“There is no room for firewalls…If you are running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you,” #JDVance said.
#Germany’s political class, including #conservative #Christian Democrats who lead the polls…,has largely adopted more restrictive measures on migration…,following the #AfD. But they distinguish the AfD itself as extreme, because of some of its members’ history of use of #Nazi language & #antisemitic & #racist comments,along w/plots to overthrow the federal govt.
…#JDVance also barely mentioned #Ukraine, even after meeting with its president, Volodymyr #Zelensky, earlier in the day. Last year at this conference, Vance, then a US senator, notably refused to meet with Zelensky.
Vance’s only references to the Ukraine conflict came in passing, disappointing attendees who had hoped to learn more about the #Trump admin’s plans for peace negotiations.
“While the #Trump administration is very concerned with European #security & believes that we can come to a reasonable settlement between #Russia & #Ukraine, & we also believe that it’s important in the coming years for #Europe to step up in a big way to provide for its own #defense, the threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not #China, it’s not any other external actor,” #JDVance said.
#appeasement #USpol #geopolitics #munich #FarRight #extremism
“What I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of #Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America.”
#JDVance suggested that European efforts to counter #election #influence campaigns by #Russia were instead suppressing legitimate speech, at one point obliquely comparing some of the continent’s current leaders to the former Soviet bloc.
#appeasement #USpol #geopolitics #munich #FarRight #extremism
#JDVance poured scorn on the decision in “remote Romania,” as he called it, to cancel a presidential election because of clear evidence of #Russia manipulation of the political campaign.
“If your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with,” he said.
[WTF asshat]
#WhiteSupremacy #MaleSupremacy #WhiteChristianNationalism #appeasement #USpol #geopolitics #munich #FarRight #extremism
#JDVance also decried the mass migration into #Germany & #Europe in 2015, tying it to #terrorist crimes, including a car attack in Munich on Thursday by an Afghan #asylum seeker, which injured 30 people.
“Over the span of a decade, we saw the horrors wrought by these decisions yesterday in this very city,” he said.
#immigration #nationalism #WhiteSupremacy #MaleSupremacy #evangelism #heterosexism #WhiteChristianNationalism #appeasement #USpol #geopolitics #munich #FarRight #extremism
#Germany’s defense minister, #BorisPistorius, is offering a robust & somewhat spontaneous rebuke of #JDVance’s earlier speech — particularly his suggestion that #Europe is akin to an #authoritarian regime. “This is not acceptable,” he said, to widespread applause. “This is not the Europe, not the #democracy, where I live.”
#USpol #diplomacy #appeasement #FarRight #extremism
#geopolitics #munich
Sen #SheldonWhitehouse (D-RI) told the audience at the #security conference that there was a “bipartisan reservoir of determination” in the #Senate behind an effort to stop the #war: “For the Senate, there is a strong majority, supermajority, in favor of supporting #Ukraine, seeing this through & making sure that this does not come off as a win for #Putin & embolden him further.”
[good luck with that. #Trump doesn’t give a damn what the Senate thinks.]
But wait there’s more
#JDVance meets w/leader of #FarRight #Germany party, exports #MAGA
The VP gave a scolding speech advocating that Europe’s centrist old-guard politicians move over to accommodate the rising anti-migration, #nationalist voices they have at times sought to block from power.
The meeting w/ #AliceWeidel, head of the anti-#immigration, nationalist Alternative for Germany #AfD party, was a major step for her movement….
#geopolitics #WhiteNationalism
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/02/14/vance-munich-europe-security-ukraine/
#JDVance is the most senior US official ever to meet with a leader from the party. He also met in recent days w/the leaders of #Germany’s 2 other major parties, which are locked in competition ahead of Feb 23 elections, in which the Alternative for Germany #AfD party might break through a post-World War II taboo & join a ruling coalition for the first time.
In his speech, Vance fully waded into #nationalist politics….
#geopolitics #USpol #WhiteSupremacy #WhiteChristianNationalism #hate
“No voter on this continent went to the ballot box to open the floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants,” #JDVance said. “But you know what they did vote for? In England, they voted for Brexit. And agree or disagree, they voted for it. And more & more all over Europe, they’re voting for political leaders who promise to put an end to out-of-control migration.”
#geopolitics #USpol #WhiteSupremacy #WhiteChristianNationalism #hate