Is the E.U. democratic? — How Europe Became a Society ‘That Hates Itself’

[FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW] “The EU institutions—the way they’re structured, the way they interact—it’s not only undemocratic, it’s downright anti-democratic. And on top of that, it’s not a mistake they made. It is by design.”

In this episode, I sit down with EU parliament member Christine Anderson. She represents the Alternative for Germany party and is part of the Identity and Democracy Group in the European Parliament.

Everyone that is not in support of whatever globalist agenda is being advocated for or pushed at the moment is given the label “far-right,” says Ms. Anderson.

We discuss the current cultural and political threats facing Europe, from surging immigration and anti-Semitism to censorship, along with the erosion of national sovereignty and identity.

“We’re so overrun, and it’s almost like we have these parallel societies,” says Ms. Anderson. “On top of all of that, we are being taught to hate our own way of life, to hate our culture. Why would anyone want to integrate into a society that hates itself?”

Ms. Anderson believes the hope for Western democracies lies in Eastern Europe and America, where the people have learned to fight for their freedom.

“They have learned to defend it and they have an understanding that it needs defending on an everyday basis,” she says. “The Western European spoiled brats—it’s kind of like freedom/democracy fell out of the blue sky on one fine day and boom, there it was.”

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Jan Jekielek: MEP Christine Anderson, such a pleasure to have you back on American Thought Leaders.

Christine Anderson: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Mr. Jekielek: Welcome to Washington, DC. You’ve been speaking about the coronavirus pandemic and all the draconian measures that were associated with it. We have a select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic that has been doing an inquiry. There is similar activity in the European Parliament, as well as the European Citizens’ Initiative, which you pointed out is actually making some progress. Please tell me about that.

Ms. Anderson: First of all, there was a committee set up in the EU [European Union] Parliament. Unfortunately, it was not an inquiry committee. It was just a special committee so we lacked certain competencies to actually compel someone to show up for the committee. Albert Bourla, the CEO of Pfizer, and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the EU Commission, chose not to honor our request and they didn’t show up.

The title of the committee was, “Lessons Learned from Covid.” The thing is they were not interested in taking a look at where they went wrong. Was it okay for us to violate fundamental rights and to infringe upon them? No. What they were actually trying to look at, and what they did ask was, “Where did we fail to get the people to do what we wanted them to do?”

That’s what they were looking at. You can see from the report that came out of that committee and its findings, despite all the lies we exposed, and despite all the narratives that we uncovered, they only served one purpose—that being to break people and force them into compliance. Despite all of that that we uncovered, they repeated every single lie in that report.

With this European Citizens’ Initiative you were mentioning, these are seven brave citizens. They just decided they would not tolerate this anymore, at least not without putting up a fight, and that’s what they did. It’s an instrument that the EU Commission provides for citizens. That is their somewhat desperate attempt to uphold the facade of being a democracy. You need seven citizens from seven different member states and they can petition the EU Commission.

The hurdles they have to take on are rather high. They have to submit it, the EU commission looks at it, and then they can decide, “We won’t accept that or we will, or we will strike parts of it.” Then they have to collect a million signatures. Once all of this is done, the only thing that these seven citizens will be entitled to do, and the only thing that the commission is obliged to do, is to have them come in and present their case. That’s it. The EU Commission does not have to do anything. They’re not obligated to act on it or anything like that.

Mr. Jekielek: Yet, you seem excited about it.

Ms. Anderson: Absolutely, yes. Because it is nevertheless a great way of raising awareness of what’s going on. People will be on the streets having to collect these signatures. There are conversations going on, so it’s just one more way of spreading the word. This time it’s semi-official, because it is a European Citizens’ Initiative. Yes, we are hoping it will raise awareness. We are hoping that with all of this talk about granting the WHO governing powers, we will actually be able to stop that.

Mr. Jekielek: People imagine that the European Parliament works much like the federal government would in the United States, but it actually works very differently. Please give us a picture of that reality. In fact, that’s part of the reason why you wanted to become an MEP [Member of the European Parliament] in the first place.

Ms. Anderson: EU institutions, in the way they’re structured and the way they interact, are not only undemocratic, they are downright anti-democratic. On top of that, it’s not a mistake they made. It is by design. The most important issue here is the division of power. That is like a fundamental principle in every democracy. You divide up the powers.

That’s not the way it is with the EU Parliament or EU institutions. Let’s say the German government wanted to pass a law. If the Bundestag, which is the democratically elected representation of the German people, said, “No, we will not give it a go. We will not vote for this. We don’t want this,” the story would end right then and there.

But now, all the German government has to do is pretty much take that law and bring it to the EU institutions. In the council, which on the EU level is actually the legislative, they will pass the law at the EU level. In the council, it’s the members of the national executive that are sitting at the EU level passing laws. There is no division of power. They passed the very same law that they failed to pass in Bundestag in the council because it’s themselves passing it there, and then it has to come back. It has to be put into a law in the national member states. This has nothing to do with democracy.

To make matters worse, up until a few years ago, all the decisions in the council had to be reached unanimously, and they’re trying to get rid of that. Again, let’s say the German government is wanting to pass a law. The Bundestag says, “No,” so they travel to Brussels. Even if the respective minister votes no on that, if he’s not in a majority, then he will just be downvoted and the law will be passed anyway.

What does that mean for the German people? They cannot run their minister out of office, because he did what they wanted them to do, he said “No.” The other ministers that voted on that law, they never voted for them.

Mr. Jekielek: Basically, they have no recourse.

Ms. Anderson: No recourse, exactly. That means nations ruling over other nations.

Mr. Jekielek: The people that are anti-EU in Poland will say, “It’s Germany and maybe France that really run the show.” Isn’t Germany actually in a good position here?

Ms. Anderson: We need to take a look at that. What does that mean when people say Germany is running the show or France is running the show? In Europe, you will have a lot of people say, “Americans are running the show.” Are we talking about German people or are we talking about the German government? Are we talking about the French people or the French government? Are we talking about the American people or the American government?

At this point, it’s not the people anymore. The people are not running any show anymore. It’s the governments, but they appear to be puppets for whoever is actually calling the shots and pulling the strings. It’s not the American people and it’s not the German people, because the people all over the world are pretty much sitting in the same boat. We are up against the very same powers trying to infringe on our rights and trying to take away our democratic principles. That’s what we’re up against.

Mr. Jekielek: Before you went into politics, you were actually a stay-at-home mom. First of all, what motivated you to jump in? You came in with this idea that the EU was not a place that you wanted or a structure that you wanted to see.

Ms. Anderson: I’ve always been interested in politics, even as a kid. I remember I was like seven or eight years old and I used to watch these debates in the Bundestag. I just loved the way they came back and forth, and there were some serious verbal injuries inflicted upon each other. I was just fascinated by their presenting the arguments and doing stuff like that.

I also remember when I was nine or ten years old, we lived close by to the eastern German border, so we would pick up their TV signals. Religiously, I would watch The Black Channel every Monday night which came on at a quarter-past-eight. It was pretty much scenes in Western Germany and they would comment on them. For example, there was a festival and people were standing in line to get a bratwurst. Their spin was, even in Western Germany, people are standing in line for food and they may not get their food.

It was so fascinating even back then, how you could take facts and spin them in such a way that would fit your narrative. Then there was the subprime crisis in the United States in 2007, and the devastating effects it had on all economies around the world. I said, “What is going on?” We did a little research. The kids were in a place where I did not have to do everything for them anymore.

Once you start going down that rabbit hole, there is no going back. I’ve always voted for the Christian Democratic Party in Germany and the libertarian party, because you have two votes in Germany. In 2005 I still did so, but in 2009 I could no longer vote for them. I voted invalid.

That political homelessness that I experienced, I never would have thought that it would get to me, but it did. Not knowing who I was represented by anymore, and not knowing who would be my voice in politics anymore, that really was a horrible feeling. In 2013, I heard on TV a new party was being founded and said, “What is this? EU-skeptics and Euro-skeptics?”

I turned off the TV and researched the party. I filled out an application for membership and joined the party. It was actually an act of pure self-defense, becoming a member of a party and getting involved myself. Because the people I had trusted to do that for me I could no longer trust, so I decided to do it myself.

Mr. Jekielek: The AfD [Alternative for Germany] is very often characterized, certainly in America and in a lot of media in Europe, as a far-Right extremist party. But that’s not what you found in your research. Please explain briefly, what is the AfD actually all about?

Ms. Anderson: The AfD is not far-Right. It’s just that we have been right so far, and the people are beginning to realize that. Any party that criticizes the government, questions the narrative, or questions the current thing is considered to be far-Right, or even Nazis and all these other negative connotations. As soon as you start advocating for the people, which is the job of elected representative, you will have to oppose the globalitarian misanthropists. There is a conflict of interest.

Then they will throw whatever they have at you to prevent people from even listening to you. That’s how it’s working. When you look at my party’s program, it says pretty much what it did in the program of the Christian Democrats, the former conservative party in Germany, and what it said in the program of the libertarian party, which is the Free Democratic Party. We just stuck by our convictions and what their positions were 10, 15, and 20 years ago.

Mr. Jekielek: Elon Musk popularized this graphic at one point, which showed that he stayed in one place as the Left shifted to really far-Left. Is that what you think happened here?

Ms. Anderson: Yes. Looking at the Christian Democrats in Germany and Chancellor Merkel, the head of that party, who would have thought that the former conservative party would pretty much steal the topics from the Greens? It was that party that shut down all nuclear power plants in Germany, because of something that happened at the other end of the world. The German nuclear power plants were top notch in terms of security, the facilities and all of the things we made sure that they were safe.

Now, we shut them all down, because of something that happened at the other end of the world. We’re now buying the nuclear power from France and Poland, which are not up to the security standards that the German nuclear power plants had.

Then you can look at marriage for all. It was the Christian Democratic Party actually passing that in the Bundestag. It’s like they really took over from what the Greens were advocating for. But what they are saying about my party, apparently we have moved one notch more to the Right. We have moved to the Right so many times, I guess we have been coming out on the Left side again. It’s insane, but it’s a narrative. It’s about defaming us and it’s trying to get people to not listen to us. That’s what this is about.

Mr. Jekielek: What would you say is the most controversial platform position of the AfD?

Ms. Anderson: Where do I start? They’re bashing us for our stance on immigration, which actually isn’t immigration. It’s an illegal invasion at this point. We’re talking about millions and millions of people here. They’re bashing us for this, and saying that it is all racist. Then there is the transgender madness, so it’s pretty much whatever the narrative is. We pretty much just look at human beings as they are. We have to make sure that our environment, our world, and our societies are for human beings as they are.

That is pretty much always the problem with the Left. They think of this utopia, this perfect world, which actually is a dystopia. But the human being does not fit into that utopia, so they have to change the human being. They have to create this new human being that will fit in whatever utopia they’re dreaming up.

Mr. Jekielek: As you’re talking about this, transhumanism comes to mind.

Ms. Anderson: Actually, you don’t even have to go there, it’s just something very basic. There’s all this talk about xenophobia. People who are afraid of strangers are like despicable racists. Where did that come from?

Looking at this, we literally raise and teach our children to be afraid of strangers. Why do we do this? To protect our children, because our children do not have the means to distinguish if this person means well or if this person will harm me.

What is that? It’s a mechanism of survival, actually. As they grow older, they learn how to distinguish and they learn how to read faces and all of that. But that does not necessarily hold true when we’re talking about people that come from other cultures. We don’t know their traditions or how they go about doing things. To be afraid of strangers is actually a positive mechanism of survival.

Take the next thing—loving your own more than others. That is not despicable. No, that is how it was ensured that the human race would survive, because otherwise we would have been extinct. Can you really blame a mother for loving her own child more than the neighbor’s child? Of course you can’t.

Does that mean that she hates the neighbor’s child? No, it doesn’t mean that at all. Does it mean that she won’t feed the neighbor’s child if the neighbor’s child is in need? No, it doesn’t mean that at all.

It may come down to making a choice, “Will my child survive or the neighbor’s child survive?” Of course, she will always pick her own child. If that was not fused within our DNA and instincts, then we would’ve been extinct a long time ago. These are just very basic things that human beings are about. But yes, they are trying to change and shift this.

Mr. Jekielek: The AfD and more and more people in Germany have been accused of being xenophobic. There has been this huge influx from sub-Saharan Africa, millions and millions of people. The concern is that unless those people are assimilating to the culture, that can create a huge problem. There are these huge free-Palestine protests that we’ve been seeing since October 7th. In London there were half-a-million people. What do you think about that?

Ms. Anderson: It’s actually quite interesting to have seen that, because all of the elected officials and politicians are now saying, “What? We imported antisemitism.” I thought, “You think?” This is what has been going on and now they’re seeing it. They’re almost flustered. “How could that have happened?” If you import millions and millions of people from cultures that have deep-rooted antisemitism, that is what you get. That’s exactly what you will get.

In Germany, they’re already spinning it in a way to shift the blame away from those that are actually out on the streets, literally calling for the genocide of Jews. They are trying to shift the blame, take it away from them, and once again blame the Western societies. In Germany, they came up with this narrative, “It is not their antisemitism. It’s our antisemitism because we have failed to integrate them.” Seriously, this is how you spin this now?

Mr. Jekielek: Was there an effort to integrate? In Canada and America, with this idea of multiculturalism, it was seen as a racist to even think about that. How could you try to assimilate them to Western culture?

Ms. Anderson: First of all, for the ones that a society should integrate, the prerequisite would be the people wanting to be integrated. In the ’60s and ’70s, there were a lot of Turkish people coming. They wanted to work in Germany and they did work in Germany. The idea was they would come and stay for some time, work, and then go back. But that didn’t happen.

Now, we are so overrun and it’s almost like you have these parallel societies. Why should they integrate? On top of all of that, we are being taught to hate our own way of life and to hate our culture. Why would anyone want to integrate in a society that hates itself? It’s insane, and it’s absurd. On the altar of diversity and kindness, we’re actually destroying our free and liberal societies.

Mr. Jekielek: In many Western democracies right now, many people have been shocked by the level of extreme antisemitism that has been displayed, to the point of advocating for genocide and death. Are you arguing that this is a result of not having assimilationist policies? That’s what I’m trying to understand.

Ms. Anderson: It’s more than not being able to assimilate certain population groups. There just was a hearing in the Senate or Congress, and they were asked a simple question, “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate your rules of procedure of harassment? Would that be considered harassment?” The representatives of these universities were not capable of simply saying, “Yes.” They were rationalizing it by saying, “It depends on the context.”

Congresswoman: At MIT, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate MIT’s code of conduct or rules regarding bullying and harassment? Yes or no?

MIT representative: If targeted individuals, not making public statements.

Congresswoman: Yes or no? Calling for the genocide of Jews does not constitute bullying and harassment?

MIT representative: I have not heard calling for the genocide for Jews on our campus.

Congresswoman: But you’ve heard chants for intifada?

MIT representative: I’ve heard chants which can be antisemitic depending on the context when calling for the elimination of the Jewish people.

Congresswoman: So those would not be, according to MIT’s code of conduct or rules?

MIT representative: That would be investigated as harassment if pervasive and severe.

Congresswoman: Ms. Magill at UPenn, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate UPenn’s rules or code of conduct? Yes or no?

Ms. Magill: If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment. Yes.

Congresswoman: I am asking specifically calling for the genocide of Jews, does that constitute bullying or harassment?

Ms. Magill: If it is directed and severe or pervasive, it is harassment.

Congresswoman: So, the answer is yes.

Ms. Magill: It is a context-dependent decision, Congresswoman.

Congresswoman: It is a context-dependent decision? That’s your testimony today? Calling for the genocide of Jews is depending upon the context? That is not bullying or harassment? This is the easiest question to answer yes to, Ms. McGill. Is your testimony that you will not answer, yes?

Ms. Magill: If the speech becomes conduct, it can be harassment. Yes.

Congresswoman: Conduct meaning committing the act of genocide? Is the speech not harassment? This is unacceptable, Ms. McGill. I’m going to give you one more opportunity for the world to see your answer. Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate UPenn’s code of conduct when it comes to bullying and harassment? Yes or no?

Ms. Magill: It can be harassment.

Congresswoman: The answer is yes. Dr. Gay of Harvard, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment? Yes or no?

Dr. Gay: It can be, depending on the context.

Congresswoman: What’s the context?

Dr. Gay: Targeted as an individual, targeted at an individual.

Congresswoman: It’s targeted at Jewish students and Jewish individuals. Do you understand your testimony is dehumanizing them? Do you understand that dehumanization is part of antisemitism? I will ask you one more time. Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment? Yes or no?

Dr. Gay: Antisemitic rhetoric when it crosses into-

Congresswoman: Is it antisemitic rhetoric?

Dr. Gay: Antisemitic rhetoric, when it crosses into conduct, amounts to bullying, harassment, and intimidation. That is actionable conduct and we do take action.

Congresswoman: The answer is yes. That calling for the genocide of Jews violates Harvard code of conduct. Correct?

Dr. Gay: Again, it depends on the context.

Congresswoman: It does not depend on the context. The answer is yes, and this is why you should resign. These are unacceptable answers across the board.

Ms. Anderson: What context do you need about calling for the genocide of a people? Yes, that is harassment. There’s no question about it. You don’t need any context. They were not capable of doing that, so it begs the question why? It might be Islamophobia.

The ones that are not capable of considering the calling for genocide of the Jews as harassment, they are the ones that are afraid of Islam, because they know perfectly well what representatives of Islam are capable of. Remember the French magazine, Charlie Hebdo? We also had it in Denmark. There were flags burning all over because someone dared to come up with some character for Mohammed. These are the Islamophobes, the true Islamophobes.

Mr. Jekielek: Casting a whole blanket across the entirety of the religion is way too much. Is that what you’re saying?

Ms. Anderson: It’s the ideology that I fight, it’s not the Muslims. They just want to live their lives. It’s like we went back to the incremental steps. First, you put your daughter under a scarf, then it’s a niqab, then it’s a hijab, and then it just moves along. We are seeing that in the Western democracies actually, especially in Europe.

Mr. Jekielek: When you’re talking about the presidents of these Ivy League schools, this is all happening in a context where misgendering someone on those campuses is considered violence.

Ms. Anderson: Exactly.

Mr. Jekielek: That is very overtly seen as something almost worse than harassment.

Ms. Anderson: Right. That’s actually what I was driving at, the cognitive dissonance. You can look at a very simple question that any 3-year-old can answer, “What is a woman?” But when you ask that question of a politician, especially here in the United States, they seem to be having problems answering that question.

Speaker 7: Can you provide a definition for the word woman?

Speaker 8: Can I provide a definition? No.

Ms. Anderson: The only answer to that question would be a woman is an adult human female. They’re not capable of giving that answer. They’re mumbling, and that’s cognitive dissonance. They know perfectly well what the answer to the question is, but they don’t want to give it out of fear of stepping on a very small minority’s toes. Rather than stepping on the toes of 3, 4, or 5 people, they would sooner step on the toes of 98 percent of the people.

I had a meeting with a senator, and the way he worded it was actually quite interesting. It’s almost like they’re working their way through a maze. But it is considered harassment to misgender someone or to take objection when a man shows up in a woman’s restroom. That is considered harassment, or even worse, possibly even a hate crime. But yes, calling for the genocide of Jews, that’s just somehow fine now. I don’t think so.

Mr. Jekielek: People don’t know that part of your political activity is being a women’s rights advocate.

Ms Anderson: Yes. When it’s about women’s rights, it cannot be about the rights of biological males who think they are women. That is a conflict of interest, and it will not work. Just look at sports. Women are being deprived of their achievements they have worked so hard for. But there is just no way that a woman could possibly take on a man in any competition, for that matter.

What are we even doing here? They mess up our language. They’re coming up with these new words, because whatever language you have, like the generic masculine, they claim it is suppressing women and they’re not seen and they’re invisible.

An interesting note on that is to actually look at the Turkish language, for instance. The Turkish language doesn’t know gender. It just has the same word, so perhaps maybe they don’t have that problem. It’s a highly equal society, correct? Well, I think not. It has nothing to do with the language. But they’re screwing up our language to make women more visible.

But at the same time, they’re not even capable of answering the simple question, “What is a woman?” They are not capable of protecting women, or honoring women’s safe spaces. Now, biological men have to be allowed in all kinds of women’s spaces. This is actually destroying all the achievements that women for decades have fought so hard for. It’s just erasing women.

A few years ago there was a huge article in the New York Times on menstrual hygiene products. In the entire article, they never once mentioned the word woman, women, or girls, none of that. They referred to them as menstruators. I was so appalled by that and thought, “Seriously, menstruators?” That’s what we call women now, because 0.2 percent of the population might be offended?

No, it’s equal opportunity for women, not equal outcome. That’s a whole other issue. Equal opportunity for women, yes, I’m absolutely all for that. However, what I don’t want is women’s quotas because that is actually benevolent sexism. What they’re saying by doing so is actually that women are too stupid to get anywhere, so the state needs to facilitate it and make laws so they will be advanced. It’s actually telling me I’m too stupid to get anywhere without the state’s help. No. Thanks, but no thanks.

Mr. Jekielek: The Supreme Court struck down affirmative action here in the U.S. not too long ago. This has been a big issue playing out. You mentioned this word, menstruators, and we were talking about dehumanization a bit earlier. That word strikes me as profoundly dehumanizing, under the guise of being humanizing.

Ms. Anderson: What it actually does too, is to reduce women to bodily functions. Another term is cervix-havers. Seriously? That is stealing our identity. They’re not even stopping at that anymore. They’re stealing our sexual identity, which makes us who we are. It’s the core of who we are.

Mr. Jekielek: You’ve said, “they,” a number of times throughout the interview. Who are they?

Ms. Anderson: When you look at every single Western democracy, you have pretty much the same agendas being pushed. The elected governments, they all seem to be reading from the same script, sometimes even down to the same wording, “Build back better. Safe and effective. No one is safe until everyone is safe. Stay home.” The whole shebang. When I say they, I don’t necessarily mean the elected governments, because I consider them just to be puppets of whoever is putting forward these agendas.

I don’t know who they actually are, but that’s not the point. I don’t really care, because the only way that I can change anything is by going after the elected officials. That’s who I have to contract with. I elected these people, and they’re responsible. They’re accountable to me, but I don’t know who’s above them. I need to understand and I need to know, “Why does my government, that was democratically elected, why do they do that? What’s in it for them?” That’s the thing, and that’s what I’m interested in.

Mr. Jekielek: There are all sorts of characters. We hear about the World Economic Forum, the Bilderberg Group, and the Club of Rome. You hear about all sorts of things, but people have their theories. But you’re saying it doesn’t actually matter that much, because it’s the elected officials that you are targeting.

Ms. Anderson: Exactly. There is no constitution in the world that would grant me the right to take down the WEF. I have no connection to the WEF whatsoever. It’s my government who is allowing the WHO to overtake their governing powers. They need to fix this.

Mr. Jekielek: The UN is one of the groups that people point to concerning their Agenda 2030. Do you view the UN as an entirely unaccountable body?

Ms. Anderson: Who are they exactly accountable to? For instance, could the German people sue the UN? It’s actually what the German government is allowing the UN to do. Whatever goals or whatever measures the UN proposes, it is still the government that has to come up with the legislation and put it into a law. The UN does not have governing powers.

But they are trying to fix that now, at least when it comes to the WHO and the international health regulations. For instance, they want to change that and they kind of have to change it, and I’ll tell you why. Because what they also figured out during Covid is they would have loved to impose much stricter restrictions on everyone. But they couldn’t, because we are democracies and our elected officials will be up for reelection. If they violate fundamental rights, if they infringe upon them, if they impose lockdowns on people, then the elected officials might not get reelected.

With the change of the international health regulations, which would then grant the WHO governing powers to call out a pandemic and then seize the governing powers, it is actually providing plausible deniability to the elected officials. Now, they can say, “We never would have done that. We would not infringe upon your rights. We would not take it away from you. It’s the WHO that is doing it.”

That’s how this is working here. In a way, it’s also working like that with the EU institutions. The governments in the member states tell their people, “We wouldn’t do this to you. We would not come up with this legislation that infringes upon your rights and takes away your freedom. It’s the EU doing this.”

Mr. Jekielek: There’s an avoidance of responsibility. One of the criticisms is that the U.S. Congress has ceded a lot of their legislative ability to unaccountable institutions; the administrative state, different agencies, and experts. There are certain legal doctrines, like the Chevron deference that allowed for that to happen. Everyone says, “It wasn’t me.” But in the end, as things get really bad, who’s to blame?

Ms. Anderson: Yes, exactly. It’s about removing the democratic process further and further away from the people, so that the people will no longer be clear on who actually made what decision. Who can we hold accountable? Even if they knew, they are now getting to a stage where it would be impossible for the people to hold them accountable, because they never elected the person that made that decision.

That has been happening under the guise of doing something for the greater good. They have pretty much taken away freedom, democracy, and the rule of law. With this whole climate madness, we need to save the planet now. In the Netherlands, they’re seizing the land. The farmers are no longer allowed to grow crops on their land. They have to relocate. You just pack up a farm like you would a two-bedroom apartment. No, it’s not working that way.

In Ireland, the farmers have to slaughter 50 percent of their cattle because they found out that cows fart and burp, and this is now killing us. They are actually taking away everything that we held dear and everything that made us into who we are, whether it’s our cultural identity, national identity, or sexual identity. We already talked about that. These are democratic principles.

What they’re trying to achieve is pretty much to transform our free and liberal societies made up of free individuals into this malleable, mindless mass, that can just be shoveled around to wherever they need us and to serve their best interests. With taking away the food from us, they want us to eat bugs, but they’re still going to have their steaks. This framing is going on with the gaslighting in the media, and the citizens are being lectured to rather than the citizens forming an opinion. The government will actually have to implement what the people want. But it has turned the other way around. It has nothing to do with democracy, none whatsoever.

Mr. Jekielek: We have some interesting developments in terms of politicians being elected who have a very different view, like Geert Wilders in the Netherlands. What do you make of that?

Ms. Anderson: We’re seeing that pretty much in all of the member states in Europe, because for decades now, the EU has been pushing policies that go against the people’s interests. You can see our side, the people’s side, growing stronger. Geert Wilders winning the elections in the Netherlands was phenomenal. Geert has actually been around for quite some time. They did just about everything they could to defame him and to stigmatize him. They called him every name in the book, but here we are. He won the election. You also see that in other countries and even in the Western European states, where it’s kind of starting.

Mr. Jekielek: I keep thinking about this far-Right moniker, because there is another newly elected president, Javier Milei, who they call far-Right. Today, if you look at who is being called far-Right, it’s comical how it’s being used. Elon Musk is far-Right.

Ms. Anderson: Everyone that is not in support of whatever globalist agenda is being advocated for or pushed at the moment, is given the label far-Right. The very first big protest that happened against the restrictions because of Covid happened in Berlin on August 20th, 2020. The vast majority of protestors participating in that protest were actually Left and Green-leaning, if not Left or Green. They protested, had a good time, and they met a lot of people, as will happen.

Once they came home, to their astonishment, their TV told them that they were Nazis and Right-wing extremists. They said, “Who, us? But we’re Left. We’re Greens. We’re the good guys. They call us Nazis now?” That actually led to the fact that they, for the very first time probably, asked, “What about all the others that have been named Nazis? Maybe they weren’t Nazis either, and they were just made out to be Nazis.”

The mindset is a different one in Eastern European countries for a very simple reason. They have lived under totalitarian rule, and it hasn’t been that long ago. They remember and they recognize the mechanisms. They recognize how totalitarian regimes go about doing certain things. They recognize the language, and they recognize the gaslighting. Therefore, it’s not really working in the Eastern European countries.

That’s actually where we have the most resistance, in those countries. I have been saying that for quite some time. From what it looks like, unfortunately, I think I will be right. Europe will actually shrink down to a core Europe, and geographically you will find it alongside the Eastern European countries.

I think Western Europe is done with. There is no way of undoing what has been done over the last decades with the mentality of the young generation. They are spoiled brats, and do not put any value on things such as freedom, democracy, and the rule of law. They think if we censor hate speech, or call free speech hate speech, and if we can just eliminate all of that, then we will be living in a better world. They do not realize what censorship actually does to a society. That is the very first step any totalitarian regime will take in order to control every single aspect of a human being’s life.

Mr. Jekielek: Germany has very strong anti-Holocaust denial laws. With these rules, while you can talk about the Holocaust, it makes it difficult or potentially legally problematic to talk about the process of the Nazis coming to power. Please explain that. How could that be?

Ms. Anderson: In Germany, we have in our penal code which does carry a jail sentence to deny, glorify, or trivialize the Holocaust. With denial, no problem there. You do not deny the Holocaust. You just don’t go there, let alone glorify it. The problem comes with the trivialization of the Holocaust. What we’re seeing now is trivialization of the Holocaust.

If I were to point out the incremental steps that were taken by the Nazis back then to turn this highly sophisticated and highly educated and highly civilized society into this hellhole, pointing that out, and then pointing out the parallels to what we may have seen in the last three years, that would be considered a trivialization of the Holocaust. To me, this is just staggering. How are we supposed to live up to the promise of “Never again,” if we are not allowed to look at what the Nazis did to get where they eventually got us?

Nazi Germany did not start out by rounding up people and transporting them off to camps. That was the endpoint. It started with little, incremental, and seemingly inconsequential and insignificant steps. But it was getting people used to a certain idea and then building up on that. If we’re not allowed to teach the next generations what these steps were, then it will happen again.

Now, who would be interested in people not knowing how it began and how they did it? It would only be the people that are up to doing it again. They would not want anyone to know about it. But yes, that is now considered trivialization of the Holocaust. The argument is that by pointing out, “We are not there yet. We are not in that fascist totalitarian regime yet,” that is trivializing the Holocaust.

No, I’m terribly sorry. I will not go there because it is a process. No one in their right mind would deny a pregnancy with the stupid argument, “The baby isn’t born yet.” We need to understand how they did it. How did it work? When you really look back, it took the Nazis five years, by the way. They came to power in 1933.

Mr. Jekielek: Democratically elected, I might add.

Ms. Anderson: Democratically elected. Absolutely. It took them five years until they were capable of pushing legislation and passing legislation.

Mr. Jekielek: Is it a surge or people just feeling justified in being grossly antisemitic, and calling for, “From the river to the sea.” Do you think that could be codified in society again?

Ms. Anderson: To be honest, I don’t know. I don’t know where this is going. But just to think that people would be so nonchalant about this. I really don’t understand how young people, especially in the Western democracies, take to the streets and chant, “From the river to the sea.” You could ask them, “What river are we even talking about here?” They wouldn’t even be able to name the river. It’s just the current thing to do, and it’s virtue signaling.

Even the EU Parliament is not capable of standing up and saying, “No, we will not be apologetic about what Hamas did.” They have not found it necessary to finally stop funding the Hamas political system and funding school books, which are full antisemitic slurs and openly call for the death of Jews. The EU is funding these school books and we haven’t stopped. Once again, the hypocrisy is staggering.

Mr. Jekielek: You mentioned the word nonchalant. I am thinking of Mattias Desmet’s book, The Psychology of Totalitarianism, as related to this current thing, the nonchalantness.

Ms. Anderson: It’s like the term, “the banality of evil,” coined by Hannah Arendt.

Mr. Jekielek: Absolutely. You said, “They have no idea what river it is.” They might not even fully grasp that they’re chanting about eliminating the Jews from this entire piece of land. People find it difficult to see how that rhetoric translates into actual genocidal behavior. History is rife with this, yet you can’t imagine something like that could happen.

Ms. Anderson: As Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher, “The truth often evades being recognized, due to its utter incredibility.” That’s pretty much what happened in Nazi Germany too. It was so unimaginable, but yet it happened. Even most Jews did not believe what they were about to experience, because it was unimaginable the extent of the atrocities that were afflicted upon them. They couldn’t grasp it. They thought, “It’s not going to happen. It’s just not going to happen.” But yet, it did. Whenever you think that this is so far off that this won’t happen, it is just because you cannot imagine it will happen.

Mr. Jekielek: To do that we have to accept that we as human beings are capable of terrible things.

Ms. Anderson: Yes.

Mr. Jekielek: Even if we think we’re a good person and would never do that. But history shows us that lots of perfectly normal people, not psychopaths, have done absolutely terrible things.

Ms. Anderson: Every human being is capable of doing the most terrible things to our fellow men and inflicting pain on our fellow men, given the right circumstances. Certain criteria have to be met, and it’s been proven with the Milgram experiments, and the Asch conformity experiments. That is just who humans are.

Unless you are willing to accept the fact that you too are capable of doing horrible things to your fellow man and embracing that side of yourself, you will have no mechanisms to keep it in check. It has to really be a conscious decision to not do it. But if you think, “It’s not going to happen because I’m so pure and I’m so great,” you will have nothing to keep that dark side in check. We need to revisit who we actually are. There’s a good side and there’s an evil side. It is a conscious decision to not let the evil side prevail and come out.

Mr. Jekielek: I’ll mention Solzhenitsyn’s famous line, “The line between good and evil cuts through every human heart.”

Ms. Anderson: Yes, exactly.

Mr. Jekielek: We have to be aware of that. You don’t have a lot of hope for Western Europe, which is a difficult thing for an elected official of a very prominent Western European country to say. What do you see as the path forward, if you don’t see a good future?

Ms. Anderson: I wouldn’t go as far as saying I have no hope for Western Europe. But we do have antisemitism by the millions in Western Europe. I don’t see anyone willing to really take a hard look at this and say, “What do we need to do to undo this?”

It’s not that I don’t have hope. I have just come to terms with the fact that we will not be able to undo that. There will always be Europe, but it might be a little smaller. My hope actually lies with the American people, because the American people have much more of a concept of freedom. It’s not like that in Europe. We like freedom, but it doesn’t have the same significance as it does for the American people.

My hope lies with the Eastern European countries, where we will actually have a Europe as we know it, and how I want it, anyway. My hope also lies with the American people. It was just a couple of nights ago when we had this event going and it just suddenly hit me. I realized, “This is the United States of America, the land of the free and the land of the unlimited possibilities. I am being asked to come here to speak about freedom to Americans.”

It really hit me. It was such an honor that I would be allowed to do that. But we need the American people to just stay the American people and uphold that concept of freedom that is deeply rooted within America. We need that if we want to save all the peoples around the world from this tyrannical system that they’re about to impose on us.

Mr. Jekielek: One final thing as we finish up. You mentioned earlier that people say that this globalist transhumanism actually came from America. If you see the hope for the future, is it perhaps ironic that you see it coming from America as well?

Ms. Anderson: It depends on setting the stage and gaslighting people and manipulating people. Yes, that seems to start in the United States. I’m talking about safe spaces for minorities at universities, including that students should no longer be exposed to certain topics, even though they’re required. Overprotecting students came from the United States.

Mr. Jekielek: The safety-ist culture is what you’re talking about.

Ms. Anderson: Exactly. In a lot of ways the stage is being set in the United States and then swoops over the planet. When it comes to flooding societies with illegal immigrants, it seems to come from Europe, especially Germany. Depending on what aspect you are focusing on, something starts here, and some things start there.

The thing is this, you do not have to get a society ready for infringement on fundamental rights in China. You don’t have to get society ready for taking away freedom in North Korea. But you do have to do that in the United States and in the Western democracies. This is where you have to set the stage.

You have to frame certain concepts like fundamental rights are now privileges that a government can grant or withhold depending on how you as a citizen behave. That is a stage that has to be set in the United States because the concept of freedom and fundamental rights is so profound and deeply rooted within all of the American people. That’s where you have to attack it. Once you get that going, then it’s a walk in the park to get all of the other Western democracies to just fall in line.

Mr. Jekielek: It looks really dark for Western Europe. What do you think about America?

Ms. Anderson: Actually, it is not quite accurate to say it’s looking very dark for Western Europe. It will be different. Like I said, it may be a little smaller. What do I think will happen to the United States? I truly believe that the American people, with their concept of freedom and fundamental rights so deeply rooted within them, will actually be fine.

I don’t see states dropping out or any of that. The American people have learned to fight for their freedom. They have learned to defend it, and they have an understanding that it needs defending on an everyday basis. Whereas, with the Western European spoiled brats, it’s like freedom and democracy fell out of the blue sky one fine day, and boom, there it was. No, it did not happen like that. Our forefathers had to wrestle it from the former elites. They literally spilled their blood over this, but now they no longer put any value on this freedom and democracy. But I think the Americans will be fine.

Mr. Jekielek: I hope you are right. Christine Anderson, it’s such a pleasure to have you on the show.

Ms. Anderson: Thanks for having me. I had a really good time talking to you. Thank you.

Mr. Jekielek: Thank you all for joining MEP Christine Anderson and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. I’m your host, Jan Jekielek.