David Harsanyi: Why America Must Reject 'Eurotrash' Ideas
The National Review staffer's new book is a spirited defense of capitalism, individualism, and free speech.
"About three times as many Europeans leave their homelands and immigrate to the United States every year as the other way around," reports David Harsanyi. Yet "a growing number of American elites—politicians, academics, pundits, journalists, among others—argue, with increasing popularity, that we should look across the Atlantic for solutions to our most pressing problems." Figures such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) and Nobel laureate and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman want us to follow Europe's lead when it comes to healthcare, government spending, tax policy, business regulations, and restrictions on free speech.
In Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent, Harsanyi, a syndicated columnist and senior writer at National Review, documents how the United States is doing far better across a wide array of economic, cultural, and political indicators than Europe. It's a powerful argument that is as nuanced as it is polemical. For instance, he notes that Scandinavian countries are hardly as socialist as their American champions and critics both claim. He also notes that many nationalist conservatives seem hellbent on importing a loathsome blood-and-soil populism from Hungary and other European countries.
I talk with Harsanyi about all that and how his career—which includes stints at The Denver Post, Glenn Beck's The Blaze, and The Federalist—reflect massive changes in the media landscape and what it means to be on the political right (he considers himself a conservative with some libertarian leanings). Born in 1970 and raised in Queens and Long Island by Hungarian refugees from communism, he remains deeply critical of many of former President Donald Trump's protectionist policies while also freaked out by President Joe Biden's massive government spending.
