David Harsanyi reported that “About three-times as many Europeans migrate to the United States each year than from their home countries,” Yet “a growing number of American elites—politicians, academics, pundits, journalists, among others—argue, with increasing popularity, that we should look across the Atlantic for solutions to our most pressing problems.” Figures such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) Nobel laureate New York TimesPaul Krugman (columnist) wants us all to follow Europe’s example when it is comes to healthcare and tax policy.
Eurotrash: America must reject the failed ideas of a dying continentHarsanyi (syndicated columnist, senior writer) National ReviewDocuments how America is faring in a variety of economic, political, and cultural indicators. This argument is powerful and as nuanced, as it is polemical. He notes, for example that Scandinavian countries don’t seem as socialist as American advocates and critics believe. He notes also that nationalist conservatives are determined to import a hateful blood-and-soil populism, such as from Hungary or other European countries.
I talk with Harsanyi about all that and how his career—which includes stints at The Denver Post, Glenn Beck’s The BlazeAnd Federalist—reflect massive changes in the media landscape and what it means to be on the political right (he considers himself a conservative with some libertarian leanings). He was born in 1970, and was raised on Long Island and Queens by Hungarian refugee from communism.