MEGA, MAGA, GAGA?
Blog, 30/01/2025, by Sven Franck (en français , in Deutsch)
Find the connection: last year Italy sold its Telecom infrastructure backbone TIM to US based investor KKR. We can also watch in slow-motion how Elon Musk provides an exclusive platform to Germany's far right AfD. It’s becoming obvious: The new America is out to plunder our industries and sabotage our democracies. Under Trump, the US is no longer an ally in every sense of the way and we should not be afraid to say so. Because the more our governments and the European Commission kowtow to US business interests instead of EU citizens', the more they side with the extreme right, that want to make Europe as great as America. How great is that actually?
This is America!
With America turning inwards and its back towards Europe, we are left with the downsides of our transatlantic partnership: Should our societies tolerate "Free action" just as we should tolerate "Free speech"? Why should social media bot-armies have "Free speech" anyway? Why should there be online anonymity for hate crimes? Why does social media swamp accounts of our children with violence, hate and extreme-right propaganda? Can it be worse?
Yes, it can! Think about the endless lines of Starbucks, Burger King, Domino's and Subways in our cities. America brought us fast-food and it is making us just as sick. Watch "Supersize Me" to see what happens when you supposedly eat McDonalds for 30 days straight. The US has a real cost on your health and on our health care systems. Just imagine how much lower your annual health insurance fee increase would be if there was less “American way of life” in Europe.
Speaking of health. We have health insurance in Europe. If you get sick in America, many have to turn to GoFundMe. There is no political willingness to provide a safety net, which means collecting donations or facing death. Plus, it's an unregulated market so a treatment for 50€ in Europe may well cost you 50.000$ in the US. The US Olympic team in Paris was so amazed that there was free health care in the Olympic village, they all went to the dentist - because it's unaffordable in America. Do we want American healthcare here in Europe? I assume not.
Extremely GAGA?
From Meloni to Zemmour and Chrupalla, the EU extreme-right attended and celebrated Trump's inauguration. How can MEP Sarah Knafo, be put in charge of the European Parliament's report on digital sovereignty and at the same time participate in Donald Trump's inauguration? If she and Meloni cuddle with US Techbros who want to turn Europe into an American after-sales service for cloud and social media providers, selling off our personal data and critical assets to US capitalism, can we really expect anything from anyone extreme-right that is in the interest of the European people?
One could even argue that the whole "immigration-is-bad" story also was made up to weaken our economies. Europe’s history and wealth is one of immigration. Period. Yet we are made to believe, if we just make enough babies, restaurants won’t have to close, industries will have all the quality staff they need and there will be a German dentist in the furthest corner of eastern Germany. Let’s not be afraid to call bull”§$* on the extreme-right and the American interests they are pushing.
We also must act, because there is a vacuum of what constitutes our European identity. National parties shied away too long to give the EU time in the spotlight, so there is no real definition of “European way of life”. Yes, we are "United in Diversity", but that's about it. We must not expect Meloni & co to be sleeping at the wheel. The extreme right is not blind and sees protests across Central Europe - from Georgia to Serbia and now Slovakia. The more people defend the European idea or want to join it, the more they will push to establish an extreme-right version of the European Union.
From healthy food to health insurance, let's double down on: “Europe has always been great”. We don’t need MEGA and it’s time for us to call out the American way of life and the extreme right supporting it, because they would sell us and our economies in the blink of a second, if it put them into power to take our democracies apart.