Below is my column in The Hill on the recent appearance of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) in Munich. They found the perfect audience for pledging to reverse many current policies and re-embrace a high-taxation, high-regulation platform. The Europeans were giddy with excitement as they doubled down on policies that have stagnated many of their economies.
Here is the column:
This week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) joined the many Californians now seeking their fortune elsewhere. The difference is that Newsom is planning to come back to California, even as billionaires, investors, and companies flee his state for greener pastures.
Newsom and Democrats such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) were selling a brave new world that looked a lot like the broken old world. It was an ironic moment. They were addressing countries at the Munich Security Conference that had previously destroyed their economies through socialist and far-left policies.
The rush of liberal Democratic officeholders to Europe was telling. A new poll shows that a record 58 percent of voters believe their party is “too liberal.” But Newsom and Ocasio-Cortez found a welcoming audience in Europe.
The global elite gushed over Ocasio-Cortez and sat enraptured as she rattled off socialist platitudes. That included New York Times correspondent Katrin Bennhold, who thrilled the audience by treating it as a given that Ocasio-Cortez will run for president.
Both Newsom and Ocasio-Cortez spoke of returning the U.S. to the good graces of the global elite. Newsom assured the Europeans that Trump’s reign is temporary, and that the U.S. will soon enough dismantle the “wrecking ball” that the administration has taken to the EU.
Newsom offered his leadership and his state as the model, proclaiming that “California is a stable and reliable partner” for Europe. The model includes high taxes, massive spending programs and greater bureaucratic regulations — precisely the policies that have driven the European economy into its current stagnation. In other words, Democrats were in Europe to offer precisely what Newsom outwardly condemned: “doubling down on stupid.”
When not fumbling with security questions about issues such as Taiwan, Ocasio-Cortez was demanding that wealth taxes be implemented in the U.S. “expeditiously.” Such a tax on billionaires’ wealth, including unrealized gains, is currently being pushed in California. The predictable result is that billionaires and other wealthy citizens are rushing to leave the state and taking their investments and companies with them.
Ocasio-Cortez had the audience at hello.
Rather than having Vice President J.D. Vance shaming them for their attacks on free speech, the Europeans positively gushed over Democratic leaders pushing far-left agendas. It did not matter that such policies devastated European economies in the 20th century.
In my book “Rage and the Republic,” I discuss the rise of support for socialism in both the U.S. and Europe. Many of those supporting it are young voters with no memory of the collapse of socialist economies in the 20th Century. In 1977, Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan pursued many of the same socialist policies, leading to what was called the “winter of discontent” as inflation hit 25 percent. With the collapse of the British pound, the United Kingdom had to take the demoralizing step of securing a loan from the International Monetary Fund, as if it were a developing country.
In France, François Mitterrand was also elected to pursue his “rupture with capitalism.” The French economy collapsed; Mitterrand quickly had to reverse himself and restore capitalist policies.
That history is rarely discussed or taught today. The “warmth of collectivism,” as New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani put it, is back in vogue. It does not matter that, in Argentina, President Javier Milei is achieving one of the most impressive economic turnarounds in history — dramatically curtailing runaway inflation, government deficits and poverty — by reinstating free-market policies and reducing government spending.
What is chilling about Europe is that the EU has strangled growth with its increasingly centralized controls and massive bureaucracy. My book describes the instability of the EU and its global governance model. Europe is facing populist movements and, like many Democrats, the response has been calls for further consolidation of power. This included the creation of a new, uniform European corporate law, known as the “28th Regime.”
With an economy crushed by a massive EU bureaucracy and regulations, the solution of many is all too familiar: borrow more money. French President Emmanuel Macron and others want to issue “Euro bonds” to spend their way into an economic recovery — another policy ideal shared with many on the American left.
This week was only the latest effort of the American left to strengthen an alliance with the EU. Previously, American leaders such as Hillary Clinton pushed the EU to censor Americans online after free speech protections were restored by companies like Twitter. Likewise, the American left is enamored with the EU’s global bureaucracy and regulations.
Newsom and Ocasio-Cortez certainly found their element in Munich, and the EU certainly found the “reliable partners” it has longed for in creating “a new World Order with European Values.”
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
“This included the creation of a new, uniform European corporate law, known as the “28th Regime.””
Yes, and the DNC is part of that group whole hog. Anyone that thinks AOC doesn’t stand a chance woefully underestimates the foolishness of a great many; Mamdani is a warning signal, as was Kamala. And AOC is and would be simply a puppet for the regime.
It is really high time we get very clear about what is wheat and what is chaff. The covid response and Biden years were a preview and simply the tip of the iceberg, and a free world is what is on the line. We’ve been here enough in history to not let it so blindly happen again; today that would be sheer, lazy, stupidity.
So lately the trend on the left is to say they should dial back the woke rhetoric if they want to win elections.
THEY ARE LYING TO YOU. As soon as they regain power the border will be open again and operations to remove the sex organs of children will be once again the be the special of the day at the top of the menu.
You’ll eat it and you better like it or else. If you’re an independent voter and you cast your vote for people who are hiding their real agenda then you are indeed doubling down on stupid.
Doctor, my eyes have seen the years
And the slow parade of fears, without crying
Now I want to understand
I have done all that I could
To see the evil and the good without hidin’
You must help me if you can.
@Thinkitthrough
Precisely.
Thanks James. There are people in this nation who turn their eyes away and cavalierly say I don’t pay attention to the politics. The head in the sand days need to be over.
So, takes sides, start a fight, then a civil war and may the best tribe win. Great plan. Whew …
“So, takes sides, start a fight, then a civil war and may the best tribe win. ”
When one faction has removed all legitimate non-violent alternatives for reform from possibility, the remaining options may be reduced to complete acquiescence to evil, or what you postulated. Speaking for myself, these old knees are much too stiff to bend either one…
@Thinkitthrough
You nailed it. 👍🏼
warped nonsense pal.
He’s right, they/them. Democrats have been obstructing federal immigration law to the point of rioting. That tells me no matter what Democrats say, they’ll tear down the border. They want to do the same thing to election integrity. 49% of the country is as crazy as you are. Not good.
. Dio, who is pulling the strings? Or by whom 😏
One comment only — what is wrong with the American people?! Are they blind, stupid, and unconscious? Any citizen that thinks the Dems want won’t [ass the Save Act, is because they actually care about voting integrity, are again, ‘blind, stupid and conscious’! God help our republic!
Okay one more comment — let’s see if Congress can pass a NO INSIDER TRADING Bill!!! Now that will be amazing!!!!
So many are blind, stupid, and unconscious because the MSM see it as their “journalistic” mission to make them that way and keep them that way.
You forgot intellectually lazy,
That’s real intellectual of you ms adams.
That’s real un-intellectual of you Mr. poopy pants
We’re like mushrooms. They keep us in the dark and feed us manure. Just trying to be civilized.
“So many are blind, stupid, and unconscious because the MSM see it as their “journalistic” mission to make them that way and keep them that way.”
The MSM may *keep* them that way, but they were *made* that way primarily by the public education system and the teachers’ unions.
Education matters. But root causes tend to have broad leverage across a system.
If we reformed public education tomorrow, which of the recurring problems we debate here would meaningfully improve, and which would remain?
If fiscal instability, media polarization, institutional distrust, and cultural fragmentation persist, then perhaps education is an important internal process, but not the root variable.
. What is government doing in the economic system? The government selected Capitalism?
Gates at 200 billion after the split. What number of Americans does he employ? How many purchase his product? What has he done for the American worker? He’s leaving his money to the nations in Africa? Does he exploit foreign workers? Perhaps he should pay the far more now and then leave 25 billion to Africa? Is Gates a fascist? I’m not aware he’s in politics.
Does the government control the economy? The political system is failing?
I just don’t understand you, Olly. I’m not buying your book unless it’s 1.98. I’m frugal. The fleecing of America. I won’t give anyone grand labels like socialism or communism, just looters, burglars, robbers who’ll break your legs as a thank you.
Be more concrete.
Buy the book or do not. That is not the point.
If someone thinks the premise is unclear or incomplete, the only fair way to evaluate it is to engage the full argument rather than a compressed comment version of it. A blog thread cannot carry the architecture of a multi-year design project.
If you want something more concrete, that is exactly what I am building. It is in the structural phase. I am designing the measurement framework before prescribing processes. That is deliberate.
This is not a one bill solution. It is an architecture problem.
It should embarrass every American that AOC was elected by any group in America to represent them at any level.
And reelected 3 more times!
The real question is not whether Newsom or AOC play well in Munich.
The question is this: Are we intentionally forming citizens capable of sustaining our constitutional republic, or are we gradually being formed into something more compatible with the European model of centralized governance?
Every political system forms its own citizen. A constitutional republic requires citizens with the capacity for self-government. If we do not intentionally form that citizen, we will drift toward a system that requires less of them.
Well said, Olly. That Newsom and Ocasio-Cortez would be invited to a European Security Conference of all things speaks volumes about Europe, and about them. Greg
Real question? Nobody is asking that question, you just play that line and attach the same dribble every day.. You’re a broken record.
You’re right. Few people are asking that question. That is exactly the rub.
If we never examine the kind of citizen our system requires, we will keep debating symptoms instead of causes. First principles are worth repeating.
No asked it, no one cares. You’re a broken record …
. I vote Constitution without monkey business. You’ll need to adjust the econ systems social welfare and drop the top down a bit.
We are not properly forming such citizens, and probably haven’t been since the introduction of normal schools and Dewey’s educational philosophy. The best remedy, at the moment, is to pull children out of public schools.
mistressadams, you’re not wrong. Education matters, and philosophy behind it matters even more.
I would just add that formation is bigger than schools. Culture, incentives, family structure, media, and civic expectations all shape the citizen long before and long after the classroom. Education is a lever. It is not the whole machine.
And so how have your kids fared?
The entire econ system needs adjustments. 3×8=24. How about 3×6=24? 4×10=40. How about 5×6=30? Leave people some life to live! So old fashioned.
Properly form citizens. You’re laughable…
Dewey’s to blame? Again, you’re laughable.
So pull children out of schools? So you get a more stupid children. You tried it right? How has that worked out for your kids? Hopefully better than your lack of education.
“Are we intentionally forming citizens…”
I’m sorry to have to write this, but… You have been harping on “formation” at the conceptual level for weeks now. I agree that the concept has a lot of merit’ many others here probably agree. However, I have yet to see you advance so much as the first practical suggestion in regard to how to accomplish that within a time frame that offers a reasonable chance for salvaging the republic. Do you actually have anything to offer beyond the slogans you have been promulgating here? I understand that you have a book to sell, and you no doubt don’t want to give it *all* away here, but surely you could enlighten us with a few practical suggestions without endangering the success of your book? Otherwise I may be forced to reluctantly conclude that you are doing nothing more than aping Professor Turley’s use of this site for book promotion, largely at the expense of providing truly incisive content here…
Don, no apology is necessary. I appreciate the push for practicality. That is a fair challenge. I am not trying to sell a book here. The book is a roadmap for where the larger project is going. You mentioned salvaging the republic. That is precisely the motivation. I do not see a more consequential pursuit.
But we did not arrive here this week, this month, this year, or even this century. The drift has been generational. Structural decline unfolds slowly because formation unfolds slowly. If that is true, then any serious corrective effort must also be structural and sustained. In a previous chapter of my life I was a federally certified strategic planning facilitator. Vision, mission, guiding principles, gap analysis, and process architecture were my professional language.
What I am describing is not a slogan. It is a design problem. Every serious planning effort begins with a clear output vision. In this case, the output measure is citizen capacity for self government. From there you conduct a gap analysis. Where are we relative to what the system requires? I am currently in the structural phase of that work, designing the input and output measurement framework so that capacity can be defined and assessed rather than assumed. Once you can measure the gap, you can design internal processes and reinforcing environments that close it.
This is systems redesign, not policy tinkering. Structural problems require structural correction.
That is the direction.
. It’s no system. Try rural Afghanistan as a model.
/s
It used to be considered unpatriotic to go overseas and criticize the President or the country. This is a “norm” that Democratic are happy to flout.
So the Democrats are doubling-down on corruption and superficiality. What’s new?
The Republicans are barely any better.
Europe, including the UK, looks lost. Let it go. Fix the home front first.
We are living in the WTF era.
“Europe, including the UK, looks lost.”
The UK appears to be beyond merely “looking” lost, at this point, with the rest of Western Europe close behind. Possibly you were referring to the same article? I got a chuckle out of the remark “Whatever party you vote for, you get the same policies” below as applied to the UK, because of how very much it echoes Tom Woods’ (astute) observation about our own politics: “No matter who we vote for, we get John McCain”.
‘No Prospect’ Of European Governments Preventing Civil War, Warns British Army Colonel”Europe, including the UK, looks lost.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/no-prospect-european-governments-preventing-civil-war-warns-british-army-colonel
““No government, the government now or any prospective government of the UK, has the guts to stop it,” he said. “If they want to take strong action to prevent the Islamification of the UK, it’s going to mean big trouble for them. They don’t want trouble, they look four years ahead, they will kick the can down the road to someone else.”
This political shortsightedness, according to Kemp, is fueling the risk of “civil war in Europe.” He described a potential scenario resembling Northern Ireland but on a far more intense scale, where “you have the indigenous British and some of the immigrant population and the British government all on three different sides fighting against each other.”
The officer attributed the slim chances of maintaining social order to democratic dysfunction and a lack of real choice for voters.
“The big problem that British people have is they don’t have political
choice. We don’t really live in a democracy,” Kemp asserted. “Whatever party you vote for, you get the same policies. That applies also to immigration and to the way in which the Islamic population is allowed to grow in numbers and dominance.”
“Newsom offered his leadership and his state as the model . . .” (JT)
There’s a better model for both California and Europe: Weimar Germany. I’m sure the Left will concoct a way to evade the troubling omen attached to that culture.
I can picture the former bartender, upon hearing some of the question, saying to herself “who is Taiwan.” We have the voters in a NYC Congressional District to thank for the likes of her.
Sure Cletus, sure.
Why are AOC and Newsom marketing themselves to Europeans? Is it because they are globalists who don’t give two whits about the American taxpayers whose money they confiscate?
Precisely.
Look at what is going on in places like NYC and Virginia and you will see that there is enough “stupid” that Newsom and/or AOC being elected President is a real possibility.
Different circumstances, entirely. Wait until the tax burden about to be imposed by the VA General Assembly hits the middle class in Virginia.
Do you really think a tax increase will stop a socialist wave in VA. Nope.
When the Dems “audited” the 2024 election some said the party veered too far to the left and held positions that the average voter couldn’t abide. So it is only a year or so on and the Dems are doubling down on being the party of the far left. I understand that it is the primary system that causes the candidates to appeal to the far left of the party, but the commercials are being cut as we speak and the die is cast.
I do find it amusing that some, like Hilary Clinton, will say “yes, we need a secure border….”, but they are never forced to answer the dreaded follow-up question of what to do with the 10 million that Biden AND THE DEMS let in over 3 and 1/2 years. Unfortunately for them the people see, and sense, that Dems are doing everything in their power to keep all illegals here, even violent criminals. Now when X or some other far left partisan says that it isn’t so please ask them why blue cities and states won’t contact ICE when a MAN is caught committing a crime, in in jail awaiting a court hearing. THEY DON’T WANT ANY ILLEGALS REMOVED NO MATTER WHAT THEY SAY…and the people know it.
PS. Ask the leftist candidates, Newsome, AOC, Pritzker, Chris Murphy, Warren, Khanna, what they think should be done about boys in girls sports. Newsome tried the “it’s not fair” line but then continued with the same policies in CA. ASK THEM A FOLLOW-UP!!
Ask them about energy policies and EV mandates. Ask them about Maduro. Ask them about Iran and nukes. Ask them about Hamas. Ask them about voter ID.
PSS. If them Republicans can manage to nominate Marco Rubio they win and win big.
Does any of that have to do with Turley’s article? Nope.
Odd but I thought the article dealt with leftist candidates for the Democrat nomination outlining their far left policy ideas in the European theater and how these policies might play in the States. But as for you I guess it is just easier to be the parasite that gets up every morning and makes a snide reply comment to every person that comes to this site to give their opinion.
And that is exactly what he is, hullbobby. He can’t even read, let alone comprehend.
Oh look, its anon hullbobby. Very insightful…
You’ve waiting for someone to comment …. watching and waiting, hoping you just jump down someone’s throat. You are the parasite.
“You’ve waiting….” Need I say more.
That’s exactly what the essay deals with. Apart from the leftist bloc, people are now aware of the crumbling of states and municipalities caused by progressive “policies,” especially when not propped up by federal funding, and will vote against them.
Man yo need to calm down. Attacking anons all day long a bully. Go somewhere else.
Anonymous 8:18 AM-
You have now proved that you definitely cannot read or assimilate common English.
That leaves us with considering that
1-You definitely are stupid or
2-you have receptive aphasia or
3-you are an AI who failed the intelligence part of AI and now have to troll for a living since you are not allowed into the higher level AI job market or
4-you are an illegal who cannot read road signs and has not had a fatal wreck just yet or
5-you are AOC herself.
And / or ask the question do you support transgender surgeries for minors?
Do you support government spending levels which cause 2 trillion dollar deficits?
What will the consequences of 2 trillion dollar interest payments be for the dollar being the global reserve currency and at what point do we default on the debt?
If we have endless time to devote the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie surely we can have serious discussions on matters of national importance
Hell yeah! The two greatest advocates for Political Duct Tape. Excellent for silencing the mouth of dissent, binding your opponents like hogs to the slaughter, and then leaving the sticky side up to catch any pesky citizenry that stumble along, don’t bow down, and need to be re-educated in the way of Enlightenment! Where better to advertise your Trojan Horse craft than the DUMP IN DECLINE known as Europe.
“Europe is belatedly discovering how unbelievably stupid it was to import millions of people from cultures that despise Western values and which often promote hatred toward the people who have let them in.”……..Thomas Sowell
There is little more to say about this other than these United States are also subject to the same threat from that ‘Fifth Column’ presently in place and at work.
Thomas Sowell is a National Treasure.
“Thomas Sowell is a National Treasure.”
Amen to that.
I have a different take on the Newsom-AOC tour of the EU. Sure, the Europeans loved the socialist rhetoric; they speak the same language. They share the same climate mandates and anti-capitalist leanings, and they certainly worship at the altar of Big Government. But this ‘fearsome duo’ came across as so profoundly ignorant that they left their hosts questioning if their brand of socialism is even viable. Reality hits hardest when it shatters your bubble from the outside.
Why are you wasting space on aoc and newscum while Marco Rubio receives an ovation for being at the same event and calling out European stupidity.
Because he’s pointing out the absurdity of their responses to critical questions about US foreign policy. The potential future leaders of the USA.
Even Unherd echoes the Professor’s position. https://unherd.com/2026/02/rubios-charm-conceals-a-brutal-truth/?set_edition=us&tl_inbound=1&tl_groups%5B0%5D=18743&tl_period_type=3
There never was a pony that couldn’t be rode, there never was a cowboy that couldn’t be throwed. In the last stanza of the Strawberry Roan, the bronc rider sings “he turned his old belly right up to the sun. He sure is a sunfishing son of a gun”. To explain how he got bucked off. This model of our Left and some of the Old World is that Strawberry Roan. Why would we quit the reliable mount we have?
So what Mike.
Parasite!
Europeans are (but I have my doubts they really were as Turley suggests) intrigued by CA man, tanned, white teeth etc, and the NYC bar girl, lies in the fact that they really did not understand them as we Americans do – as leftist crazies. The were impressed by their simple leftist rhetoric and looks. They did not notice how Witmer, AOC and Newsom flubbed their answers to basic questions. Especially Witmer. Pretty faces, empty heads. Rubio was a star.
And, yeah, oh woe is us.
All 3 dems are possible pres candidates in 2028.
There was a time when it was commonplace to restrain your criticism for America and America’s president when you were overseas. Of course, that was before Donald Trump was elected and Democrats decided that everything was permissible, including launching a coup d’etat and attempting to sentence him to life in prison, in an effort to seize and maintain power.
Oh woe is us.