'We fear for their union': Dutch MEP blasts US gerontocracy — and warns 'Trump is a serious threat'
Peter van Dalen a Dutch member of European Parliament (MEP) on Thursday penned an op-ed in Politico Europe, urging Europeans to impress “upon Americans, whenever and wherever we can, that
we fear for their union.”
Chief among those fears, van Dalen wrote, is former President Donald Trump’s continued hold on the Republican Party.
From van Dalen’s op-ed:
Trump is focused on his own glory, on his own interests — not the nation’s. He hurls grapes of wrath around the country. And his real menace was finally brought home in the report by the Bipartisan Congressional Inquiry Committee on the January 6 insurrection, when the U.S. Congress was besieged and Trump’s ‘stolen election’ conspiracy morphed into a de facto coup attempt, with criminal intent to overturn the votes in seven states.
Van Dalen said it is “a relief that arch conspirator Trump is now being brought to court” by the U.S. Department of Justice and special counsel Jack Smith. A federal grand jury last week indicted Trump on four felony counts related to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
But despite the indictment, van Dalen insisted “it’s hardly misplaced to still harbor fears.”
Calling Trump a “dark throwback” to people like former Confederate leader Jefferson Davis, the European leader noted “Trump now similarly wants his truth to be victorious.”
According to Van Dalen, the U.S. is currently “in the middle of a disorienting cultural civil war”:
In states and cities, and within families, there is extreme divisiveness; people are either for or against Trump. One can see the clear and present danger playing out on social media, and is left wondering where it will end. It’s also becoming increasingly difficult not to conclude that Trump is a serious threat to the preservation of the union of American states.
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Van Dalen, who is 64, went on to question why neither major U.S. political party can “put forward candidates at least younger than 70 years old.”
“To be open, I am not in favor of current President Joe Biden either,” van Dalen wrote. "I find it almost impossible to understand why the Democrats have decided to back this elderly man as their presidential nominee.”
Van Dalen noted that “a year out from a presidential election, Europe’s relationship with the U.S. always becomes tricky” as U.S. leaders focus less on international politics in favor of domestic issues.
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But, the leader added, “the U.S. is our principal ally, and developments there affect us.”
“So, let us not fall into the same web of division and hatred that Trump spins to entrap Americans,” van Dalen wrote. “This time, let justice prevail.”
