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Europeans shouldn’t have anything to worry about in the event that Vice-President Harris gets elected President of the United States.

For starters, a President and Vice-President always present themselves as a rock solid combi-ticket to the US-electorate, meaning that they obviously see eye to eye on most if not all issues that really matter. No one chooses a running mate for the highest office who disagrees with the candidate himself. Reagan-Bush, Clinton-Gore, Obama-Biden and Biden-Harris come immediately to our minds when we think about smooth working relationships between President and Vice-President.

These good functioning duos work in harmony on most if not all major political issues that are in play for the USA: policies towards Europe, NATO, Russia, Communist China, terrorist Shia Persia, national defence, climate change, immigration, industrial policy… It is also important to set some facts straight.

First and foremost the reality that the USA is not and never in our lifetimes has been isolationist. Contrary to what the pundits want us to believe, isolationism went out of the window in the USA with the Presidency of Monroe way back in the 19th century. Ever since the USA has acted unilateral or most of the time multilateral. The USA always keeps interacting with the world as every other nation does and sometimes it is blinded by its own narrow interests and acts unilaterally as every country does from time to time. Nothing unnatural here.

Second, it is important to understand that the Trump Presidency is an exception, really an outlier. President Trump leads an insurgency against the Republican Party and his MAGA-insurrection has basically taken-over the GOP. MAGA is Republican only in name for it rejects everything – really everything – the Republican Party has stood for the last 100 years! The Tea Party was a failed endeavour to take over the GOP, MAGA though is a successful unfriendly IPO of the Republicans.

Third Vice-President Harris is not – definitely not – running an insurgency against the Democrats. She fits neatly in the party and shares its time-honoured values and preoccupations, she is a Democrat to the core.

All Presidents – Republican and Democrat – since FDR have always stood on the right side of history, have always defended the values of our Western civilization, have always defended and protected the interests of Europe against tyrants threatening our values based democratic way of life. All Presidents have been friends of Europe, all keen to support the integration of the nations and peoples of Europe into the EU under the protective security umbrella of US led NATO. President Trump evidently not.

The presidency of Donald Trump was in every sense of the word the exception to the rule, a US President who despises Europe, who doesn’t stand for NATO, who frankly doesn’t care about the rest of the world, who doesn’t even stand for all American citizens but only for the MAGA-crowd. It is safe to conclude that a President Harris will be a blessing for us Europeans – including the horribly suffering Ukrainians – just like President Biden is, and who knows perhaps even better…