On social media, the upcoming generation is expressing more European solidarity than the continent has seen in decades.
A futuristic EU soldier stands guard, laser blaster at the ready. European fighter jets zoom through the sky over thumping Eurodance beats. An imaginary map shows a vastly enlarged EU, swallowing everything from Greenland to the Caucasus.
Welcome to the wild world of pro-Europe online propaganda, where the EU isn’t a fractious club of 27 countries but a juiced-up superpower on par with China or the United States, only wiser and more cultured.
This type of content, which re-imagines the EU as a pan-European empire, a European Federation or the United States of Europe — take your pick — has flooded social media platforms over the past two years, garnering billions of views collectively on X, TikTok and Instagram as the EU has reeled from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a U.S.-EU trade deal decried as “humiliation” for Brussels in many parts of Europe.
Don’t have to get very far to get to the part where it’s far right douches trying to slow walk people to racism…
Indeed, federalists are far from being a politically homogenous group. Several meme warriors told me that there is an ideological battle ongoing in the dank recesses of federalist Reddit subgroups and chatrooms between broadly centrist people who believe in boosting the power of existing Brussels institutions, and far-right people who hate Brussels but nonetheless want Europe to assert itself on the world stage. The big divider is identity politics and migration policy: far-right groups tend to envision Europe as a culturally and ethnically homogenous “empire” — read, white and Christian, preferably Catholic — that keeps foreigners out.
Saying “only white Christians are European, and everyone else shouldn’t be here” is not, and has never been, just “identity politics”.
It sounds like neoliberals and racists are both fighting over who gets to be called “center right”…
The best part is this was intended from the start. The very first proposed name for the European Union was literally United States of Europe.
Then there were several plans to move to a more federal system, but all of them failed, usually due to American interference.
“wiser and more cultured” aaaand there goes my coffee out of my nose.
Looking at the united states and China I’d say it’s a reasonable statement
Looking at a lot of places I’d say; the world is descending into fascism, supidity and debauchery!
Any time white nationalists demand an all white country, I just think back to the last 2500 years and ask myself, you had that and still fucked it up.
