Why idolize American culture? France has so much more to offer

It's hard to find the right word to describe the relationship we Dutch have with American culture. Infatuation? Fascination? Adoration? Truth be told, at this national sport, the over-60s are the best, especially the men. Look at those little eyes that water as soon as Bruce Springsteen plays his tear-jerker The River again or Bob Dylan's raspy voice blares from a few speakers.

Watch them shudder as soon as, while scrolling on Netflix, they come across Apocalypse Now [by Francis Ford Coppola] or The Deer Hunter [by Michael Cimino]. And what do you find in the libraries of the kingdom? I'll give you a thousand guesses! On the Road, by Jack Kerouac. Moby Dick, by Herman Melville. Plus every book by Cormac McCarthy and Philip Roth.

Or are the best at this sport the twenty- and thirty-somethings (and with them the forty- and fifty-somethings, who are pathetically doing everything to stay in the game)? What do they care about the United States!

Starting, of course, with the language, whether they Dutchize it or not. Correctly or not. From “ghosten” to “cancellen” and “haten op” [verbs formed from “to ghost”, to no longer give any sign of life, “to cancel”, to boycott, ostracize, and “to hate on”, to hate someone you are jealous of], via “cringe”, “awkward”, “anxiety” or “consent” [“embarrassing”, “concern” and “consent”]. They even talk about the “Trump administration” , instead of the “government”.

But they don't just import the language. All the rest of the culture comes with it. Halloween. Black Friday. Gender reveal parties . Cupcakes. Wokeism. The #MeToo movement. This inordinate passion for the Oscars. And this even more inordinate passion for TV shows. When Dutch people aged 20 to 60 try to make sense of the world, they only have faith in The White Lotus . And, since they firmly believe that these series determine the "debate," that's indeed what happens—in their little bubble, anyway. Yes, twenty-somethings and company are indeed the best at this national sport.

“Were,” I should rather write. Because the spell was broken with the return of Donald Trump , who, on April 30, celebrated the first hundred days of his second presidency. Donald Trump is not popular, to say the least, with the hordes of Dutch people who adore everything that comes to us from America. And they no longer view Uncle Sam’s culture in the same light.

In an NRC article titled “ America Is Over,” Dutch philosopher Stine Jensen writes that “we should consider distancing ourselves from American culture.” For example, by looking toward Europe.

Bart Wallet, a professor of Jewish studies, shared on social media the video in which Volodymyr Zelensky is being beaten up by Donald Trump and his lieutenant JD Vance , commenting on the video: “This is what the ancient Greeks called the confrontation between civilization and barbarians.” He concluded: “The time has come for Europe to clearly distance itself from the Trump administration.”

But why do we worship everything that comes from the United States? If you look closely, Americans aren't all that adorable. With their shapeless clothes, their ultra-greasy food, their gun frenzy, their religious fanaticism, their pathological need for a machine to do everything, their addiction to pills and powders of all kinds, their hypocritical puritanism. Should this country be our model? Really ?

We can think what we want about Donald Trump, but if his crazy presidency allows us to cure ourselves of our infatuation with America, let us be grateful for at least that.

In any case, for a breakup to go well, you have to understand the reasons why you fell in love. So the time has come for us to