of selling to America to get leverage, but he’s also made the American market far less lucrative and far less predictable, undercutting that leverage.

    The wisest choice for investors right now is to move their money overseas and wait Trump out, and the wisest choice for our trade partners is to coordinate their retaliatory tariffs and yield nothing to Trump’s demands. If he persists, then the wisest decision would be to drop the USD reserve and let America collapse.

    There’s no version of this where Trump picks a fight with the entire planet and wins. He overplayed his hand.

24. In all my 60+ years, I’ve always thought that [non-Soviet block] Europe was 20 years ahead of the US culturally. Now that we’re taking a giant step backwards to make America “Great Again”, it’s looking more like 40 or 50 years.

25. Trump will be gone soon. I hope the US realises the huge mistake they’ve done on November 5th and that this idiot only cares about himself and his ego and not the wellbeing of the American people and much less of their allies and trading partners

26. You know that means Europe has to actually do something about it, something they could have been doing this whole time.

    Don’t get me wrong, I welcome European prosperity, but I’ll wait until I see it.

27. A part for trump and musk, and their idiotic moves, what few people realize is that the American culture is simply not appealing anymore.

    There have been decades where the US produced culture shaping music, movies, books that the western world was eager to consume.

    The next Rocky, Star wars, the next album from Springsteen, these things were all impactful on the imagination of people in Europe and Canada.

    Nowadays I can’t think of anything like that.
    Their movies are bleak, their music is shit, their TV shows look all the same.
    Their cultural influence over the world is finished.

28. By the way:

    The author of the article, Florian Illies, has also written wonderful books, e.g.

    ·        1913: The Year before the Storm

    ·        Love in a Time of Hate: Art and Passion in the Shadow of War, 1929-39

    ·        The Magic of Silence: Caspar David Friedrich’s Journey Through Time

29. Except it won’t “be all”. There’s an awful lot of *talk* about strategic autonomy, but very little actual movement. Everyone gets caught up in the defense spending metrics (percent of GDP) but that is really only a proxy for capabilities, and Europe isn’t even close to having all the defensive capabilities it needs – and there isn’t even a plan put forward publicly, with the funding required, to achieve those required capabilities. I don’t have a problem with Europe deciding to only buy European – but they have to actually *buy*, and there are entire classes of capability that they simply do not have AND do not produce – which means they should have put forward the money and started programs to meet those needs several years ago. The second best time would be *right now*, and they still haven’t done it. Where’s the funding for intel/reconnaissance satellites? Where’s the funding for medium range ground based missiles (similar to GMLRS and ATACMS) and the associated launchers? To name just a couple of things they really need to start doing NOW.

    Not to mention building up capacities that Europe is perfectly capable of providing but isn’t willing to spend the money for. Germany currently has 36 fully operational howitzers. Thirty-fucking-six. That’s 4 to 5 batteries. For the third wealthiest nation in the world.

    Europe needs more air defense, it needs more artillery (everything from mortars to medium range ballistic missiles), it needs more logistics capacity (including strategic and tactical airlift capacity), it needs more armored vehicles, more tanks, and it needs more ISR of pretty much all types.

30. Woha I did not expect the Zeit to pull off the old and nice “When you were fighting grizzlies we had Michelangelo” but they did lol. If I may add: When the British were still figuring out how to get out of the tribe situation we in Rome already had gay bars

31. “But now that lunacy has installed itself in Washington for the next four years, the time has finally come for Europe to once again try its hand at hosting the spirit of the age. After all, that arrangement worked out rather well for the 2000 years before Hemingway and the Big Mac.”

    Yes, lets omit the downfall of empires, the dark ages the colonialism slavery, poverty, aversion to education for fear of heresy, the inquisition, the corruption, the revolutions, the genocides and all that… i mean how bad can it really be when I’m drinking my tea on my sofa in a warm house, right? Its not like I’m dead… like the others who in fact HAVE BEEN KILLED, or tortured, deported, castrated, shamed, mutilated. Sometimes on a whim. Sometimes for the “greater good”. After all we have those grandiose buildings and achievements. So who cares about a couple of thousand dead, when you get millions of Euros nowadays from tourism!

    Maybe, just maybe the one thing that European culture was better at than American was humility. But maybe that was also only under the surface, as companies and governments have been still continuing shady practices with corrupt government officials, and ensuring that those officials would serve them for some time more… But it sounds so much less threatening when Ursula v.d. Leyen speaks of common good and chances and understanding and harmony. And maybe she really believes in that. But her term will end some day. And the next at least partly fascist, corrupt, cynical dude will come up and revert everything positive. We are not immune. And our species will never be.

    And i would bet money that the next thing on the agenda is to loosen regulations and follow in the footsteps of the US: Deregulate, dehumanise, away with human rights, f**k the poor, f**k migrants (not all, obviously..) let them fight each other: “bread or dignity! You can’t have both, you greedy filth!”

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