MUNICH, Germany – Vice President J.D. Vance took a lecturing tone against a room full of European “elites” at the Munich Security Forum this afternoon, slamming leaders who fail to abide by the wishes of their electorates and condemning the censorship and persecution of conservatives, Christians, and others.
Speaking at the Bayerischer Hof hotel, Vance boldly declared, “A new sheriff is in town,” referring to his boss, President Donald J. Trump, and a new American approach to the nation’s partners and allies.
“We gather at this conference, of course, to discuss security, and normally we mean threats to our external security,” Vance began, after offering his condolences over the Munich terror attack yesterday wherein an Afghan migrant injured nearly 40 with yet another vehicular attack.
SHARED VALUES?
“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. And what I worry about is the threat from within,” he offered, adding that Europe has retreated from the fundamental values of free speech and democracy.
Vance lambasted Europe’s leaders to their faces, eliciting some of the most uncomfortable expressions from those in the audience who have long operated on the basis that they know “better” than those who vote in their countries.
“When we see European courts canceling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we’re holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard,” he said, noting the recent cancellation of elections in Romania.
“I say ourselves because I fundamentally believe that we are on the same team. We must do more than talk about democratic values.”
CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION.
“I look to Sweden,” the VP said, “where, two weeks ago, the government convicted a Christian activist for participating in Koran burnings that resulted in his friend’s murder. As the judge in his case chillingly noted, Sweden’s laws to supposedly protect free expression do not, in fact, grant–and I’m quoting–a ‘free pass to do or say anything without’ risking offending the group that holds that belief.
“And perhaps most concerningly, I look to our very dear friends, the United Kingdom, where the backslide away from conscience rights has placed the basic liberties of religious Britons, in particular, in the crosshairs. A little over two years ago, the British government charged Adam Smith Connor, a 51-year-old physiotherapist and an Army veteran, with the heinous crime of standing 50 meters from an abortion clinic and silently praying for three minutes, not obstructing anyone, not interacting with anyone, just silently praying on his own after British law enforcement spotted him and demanded to know what he was praying for, Adam replied simply, it was on behalf of the unborn son he and his former girlfriend had aborted years before.”
Vance blasted those who claimed COVID-19 came from a Wuhan market, once again blasting censors.
“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 it in the public square. Agree or disagree.”
FOREIGN INTERFERENCE.
Vance, after repeatedly blasting what he called the Soviet-era terms of “disinformation” and “misinformation,” turned to the establishment’s usual shield: Russian election interference.
“You can believe it’s wrong for Russia to buy social media advertisements to influence her 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.”
NOTHING AMERICA CAN DO.
Invoking the theme of his recent electoral victory alongside President Trump, Vance reflected on the importance of strong democratic mandates over the use of coercion over electorates or political opponents.
“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.”
“And of course, we know that very well in America, you cannot win a democratic mandate by censoring your opponents or putting them in jail, whether that’s the Leader of the Opposition, a humble Christian praying in her own home, or a journalist trying to report the news. Nor can you win one by disregarding your basic electorate on questions like who gets to be a part of our shared society.”
MASS MIGRATION.
The VP then turned to one of the hottest topics in Europe and the United States: mass immigration.
“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, which is also an all-time high. The number of immigrants who entered the EU from non-EU countries doubled between 2021 and 2022 alone. And we know the situation. It didn’t materialize 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.
“It’s a terrible story, but it’s one we’ve heard way too many times in Europe and, unfortunately, too many times in the United States as well. An asylum seeker, often a young man in his mid-20s, already known to police, rams a car into a crowd and shatters a community. How many times must we suffer these appalling setbacks before we change course and take our shared civilization in a new direction?”
“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’re voting for political leaders who promised to put an end to out-of-control migration. Now, I happen to agree with a lot of these concerns, but you don’t have to agree with me. I just think that people care about their homes, their dreams, their safety, their capacity to provide for themselves and their children, and they’re smart.
“I think this is one of the most important things I’ve learned in my brief time in politics. Contrary to what you might hear a couple of mountains over in Davos, the citizens of all of our nations don’t generally think of themselves as educated animals or as interchangeable cogs of a global economy, and it’s hardly surprising that they don’t want to be shuffled about more relentlessly, ignored by their leaders.”
Vance’s speech will doubtless cause consternation amongst the European elites, but will also sound like a clarion call for freedom for those in Europe who have suffered under the yolk of repressive globalists. Like Paul Revere riding through the night for the cause of liberty, Vance rode through Paris and Munich this week, aggressively waving the flag for America’s founding values.
