“In short,” writes David Brooks, “the United States will never be Europe. It was born as a commercial republic. It’s addicted to the pace of commercial enterprise. After periodic pauses, the country inevitably returns to its elemental nature.”
And it’s true, the United States will never be Europe. Among other things, I find it doubtful that we’re going to build any Gothic cathedrals or Versailles-style palaces over here. But at the same time, before the United States was born as a commercial republic, the Netherlands (pictured above) was a commercial republic. For that matter, Venice was a commercial republic even before that. These days, the Netherlands is a constitutional monarchy. But it’s still pretty commercial in nature. Which doesn’t stop the Netherlands from having universal health care, a robust public transit network, and relatively strong labor unions. For that matter, I don’t think anyone could deny that Dutch-derived New York City has a pretty commercial nature. And yet New York has a “European-style” brand of walkable urbanism, relatively strong labor unions, and if federal policy where made by New York’s elected officials you can bet we’d have universal health care.
Now I doubt Brooks would deny any of that. But the point is that “Europe” is a very strange and shifting signifier in the discourse of the American right.
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