WHO IS EUROPEAN?

It is a happy thing for all of us that, the worse our rightists get, the more incapable they are of building bridges or looking ahead. Their chosen victims of the moment, Muslims and Latinos, are very plentiful here now; and they will be more so, as they tend to have large families. And, especially if you keep kicking them as rightists do, they will come out and vote.

Nativism is a rightist staple, however it is rationalized. And as you may have noticed, the righties have taken to describing liberalism as not only "socialist" but "European", which is more nativism and is also inaccurate.

There is nothing very socialist about Europe today. And it is not a case of our liberals being European in outlook; our greatest ideals - equality, freedom, and democracy - have resounded among Europeans because those ideals have universal appeal and because of our national influence. Previously that sometimes took the form of socialism there, but today they are pretty much off of that. And our liberals have always believed that individuals should be permitted to rise above the wealth and status of most, with the proviso that they may not impoverish or oppress others.

Europeans have become increasingly American in outlook and ways, rather than the reverse. Why must the righties get everything wrong?

As you may have seen, Mark Williams, the chairman of the Tea Party Express, is stepping down; he says it is because he is busy, and maybe it is. But even a shameless group can be embarrassed. This man is bent on marginalizing Muslims. He is crusading against the plan to build a mosque near Ground Zero in New York. He says our president is "an Indonesian Muslim."

What is unAmerican and is European in the very worst sense is hatred and persecution of those who are different. Making some Americans into second- or third-class citizens is much nearer the vision of Hitler, which grew out of old resentments and snobberies, than that of the Founding Fathers, which grew out of high and universalist hopes. And the use of malicious lies for advantage is the very essence of Goebbels-type propaganda - as in "socialist," "European," "Indonesian Muslim" and all that.

Mark Williams is not an American, no matter where he was born.

Today's Americans can live and work well with the new Europeans. Our ideas and institutions can cross-pollinate with theirs, to the benefit of everyone.

We and Europeans have rejected traditionalist elitism and rightist populism. While it is true that some people everywhere are just no damn good, those people are defined not by race or culture or religion but by how they think and what they want and what they do to others. If people like that don't like it here, it isn't because we're European; it's because they are, and in a way that the overwhelming majority of Europeans would repudiate.