An American's View From Paris

As America's political morticians gather to embalm Vice President Kamala Harris and resurrect President Donald Trump, spare a twinkling of grace for bumfuzzled European Union leaders anxious about tariffs, bewildered NATO commanders agitated about Russia, and the flummoxed French existentialists on liquid life-support in the upstairs room at Café de Flore, who disastrously maintain Trump would be a cadavre ambulant (traveling corpse) had "Crazy Kamala" been half as eloquent as Simone de Beauvoir.

Fat chance of that, but there's precedence for Trump 47 and his enthusiasts to at least take a look; specifically, across the street from the White House, where in each corner of the seven-acre park stands a statue of four of the most honored Europeans in American history. Baron von Steuben, General Thaddeus Kosciuszko, General Jean-Baptiste Rochambeau, and, of course, the square's namesake, Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette.

In case you were absent that day, there would be no President Trump without these guys, all of whom made no distinction between conservatives and liberals. For them, you were a Patriot or a Tory. And they all spoke French; indeed, Parisian Pierre-Charles L'Enfant served alongside George Washington at Valley Forge and in 1791 designed his capital city to reflect the glory of the Enlightenment.

Yet enlightenment has always been difficult sell in America. As Lafayette lamented when he heard Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson carping about how to achieve the newborn nation's dream of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness: "Nothing hurts so much the interest and reputation of American as to hear of their intestine quarrels," Lafayette warned. "There lies the danger for America."

So a brief French lesson is perhaps in order. Like it or not, there will be a test after the twelve o'clock hour on Jan. 20, 2025. The expression of the day is détente, a term the celebrated European historian Norman Davies describes as a diplomatic word of the choicest ambiguity. For most Americans, détente describes a relaxation of hostilities, a release of pressures, an ability to create peace. Presidents Ronald Regan and George H.W. Bush exercised détente to help end the Cold War. Once upon a time, America was very good at détente.

Yet it's détente's lesser known definition — the trigger of a gun — that frightens Europe the morning after the night before Trump was re-elected President of the United States. It conjures up images of jails full of political prisoners and the constant cold sweat fear of jack boots and religious fanatics suddenly kicking down your door. Europe knows about real Nazis and we poo-poo religion because some four million people were killed for essentially arguing over how many angels danced on the head of a pin during the 16th and 17th century French Wars of Religion. Go worship who you want is our mantra. Just keep it out of politics; in fact, it's the law in France.

At the same time, Europeans know Trump represents an America that's transactional to the core. "As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?" was Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville's prescient 1835 observation in Democracy in America, adding, "Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately that it's impossible to make them conceive of one without the other."

Europeans of all stripes have no illusions about MAGA America. The hope is Trump doesn't pull the trigger and decides to relax his domestic hostilities the old-fashioned French way.

A. Craig Copetas is an award-winning reporter, writer and author who has more than a half century covering news and politics for publications including Rolling Stone, Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal. He lives in Paris