‘The Delegates Do Not Appear Happy’: JD Vance Skewers Room Full of European Leaders on Their Own Soil

One can sense the relief — or trepidation in some quarters — as a wayward, sclerotic, 80-year-old international order melts into oblivion.

Who better to articulate and hasten that oblivion than the brilliant Vice President J.D. Vance?

In a series of clips posted to the social media platform X on Friday morning, Vance made clear to an audience of prominent Europeans at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that the United States under President Donald Trump disapproves of Europe’s drift toward the totalitarian suppression of free speech, as well as its leaders’ embrace of both mass migration and tyrannical climate policies in defiance of the will of their people, prompting one legal analyst to observe that “the delegates do not appear happy.”

“Unfortunately, when I look at Europe today, it’s sometimes not so clear what happened to some of the Cold War’s winners,” Vance said at the beginning of one clip.

One could scarcely imagine a more powerful framing of the clash between populism and elitist totalitarianism in the Western world.

The U.S.-led West vanquished the Soviet Union and thereby won the Cold War. And that victory followed on the heels of an even more glorious triumph over Nazism in World War II.

Today, however, those victories appear somewhat hollow. After all, the present totalitarian threat comes from two sources. And neither of those sources has anything to do with Nazi Germany or the old Soviet Union.

It comes, first and foremost, from the authoritarian elites who dominate Western governments.

Vance spent several minutes describing once-unfathomable government suppression of free speech — and even private prayer — in Belgium, Germany, Sweden, and especially the United Kingdom.

“In Britain and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat,” the vice president said.

‘In Britain and across Europe free speech, I fear, is in retreat’

US Vice President JD Vance spoke at the Munich security conference and took a swipe at Brussels, Germany, Sweden and the UK.https://t.co/Ci0hPtWFvG

📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/X1aVj7aSSX

— Sky News (@SkyNews) February 14, 2025

The second major totalitarian threat to the people of the Western world stems from mass migration.

Too often, young migrants, in many cases military-aged males, have arrived in Europe or the United States from parts of the world that do not venerate individual liberty, and some of those migrants have brought with them dark visions for how societies should organize themselves, how they should treat women and children, what regard they should have for speech and religious practices they dislike, and so forth.

“Of all the pressing challenges that the nations represented here face, I believe there is nothing more urgent than mass migration,” Vance said in a second clip.

Moments later, he blamed mass migration on “a series of conscious decisions made by politicians all over the continent.”

He then referred to Thursday’s terror attack by an Afghan asylum-seeker in Munich as a product of those decisions.

“No voter on this continent went to the ballot box to open the floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants,” Vance said.

VP Vance: Out of all the pressing challenges the nations represented here face, I believe there is nothing more urgent than mass migration…We saw the horrors wrought by these decisions yesterday in this very city…No voter on this continent went to that ballot box to open the… pic.twitter.com/EafdZYK4c0

— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) February 14, 2025

Then, in a third clip, Vance told the audience members in Germany that their hand-wringing over X owner and Trump ally Elon Musk’s comments regarding the upcoming German elections does not justify suppression of speech. Nor do Musk’s comments compare to the clownish, fear-mongering hysterics of Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg.

“Expressing opinions isn’t election interference,” Vance said, “even when people express views outside your own country, and even when those people are very influential.”

“And trust me, I say this with all humor,” the vice president added, “if American democracy can survive ten years of Greta Thunberg scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk.”

Younger readers with perfect hearing might detect something different, but I heard no laughter from the European scolds in attendance.

“If the American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunburg scolding, you can survive a few months of Elon Musk,” JD Vance in Munich. pic.twitter.com/xYpfmm484r

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) February 14, 2025

In a series of X posts, legal analyst Jonathan Turley praised the vice president.

“While the diplomats’ applause is light, many have waited for years to hear such a defense from an American leader,” Turley wrote.

VP Vance is in Munich and giving a powerful speech on free speech. For many in the embattled free speech community, this is a heartening and important moment. While the diplomats’ applause is light, many have waited for years to hear such a defense from an American leader.

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) February 14, 2025

Then, in a follow-up post, Turley again commented on the different reactions. Tyrannical Europeans, of course, appeared to hate the speech. But liberty-loving Americans adored it.

“The delegates do not appear happy, but those of us in the free speech community are perfectly euphoric,” Turley wrote.

…Vance is condemning those who want to defend Europe but not the defining right of free speech. He has called on these countries to stop silencing their citizens. The delegates do not appear happy, but those of us in the free speech community are perfectly euphoric.…

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) February 14, 2025

In short, the American-led postwar order went badly astray. It has a chance to correct its course under Trump, Vance, and their populist allies across Europe and elsewhere.

To do so, however, it can no longer emulate the totalitarian regimes our ancestors bled and died to defeat.

Many American and European elites, authoritarians to the core of their hell-black souls, will resist that course correction. They must lose at all costs.

Praise God that Trump has thrown down the gauntlet here in America. And now Vance has delivered the same message of freedom in a place where millions of people yearn for it.

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