"There is no room for firewalls": U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance denounces the closed and exclusionary European political elite to their faces

On Friday, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance gave a devastating speech to the Munich Security Conference, putting Europe in general and Germany in particular on notice that the guarantor of our security – the American Empire – expects their Continental protectorates to return to a more open and less authoritarian political style.

To an audience that hoped to God he would just talk about Ukraine and the great threat Vladimir Putin poses to European liberal democracy, Vance said that the real danger is neither Russia nor China. The real danger comes from within, from a political elite that is increasingly arrayed against the “fundamental values” our leaders claim to share with United States:

We gather at this conference … to discuss security. And normally we mean threats to our external security. I see many, many great military leaders gathered here today. But while the Trump administration is very concerned with European security and believes that we can come to a reasonable settlement between Russia and Ukraine … the threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor. 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.

He suggested that the U.S. has no interest in providing security to a closed, authoritarian Continental political class:

I was struck that a former European commissioner went on television recently and sounded delighted that the Romanian government had just annulled an entire election. He warned that if things don’t go to plan, the very same thing could happen in Germany too. Now, these cavalier statements are shocking to American ears. For years we’ve been told that everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values. Everything from our Ukraine policy to digital censorship is billed as a defence of democracy. But when we see European courts cancelling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we’re holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard. And I say ourselves, because I fundamentally believe that we are on the same team.

He complained about Interior Minister Nancy Faeser’s campaigns against internet discourse, deploring specifically that German police “have carried out raids against citizens suspected of posting anti-feminist comments online as part of ‘combating misogyny’ on the internet.” He did not spare his own country, and made it clear that he believes the impetus for these authoritarian attitudes also owes something to the American progressive establishment, against which his administration is presently waging full-scale war:

Free speech, I fear, is in retreat and in the interests of comity, my friends, but also in the interest of truth, I will admit that sometimes the loudest voices for censorship have come not from within Europe, but from within my own country, where the prior administration threatened and bullied social media companies to censor so-called misinformation. Misinformation, like, for example, the idea that coronavirus had likely leaked from a laboratory in China. Our own government encouraged private companies to silence people who dared to utter what turned out to be an obvious truth.

He said he came to Munich not merely to criticise, but to make “an offer,” namely that politicians on both of our continents can “work together” on reversing the political repressions of “the Biden administration,” which “seemed desperate to silence people for speaking their minds.”

In Washington, there is a new sheriff in town. And under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer them in the public square. Now, we’re at the point … that the situation has gotten so bad that this December, Romania straight up cancelled the results of a presidential election based on the flimsy suspicions of an intelligence agency and enormous pressure from its continental neighbours. Now, as I understand it, the argument was that Russian disinformation had infected the Romanian elections. But I’d ask my European friends to have some perspective: You can believe it’s wrong for Russia to buy social media advertisements to influence your elections. We certainly do. You can condemn it on the world stage, even. But 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.

Sparing nobody – not even his hosts – Vance deplored the fact that the organisers of the Munich Security Conference had “banned lawmakers representing populist parties … from participating in these conversations.”

… [T]o many of us on the other side of the Atlantic, it looks more and more like old entrenched interests hiding behind ugly Soviet era words like misinformation and disinformation, who simply don’t like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion or, God forbid, vote a different way, or even worse, win an election.

He asked the auditorium brimming with authoritarian and provincial Eurocrats what they even thought they were defending: “What is the positive vision that animates this shared security compact that we all believe is so important?” He emphasised again that the Trump administration has no interest in funding the defence of a postliberal Europe:

I believe deeply that there is no security if you are afraid of the voices, the opinions and the conscience that guide your very own people. Europe faces many challenges. But the crisis this continent faces right now, the crisis I believe we all face together, is one of our own making. If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you. Nor for that matter, is there anything that you can do for the American people who elected me and elected President Trump. You need democratic mandates to accomplish anything of value in the coming years.

And then he talked about the most central issue in European politics right now, putting his hand directly in the gaping wound just days after the Munich attack that has now claimed two lives, and one week before the German elections:

… [O]f all the pressing challenges that the nations represented here face, I believe there is nothing more urgent than mass migration. Today, almost one in five people living in this country moved here from abroad. That is, of course, an all time high. It’s a similar number, by the way, in the United States, also an all time high. The number of immigrants who entered the EU from non-EU countries doubled between 2021 and 2022 alone. And of course, it’s gotten much higher since.

And we know the situation. It didn’t materialise in a vacuum. It’s the result of a series of conscious decisions made by politicians all over the Continent, and others across the world, over the span of a decade. We saw the horrors wrought by these decisions yesterday in this very city …

… No voter on this continent went to the ballot box to open the floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants. But you know what they did vote for? In England, they voted for Brexit. And agree or disagree, they voted for it. And more and more all over Europe, they are voting for political leaders who promise to put an end to out-of-control migration.

Vance said all of that, and yet the climax was still to come. In his final lines, he returned to the problem of “dismissing people, dismissing their concerns or … shutting people out of the political process,” which he said “protects nothing” but is also “the most surefire way to destroy democracy.” He noted that “Speaking up and expressing opinions isn’t election interference,” even when the people speaking are “outside your own country.” In a humorous jab that fell like lead on a stunned and enraged room, he said that “if American democracy can survive ten years of Greta Thunberg’s scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk.”

And then the bastard said it, the madman went all the way:

Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters. There is no room for firewalls. You either uphold the principle or you don’t. Europeans: The people have a voice. European leaders have a choice … Embrace what your people tell you, even when it’s surprising, even when you don’t agree. And if you do so, you can face the future with certainty and with confidence, knowing that the nation stands behind each of you.

Precisely at that first sentence in my quotation, the camera cut to Bavarian Minister President Markus Söder in the audience, laughing and rolling his eyes:

Musk’s advocacy on behalf of Alternative für Deutschland in January at least left some room for doubt as to whether his were personal views or whether they reflected the position of the Trump administration. Vance’s speech has now provided clarity, and confirmed our rulers’ worst fears. It is not only the AfD and 20% of Germans who find themselves behind the firewall now. The Trump administration have joined them, and we can begin to ask who is really walled out and who is really walled in. Vance told his listeners not to be afraid, he wished them “good luck” and he left the stage, having just thrown a live hand grenade into the thicket of the post-Merkel political landscape of the Federal Republic.

In the audience, some noticed the presence of Richard Grenell, the man who served as German ambassador during Trump’s first administration and who is presently the president’s “envoy for special missions.” In 2018, Grenell provoked a minor controversy when he told Breitbart London of his ambition “to empower other conservatives throughout Europe, other leaders.” He spoke in the aftermath of the 2015 migrant crisis and during the rise of populist European parties like the AfD, and there was no mistaking what he meant. Vance’s speech was a message to the entire Eurocracy that Trump has not forgotten his old ambitions, and that he still hopes to open a path in Europe for populist politics. I honestly don’t know why he wants to do this, but apparently he does, and if he is serious the coming years are going to be crazy.

Vance’s words fell so far beyond the window of acceptable German political discourse that our rulers have had trouble finding a coherent response to them or even grasping their meaning. German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) took the podium after Vance and sputtered in outrage:

The US Vice President earlier called democracy into question for the whole of Europe … If I understood him correctly, he compared conditions in parts of Europe with those in authoritarian regimes … This is not acceptable and this is not the Europe and not the democracy in which I live and for which I am currently campaigning.

Green Party Chancellor candidate Robert Habeck appeared even more deranged. “What Vance said yesterday is none of his business,” he told ntv and RTL the next day. “You have to be clear about that.” He added, addressing the United States: “It’s just none of your business. Mind your own business, there are enough problems in the USA.” American political discourse is attended by a much harsher rhetoric than in Germany. Habeck’s sharp, dismissive words were shocking, especially coming as they do from a sitting Vice Chancellor. It’s like the man has been driven to the edges of sanity. Certainly he lacks all self-awareness. We are talking about a man who not-so-subtly endorsed Joe Biden during the 2024 election campaign and whose party is happy to lecture the entire world on carbon emissions and liberal democratic values at every opportunity.

Chancellor (and Chancellor candidate) Olaf Scholz meanwhile chose to deliver yet another lecture about the Holocaust, this time to an American head of state whose country helped defeat the National Socialists:

A commitment to “never again,” as Vance earlier made when visiting the Dachau concentration camp memorial, could not be reconciled with support for the AfD, Scholz said: “That is why we will not accept outsiders interfering in our democracy, in our elections, in the democratic opinion-forming process in favour of [the AfD].” “This is not appropriate, especially not among friends and allies, and we firmly reject it.” The Chancellor added: “We ourselves decide how our democracy will progress.”

The hypocrisy is again just blinding, since Scholz himself – as German Chancellor, no less – called Kamala Harris “competent and experienced” and openly hoped for her victory last year.

Not to be outdone, CDU Chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz had his own whining to do. “It is almost an overbearing way of dealing with the Europeans, especially with us Germans … We have a different opinion and I made that very clear to him at midday today in our conversation …”

Make no mistake: The stubborn resolve and the hard words are an act for the cameras. Vance has put the fear of God into the German establishment. Some conference attendees tried to maintain a brave optimism before the press:

There were people among the visitors to the security conference these days who tried to take all the madness with humour. “They should all go to therapy,” one diplomat said, and it was clear that he … meant the trio Trump, Hegseth and Vance.

There were also people who tried to find a ray of light in the darkness. “So far, the US has not questioned the most important core of the [NATO] alliance – the nuclear shield over Europe,” a senior NATO official in Munich said. “As long as that remains the case, we can cope with what is happening in Washington.” An EU colleague added: “I’d rather have Vance talking about this culture-war censorship stuff than about the withdrawal of US troops from Europe.”

The fear ahead of Vance’s speech was precisely that he would announce a 20% draw-down of American troops in Europe, and perhaps also reiterate Trump’s earlier demands for increased military spending – not only at 2% of GDP, but at 5%. Instead, Vance appeared to issue an ultimatum: No more firewalls, no more censorship, no more political repression, if you want to enjoy American support.

In the article linked above, which is well-sourced to German diplomats, we also read this:

Vance linked transatlantic security to the right-wing populist values of the new US administration. According to the Vice President, the suppression of freedom of expression, disguised as the fight against disinformation, is more dangerous than the threats posed by Russia and China. Then he continued. “What is the positive vision that animates this shared security compact that we all believe is so important? I believe deeply that there is no security if you are afraid of the voices, the opinions and the conscience that guide your very own people.” This was new. If America were to tie future transatlantic security cooperation to Europe’s right-wing populists and extremists, to lies and agitation being given free rein, it would have dramatic consequences for the allies on this side of the Atlantic.

Vance’s speech was immensely cathartic, particularly for someone like me who has been shouting many of the arguments he voiced into the void for years. He spoke his words to an insular, self-satisfied political class who have never had to listen to anything like that before, and who are also accustomed to writing off criticisms like his as the concoctions of Russian bots and biased social media algorithms. Vance, being neither a Russian bot nor an algorithm, cannot be so easily dismissed. That in itself is a big deal.

It’s always dangerous to pick moments from the cacophony of current events and assign them historical significance, but if any singular speech is likely to signal the end of the present political insanity in Europe, it is the one Vance gave in Munich on Friday.

---

I want to conclude with some thoughts about the strategy of the Trump administration here. You expect me to be a realist and to tell the truth, and so I must say that I hope Vance had no illusions his words would soften the firewall against the AfD, because if anything they have had the opposite effect. As I noted, the CDU responded to his words with offended condemnation. In public anyway, the firewall is stronger than before – propped up on the one hand by a desperate CDU seeking cover from press attacks after they voted twice with the AfD at the end of January, and on the other hand stabilised by a fresh round of hypocritical outrage at American ElEcTiOn InTeRfErEnCE.

One possibility is that Vance, like many statesmen appearing before foreign audiences, intended his words primarily for supporters in America. In this scenario, his actual strategy with respect to Germany – whatever that might be – will have played out behind closed doors, in private meetings with Friedrich Merz and Alice Weidel. While I was arguing with angry MAGA Americans on X about this point, J.D. Vance himself appeared in my replies, emphasising again “that many of these censorious impulses derive from bad American leadership” which “has now changed.” He also wrote that “reminding both our American and European friends that we have an admin biased towards open debate and expression was worth the effort.”

Having a foreign head of state respond directly to your questions on social media ranks among my more surreal experiences. Until now, the only thing politicians beyond the AfD have ever done is block me. I’ve had to think about Vance’s reply for a few days, and this is my conclusion: Had he just said “European friends,” I would understand him to mean that he was addressing America’s European allies. The reference to “American and European friends” is altogether more interesting, and suggests he aimed his speech at populist supporters in America and at potential populist allies on the Continent. He was speaking over the heads of the Eurocrats at the Munich Security Conference, to the rabble they fear beyond them. el gato malo offered a similar reading of Vance’s tweet on Saturday.

I sometimes worry that the Americans in general – not just Vance – underestimate the power of the tabu presently resting upon the AfD. By calling for an end to the firewall, Vance drove a vast wedge between himself and the centre-right Union parties of Germany. Like it or not (and I certainly don’t like it), these parties are presently the gatekeepers for anti-migration policy and the AfD both. Vance’s appeal made it effectively impossible for the CDU and the CSU to endorse his speech or align themselves with his anti-migration message. He pushed them in the opposite direction. Now that may have been precisely his intent, for what reason I can only imagine. It’s also possible that he doesn’t care, because he was serious about his threats to use NATO leverage to force change regardless.

I’ll also note that Vance has a remarkably more optimistic view of the present German political landscape than I do. In a post-speech interview with the Wall Street Journal, he said this:

President Trump’s attitude is we want to work with whoever ultimately wins these elections, right? If Chancellor Scholz wins, if it’s the CDU leader Merz, or if it’s the AfD leadership, and those seem to be the three big tickets in town, we want to work with any of them.

Like many Americans accustomed to a different political system, Vance speaks imprecisely of a winning party, so we have to interpret his statement with some freedom. I take that bolded bit to mean that the Trump administration thinks that the next German government will contain some combination of the CDU, the SPD and the AfD. That means, practically speaking, either a CDU/SPD coalition or a CDU/AfD coalition. You’ll note that he does not mention the Greens at all; the Americans would seem to have written them off. That is also interesting, because the latest polling suggests that a CDU/SPD/Green government is the most plausible outcome if the firewall holds.

Vance continues:

[W]e’re not going to endorse in their elections, we certainly don’t want to meddle in their elections. But do we think that European leaders can sort of say, “Here is a group of opinions that are completely anathema to democratic debate?” No, you can’t do that, because the people who decide whether a particular opinion should be part of the democratic debate is the people.

And if the people keep on saying we’re pissed off about something, we’re frustrated about something, you can’t say we’re going to ban, censor, silence this group of people. You have to listen to them, even if they’re a minority.

I mean … sometimes … in European elections … you have migration skeptic parties who win a plurality of the votes, but then have no presence in the government. It’s crazy that people are crying out, I think, for a particular response to what’s going on in Europe over the past 10 years, and I just think that European leaders have to be more responsive to that.

That is defense of democracy. It’s listening to the people. It’s not hanging your hat on these institutions that are very valuable, in some cases, but are often disconnected from the will of the people.

“The group of opinions that are completely anathema to democratic debate,” the people “you have to listen to … even if they’re a minority,” the “people crying out … for a particular response” – these are all references to AfD and their supporters. Including these people, more than military support for Ukraine, more than policing Russian disinformation bots on the internet, “is defense of democracy.” If German elites really want to defend their democratic institutions, they have to end their exclusionary tactics and extend representation to the opposition.

I would say that a coalition between the CDU and the AfD is at this point a near-impossibility, but Vance does not think so. Perhaps he knows more than I do.