American Thought Leaders - Christine Anderson: How Europe Became a Society 'That Hates Itself'

Episode Date: December 26, 2023

“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.”

The EU institutions, the way their structures, 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 Andersen. She represents the Alternative for Germany Party and is part of the Identity and Democracy group. 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. We discuss the current cultural and political threats facing Europe, from surging immigration and antisemitism to censorship and the erosion of national sovereignty and identity. We are so overrun, and it's almost like you have these parallel societies. 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 in a society that hates itself? This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Jan Jekielek. MEP Christine Anderson, such a pleasure to have you back on American Thought Leaders. Well, my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Well, welcome to Washington, D.C. You've been very prominently speaking about the coronavirus pandemic and, of course, all the draconian measures that were associated with it. In fact, in the building behind you, we have a select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic that's been doing an inquiry. And I understand there's a similar activity in the European Parliament that's happening. And also, there's this European Citizens Initiative, which you pointed out is actually making some progress. Tell me about that. First of all, there was a committee set up in the EU Parliament. Fortunately, it was not an inquiry committee.

So it was just a special committee. So we lacked certain competencies, for example, to actually compel someone to show up in the committee, which Albert Bourla, the CEO of Pfizer, and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the EU Commission, chose not to honor. So they didn't show up. The title of the committee was Lessons Learned from COVID. But the thing is this, they were not interested in taking a look at where they went wrong. Was it OK for us to violate fundamental rights, to infringe upon them? No, what they were actually trying to look at, and they did, is, where did we fail to

get the people to do what we wanted them to do? So that's kind of what they were looking at. And you can see that from the report that came out of that committee and its findings, despite all the lies we exposed, despite all the narratives that we uncovered that only served one purpose, that being of breaking people and forcing them into compliance, despite all of that that we uncovered, they repeat every single lie in that report. This European initiative you were mentioning, there are seven brave citizens, and they just decided, we will not tolerate this anymore, at least not without putting up a fight. And that's what they did.

So it's an instrument that actually the EU Commission provides for citizens. That is like their somewhat desperate attempt to uphold the facade of being a democracy. And what it actually does, so you need seven citizens, they need to be from seven different member states, and they can petition the EU Commission. The hurdles they have to take on that, they're rather high. So once they have submitted, EU Commission looks at it, and then they can decide, well, we won't accept that, or we will, or strike parts of it. And then they have to collect a million signatures. And 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. But that's it. EU Commission does not have to do anything. They're not obligated to act on it. Nothing like that. But you seem excited about it. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, because it is nevertheless a great way of raising awareness of what's going on. And people will be taken to the streets, having to collect these signatures. There's conversations going to be going on.

So it's just, you know, one more way of spreading the word. And this time it's, you know, semi-official, because it is a European citizens initiative. So yeah, we are hoping it will raise awareness. And we are hoping that all of this talk about WHO and granting them governing powers, we will actually be able to stop it. A lot of people imagine that the European Parliament works much like perhaps the federal government would in the United States. It actually works incredibly differently. If

you could just give us a picture of that reality, in fact, that's part of the reason why you wanted to become an MEP in the first place, I think. The EU institutions, the way their structures, 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. The most important issue here, we're like a division of power. You know, that is like a fundamental principle in every democracy. You divide up the powers. So it's not the way it is

with EU parliament or EU institutions. So what happens, let's say the German government wanted to pass a law and 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 be at an end right then and there. But now the German government, all it has to do is pretty much take that law, bring it on to the EU institutions, because in the council, which on EU level is actually the legislative, they will pass the law on EU level. And the thing is this, in the council, it's the members of the national executive.

They're sitting in EU level passing laws. So there is no division of power. So 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. So it has nothing to do with democracy and 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. So what you will have then is whatever decision is taking, let's say German government again wanting to pass a law, Bundestag says no, they travel to Brussels. And even if the respective minister says, votes no on that, if he's not 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, said no. And the other ministers that voted on that law, they never voted for them. And basically, they have no recourse.

No recourse. Nothing, exactly. And that is actually nations ruling over other nations. But let me ask, I'm Polish, Polish-Canadian, and the people that are anti-EU in Poland will say, well, actually it's Germany and maybe a bit of France that really run the show. So isn't Germany actually in a good position here? 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? Or in Europe you will have a lot of people say Americans are running the show. France is running the show or 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? And at this point, no, it's not the people anymore. The people are not running any show 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. It's not the German people. Because the peoples all over the world, we are pretty much sitting in the same boat and we are

up against the very same powers trying to infringe on our rights, trying to take away our democratic principles. That's what we're up against. Before you went into politics, you were actually a stay-at-home mom. What motivated you to jump in, first of all? I think from the get-go, you came in with this idea that the EU was not a place that you wanted, a structure you wanted to see. Well, I've always been interested in politics, even as a kid. I remember I was like seven, eight years old, and I used to watch these debates in the Bundestag. And I just loved

it, you know, the way they came back and forth. And there were, you know, some serious verbal injuries they inflicted upon each other. And I'm just fascinated by that, you know, presenting the arguments and doing stuff like that. I also remember it was like I was nine or ten years old. We lived close by to the eastern German border. So we would pick up their TV signals. And religiously, I would watch the Black Channel every Monday night. It came on at a quarter past eight. And it was pretty much scenes in Western Germany, and they would comment on it. For example, there was like a festival,

and people were standing in line to get a bratwurst. And then their spin was, even in Western Germany, people are standing in line for food, and they may not get food, right? So fascinating, even back then, how you can take facts and spin it in such a way that it will fit your narrative. And then there was the year 2007, the subprime crisis in the United States, and the devastating effects it had on all economies around the world. And I was like, what is going on? So we did a little research. The kids were kind of like in a place now where I did not have to do everything for

them anymore. And I guess once you start going down that rabbit hole, you know, there is no going back. And I've always voted for the Christian Democratic Party in Germany and the Libertarian Party. You have two votes in Germany. And in 2005, I still did so. But 2009, I could no longer vote for them. I voted invalid. But that political homelessness is what I call it, that I experienced, I would have never thought that it would get to me.

But it did, not knowing who I was represented by anymore, not knowing who would be my voice in politics anymore. That really was a horrible feeling. So in 2013, I heard on TV a new party being founded. And I was like, whoa, what is this? EU skeptics, Euro skeptics. So I turned off TV, researched the party. I joined the party, filled out an application for a membership.

And 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 with to do that for me, I could no longer trust. So I decided to do it myself. The AFD is characterized very often, I mean, certainly in American, call it legacy media, and a lot of media in Europe, as some kind of far-right extremist party.

But that's not what you found in your research. And so just explain to me maybe briefly, you know, what is the AFD actually about? Okay. So the AFD is not far-right. It's just we have been right so far. And the people are beginning to realize that. So any party that kind of criticizes government, questions the narrative, questions the current thing, is considered to be far right or even Nazis or all these negative connotations. It is really as soon as you start advocating for the people, which kind of is a job of an elected representative, as soon as you do that, of course you will have to take an opposition to, I call them, globalitarian misanthropists.

There is a conflict of interest. And then they will throw at you whatever they have to possibly prevent people from even listening to you. So that's kind of like how it's working. No, actually, 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, something like that. So we just stuck by our convictions and what their positions were like 10, 15, 20 years ago.

I'm thinking back to this graphic that Elon Musk popularized at one point, which was that he kind of stayed in one place. It's just the left shifted really far left. Is that what you think happened here? Yeah. Looking at the Christian Democrats in Germany and Chancellor Merkel, she was, you know, the head of that party. Who would have thought that the former conservative party would pretty much steal the Greens, steal their topics from them. So it was that party that shut down all nuclear power plants in Germany, you know, because of something that happened at the other end of the world. And just thinking, the German nuclear power plants, they were top notch in terms of security, you know,

the facilities and, you know, all of the things we made sure that they were safe, right? Now we shut them all down, like I said, because of something that happened at the other end of the world. And we're buying now the nuclear power from, you know, France and Poland and which are not up to the security standards that the German nuclear power plants had you know, France and Poland, which are not up to the security standards that the German nuclear power plants had. Then you look at, yeah, the marriage for all, right? It was the Christian Democratic Party actually kind of passing that in the Bundestag. So 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 once and one notch more to the right.

And we have moved to the right so many times. I guess we have been coming out at the left side again, right? So it's insane. But it's a narrative. It's to defame us. And it's to get people not to listen to us. That's what this is about. What would you say is the most controversial platform position of the AFD? Oh, gosh. Where do I start?

No. They're bashing us for our stance on immigration, which actually isn't immigration. It's an illegal invasion at this point. I mean, we're talking about millions and millions of people here. So they're bashing us for this. Obviously, that's all racist and, you know, the transgender madness. So it's pretty much whatever the narrative is. And we just pretty much just look at human beings as they are. And we have to make sure that our environment, our world, our societies are for human beings as they are. That is pretty much the problem with the left always.

They think of this utopia, this perfect world, which actually is a dystopia, but the human being does not fit into that utopia. So what they have to do is they have to change the human being. They have to create this new human being that will fit in their whatever utopia they're dreaming up. Transhumanism comes to mind as you're talking about this. You actually don't even have to go there. I mean, you know, just something very basic.

Okay, so there's all this talk about xenophobia, right? So people who are afraid of strangers, they're like despicable racists. But I mean, where did that come from? And 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, does this person mean well, or does this person, you know, will it harm me? What is that? It's a mechanism of survival, actually. So now as they grow older, they learn how to distinguish. They learn how to read, you know, 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, how they go about doing things. So 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 is still here even, because otherwise

we would have been extinct. So 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, 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. But when it comes down to making a choice, will my child survive or the neighbor's child survive? She will always pick her own child, of course. And if that was not fused within our DNA instincts, then we would have been extinct a long time ago. So these are just

very basic things that what human beings are about. There is lots more, of course. But yeah, it's like trying to change and shift that. Well, there's also this issue, and of course, you know, AFD and actually more and more people in Germany have been accused of being xenophobic. There's been this huge influx, right, from sub-Saharan Africa, from many places. I mean, like you said, millions and millions of people. And I think the concern is that that has, unless those people are assimilating to the culture that is there, that can create a huge problem. And in fact, one of the things that I'm thinking about now is these huge free Palestine protests that we've been seeing since October 7th.

I think in London, it was a half a million people. What do you think of that? Well, it's actually quite interesting to have seen that, because all of the elected officials and politicians, they are now, what? We imported anti-Semitism? And I'm like, yeah, you think? So it's like, yeah, this is what's been going on, right? And now they're seeing it. They're almost, they're flustered. How, how could that have happened? Well, I mean, if you import millions and millions of people from cultures that have deep-rooted

anti-Semitism, That is what you get. That's exactly what you will get. In Germany, they're already like 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 to shift the blame, take it away from them, and once again, blame the Western societies. So in Germany, they came up with this narrative, well, it is not their anti-Semitism,

it's our anti-Semitism, because we have failed to integrate them. Seriously, this is how you spin this now? Well, was there an effort to integrate? Because, I mean, it's almost like, at least in Canada and America to some extent, with this idea of multiculturalism, it was seen as a racist or some kind of anathema to even think of that. How could you try to assimilate them to Western culture? First of all, the ones that a society should or wants to integrate, the conditional on that is, or the prerequisite, would be the people wanting to be integrated, right?

And I will have to say, in the 60s and 70s, there were a lot of Turkish people coming and they wanted to work in Germany. And they did work in Germany, right? And the idea was actually they would come and stay for some time, work, and then go back. Well, that didn't happen, right? But 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, to hate our culture. Why would anyone want to integrate in a society that hates itself?

It's insane. It's insane. It's absurd. Like I said, on the altar of diversity and kindness and what have you not, we are actually destroying our liberal and free societies. In many Western democracies right now, many people have been shocked by the incredible levels of extreme anti-Semitism to the point of advocating for genocide and death and so forth that has been displayed. And so I think you're arguing that this is a result of not having assimilationist policies or letting people in at all.

That's what I'm trying to understand. MARGARET WARNER, Well, it's not only a result of not being able to assimilate certain population groups. I think it was yesterday or the day before, there was a hearing. I think it was in the Senate or Congress. And they were just asked a simple question. question, would or does calling for the genocide of Jews violate your rules of procedure of harassment? Would that be considered harassment? And these representatives of these universities, they were not capable of simply saying yes.

So they were kind of rationalizing it, going like, well, it depends on the context. At MIT, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate MIT's code of conduct or rules regarding bullying and harassment, yes or no? You've targeted at individuals, not making public statements. Yes or no? Calling for the genocide of Jews does not constitute bullying and harassment?

I have not heard calling for the genocide for Jews on our campus. But you've heard chants for intifada? I've heard chants, which can be anti-Semitic, depending on the context, when calling for the elimination of the Jewish people. So those would not be according to the MIT's code of conduct or rules? That would be investigated as harassment, if pervasive and severe. Ms. McGill, at Penn, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn's rules or code of conduct, yes or no?

If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment, yes. I am asking, specifically calling for the genocide of Jews, does that constitute bullying or harassment? If it is directed and severe or pervasive, it is harassment. So the answer is yes. It is a context-dependent decision, Congresswoman. It's 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, Ms. McGill. So is your testimony that you will not answer yes? If it is, if the speech becomes conduct, it can be harassment, yes. Conduct meaning committing the act of genocide? The speech is 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 Penn's code of conduct when it comes to bullying and harassment? Yes or no? It can be harassment. The answer is yes. And Dr. Gay, at Harvard, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard's rules of bullying and harassment? Yes or no? It can be, depending on the context.

What's the context? Targeted as an individual. Targeted at an individual. It's targeted at Jewish students, 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? Antisemitic rhetoric when it crosses into conduct. Antisemitic rhetoric when it crosses into conduct that amounts to bullying, harassment, intimidation, that is actionable conduct, and we do take action. So the answer is yes, that calling for the genocide of Jews

violates Harvard Code of Conduct, correct? Again, it depends on the context. 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. What context do you need? You know, calling for the genocide of a people? Yeah, that is harassment. There's no question about it. You don't need any context. They were not capable of doing that. So that kind of, you know, 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. Charlie Hebdo, remember? We had it in Denmark. There were flags burning all over because someone dared to come up with some caricature for Mohammed. These are the Islamophobes, the true Islamophobes. I think casting a whole blanket across the entirety of the religion is way too far. Is that what you're saying? It's the ideology that I fight. It's not the Muslims.

They just want to live their lives. It's kind of 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, then it's, you know, as it moves along, that kind of thing. And we're seeing that in the Western democracies, actually, especially in Europe. When you're talking about the presidents of these Ivy League schools, this is all happening in a context of, for example, misgendering someone on those campuses is considered violence. Exactly.

Like that is very overtly seen as something almost, I guess, worse than harassment. That's actually where I was driving at, is like the cognitive dissonance. For example, when you look at a very simple question, any three-year-old can answer that question, what is a woman? But when you ask a politician, what is a woman, especially here in the United States, they seem to be having problems with that question. Can you provide a definition for the word woman? Can I provide a definition?

Yeah. The only answer to that question would be a woman is an adult human female. They're not capable of giving that answer. So they're mumbling, you know, and that's a 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 very small minorities' toes. So rather than stepping on, let's say, on the toes of three, four, five people,

they sooner step on the toes of, like, what, 98% of the people, right? And it's like, I had a meeting last night. I met a senator, and the way he worded it, it was actually quite interesting. It was like, yeah, it's almost like they're working their way through a maze. And, yeah, but this is, like you said, considered harassment to misgender someone or to, you know, maybe take objection to the fact that a man shows up in a woman's bathroom, restroom. That is considered harassment or even worse, hate crime, possibly even.

But yeah, calling for a genocide of Jews, that's just somehow fine now. I don't think so. You know, actually, it's interesting that you mentioned that. You know, I think a lot of people don't know that you've, part of your, I guess, political activities is actually being a women's rights advocate. Yeah. And when it's about women's rights, it cannot be about biological males' rights who think they are women. That is a conflict of interest. It will not work. Just look at the 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 be up to taking up men in

any competition, for that matter. So it's like, what are we even doing here? They mess up our language. They're coming up with these new words because whatever language you have, it's a generic masculinum. You know, they claim it is suppressing women and they're not seen and they're invisible. Interesting part, note on that, is actually take the Turkish language, for instance. The Turkish language doesn instance. The Turkish language doesn't know gender. It just has the same word so they don't have that problem actually. Yeah, it's a highly equal society, isn't it? Yeah, well I think not. So 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 are not even capable of answering a simple question, you know, what is a woman, right? So they are not capable of keeping women or honoring women's safe spaces. And now it's about men, biological men, you know, have to be allowed in all kinds of women's spaces. This is destroying actually all the achievements that women fought so hard for, like, for decades. It's just erasing women. And the very—I remember, what, two, three years ago maybe, a huge article in The New

York Times on menstrual hygiene products. And in the entire article, they never once mentioned the word woman, women, girls, none of that. They referred to them as menstruators. I was so appalled by that. And I'm like, seriously, menstruators? That's what we call women now, because, I don't know, 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.

And yes, I'm absolutely all for that. What I don't want, however, is like women's quotas, because that is actually benevolent sexism. What they're saying by doing so is actually women are too stupid to get anywhere. So the state needs to like, you know, facilitate it and, you know, make laws so they are being advanced. Sure. Yeah. So it's actually telling me I'm too stupid to get anywhere without the state's help. No thanks, but no thanks. I'm sure you're aware that the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action here in the U.S. not too long ago. This has been a big issue playing out. Something that you mentioned, this menstruators, we were talking about

dehumanization a bit earlier in the interview, and that word mentioned, this menstruators, we were talking about dehumanization a bit earlier in the interview, and that word strikes me as profoundly dehumanizing, actually, under the guise of being humanizing. What it actually does, too, it reduces women to bodily functions. Right. You know, so in other terms, it's cervix havers. Seriously? It's stealing our identity. They're, you know, not even, they're not even stopping at that anymore. They're stealing our sexual identity, what makes us who we are, the core of who we are.

You've said they a number of times throughout the interview. Who are they? When you look at every single Western democracies, 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, built back better, safe and effective. No one is safe until everyone is safe. Stay home and, you know, the whole shebang. And 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. And I don't really care because the only way that I can change anything is by going after the elected

officials. That's where I have the contract with. I elected these people. They are responsible. They're accountable to me. But I don't know who's above that and whoever it is. So I need to understand and I need to know, why does my government, who was democratically elected, why do they do that? What's in it for them? You know, that's the thing. That's what I'm interested in. No, that's a very interesting perspective because there's all sorts of characters. We hear World Economic Forum. You hear Bilderberg Group. You hear Club of Rome.

You hear all sorts of things about people have theories. But you're saying, in a way, it doesn't actually matter that much because it's the elected officials that you're going to be targeting. 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 is my government. It is my government who is allowing the WHO to take overseas governing powers. They need to fix this. Well, of course, the UN is one of these groups that people point to and Agenda 2030. Do you view the UN as an entirely unaccountable body? Well, who are they exactly accountable to?

I mean, could the German people, for instance, sue the UN? So it's actually what the German government is allowing the UN, whatever goals or whatever measures the UN proposes, it is still the governments that have to actually come up with the legislation part of that and put it into a law. So the UN does not have governing powers. But they are kind of trying to fix that now, you know, at least when it comes to the WHO, 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 re-election. And if they violate fundamental rights, if they infringe upon them, if they impose lockdowns on people, then the elected officials might not get reelected. So what they're doing is, with the change of the international health regulations, which would then grant the WHO these governing powers in case of pandemic, which, by the way, they are the authority to call out the pandemic

and then seize the governing powers. What is happening here is actually providing plausible deniability to the elected officials because they can say now, we would have never done that. We would not infringe upon your rights. We would not take it away from you. It's the WHO doing it, right? So that's how this is working here. And yeah, in a way, it's also working like that with the EU institutions.

The governments in the member states, they kind of tell their people, well, 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 it. Well, there's a theme of, let's say, avoidance of responsibility. I think that one of the criticisms, for example, of the U.S. Congress is that they have ceded a lot of their effectively legislative ability or requirement to legislate to unaccountable institutions, i.e., you would call the administrative state, different agencies, experts, and there's certain legal doctrines, one's called Chevron deference, that allow

for that to happen. Everyone says, plus it wasn't me, right? And then in the end, as things go get really bad, who's to blame? Yeah, exactly. It's about removing the democratic process further and further away from the people. So the people will no longer be clear

on who actually took what decision, you know, who can we hold accountable. And even if they knew, then they are kind of now getting to a stage where it would be impossible for the people to hold them accountable because they never elected the person that took that decision. So that's been happening under the guise of, you know, doing something good, something for the greater good. They're taking, really pretty much taking away freedom, democracy and the rule of law. So like this whole climate madness, we need to save the planet now.

What they're doing in the Netherlands. They're seizing the land. The farmers are no longer allowed to grow crops on their land. They have to relocate. Like, yeah, you just pack up a farm like you would a two-bedroom apartment, right? No, it's not working that way. In Ireland, you know, the farmers, they have to, like, slaughter 50% of their cattle

because they found out cows, you know cows fart and burp, and this is now all killing us. They are actually taking away everything, everything that we held dear and everything that made us into who we are, whether it's our cultural identity, national identity, sexual identity. We already talked about that. It's democratic principles. I think what they're trying to achieve is pretty much to transform our free and liberal

societies that are made up of free individuals into this malleable, mindless mass where we can just be shoveled around wherever they, and once again I say they, need us to be, to pretty much serve in their best interest. So let's say taking away the food from us. Yeah, they want us to eat bucks, right? But they're going to still have their steaks. This framing going on, this gaslighting in the media, the citizens are being lectured to rather than the citizens forming an opinion and the government will actually have to implement what the people want. It's been turned the other way around. Yeah, it has nothing to do with democracy,

none whatsoever. And we have some interesting developments in terms of politicians being elected who have a very different view, like Geert Wilders, for example. So what do you make of that? Well, yeah, we're seeing that pretty much in all of the member states in Europe. Because the policies the EU has been pushing for for decades actually now goes against the people's interests. So you see what we would consider our side, like the people's side, grow stronger. And Gerhard Wilders winning the elections in the Netherlands, that's phenomenal.

And he has actually been around for quite some time. And they did just about everything they could to defame him, to stigmatize him. You know, they called him any name in the book. And here we are, right? He won the elections. And you see that in other countries too. So even in the Western European states, it's kind of starting. I keep thinking about this far-right moniker because today, another newly elected president in this case, Javier Millay, they called him far right. A lot of us, I think,

kind of believed this. But today, you kind of look at what's being called far right. And it's, I mean, it's comical how it's being used. Yes. Elon Musk is far right. 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 or whatever. So, the last three years, the very first big protest that happened against the restrictions because of COVID happened in Berlin. And it was August 20th of 2020. And the vast majority of protesters participating

in that protest were actually left and green-leaning, if not left or green. And they had a good time, protested, and they met, you know, a lot of people, as you do. And once they came home, to their astonishment, their TV told them that they were Nazis and right-wing extremists. And they were, what? Us?

But we are left. We are greens. We are the good guys. They call us Nazis now. And that actually led to the fact that they, for the very first time, probably questioned, 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, right?

The mindset is a different one in the Eastern European countries for a very simple reason. They have lived through totalitarian rule, and it hasn't been that long ago. They remember. They recognize the mechanisms. They recognize how totalitarian regimes go about doing certain things. They recognize the language. They recognize the gas lighting. So it's not really working in the Eastern European countries. And that's where we actually have the most resistance. It's in these countries. And I have been saying that for quite some time. And 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. Western Europe, I think, it's done with. There is no way of undoing what has been done over the last decades. Just the mentality of the young generation, spoiled brats, not putting any value on things such as freedom, democracy, and the rule of law, and thinking if we censor hate speech or call free speech hate speech, and 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, and that that is the very first step any totalitarian regime will take in order to pretty much control every single aspect of a human being's life. Of course, Germany has these very strong, I guess, anti-Holocaust denial laws. What you told me was that because of these rules, while of course you can talk about the Holocaust,

what happened, it makes it difficult or potentially legally problematic to talk about the process of the Nazis coming to power. Explain that to me. How could that be? So in Germany we have, it's, you know, in our penal code, it does carry a jail sentence to deny, to clarify, or to trivialize the Holocaust, right? So, and I mean, you know, denial, no problem there. Yeah, you do not deny the Holocaust. You just don't go there, right? Let alone glorify it.

All right? But where the problem comes in is trivialization of the Holocaust. But what we're seeing now is trivialization of the Holocaust, it would even be, 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. So pointing that out and then possibly pointing out the parallels of what we may have seen in the last three years,

that would be considered trivialization of the Holocaust. And this to me 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 precisely 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 end point. It started with little, incremental, seemingly inconsequential and insignificant steps, but it was a building, getting people used to a certain idea and then building up on that. And like I said,

if we're not allowed to teach the next generations on what these steps were, then it will happen again. Now, who would be interested in people not knowing how it began, 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, right? So, but yeah, that is now considered trivialization of the Holocaust. And the argument is actually by pointing out, well, we are not there yet.

We are not in that fascist totalitarian regime yet. So that's trivializing the Holocaust, right? No, I'm terribly sorry. I will not go there because it is a process and no one in their right mind would deny a pregnancy with a stupid argument that baby isn't born yet. We need to understand how did they do it, how did it work. And when you really look at it, it took the Nazis five years, by the way. They came to power in 1933. And it was... Democratically, I might add.

Democratically elected, absolutely. It took them five years until they were capable of pushing legislation, of passing legislation. Do you think this, you know, I don't know if it's a surge or just, you know, people feeling justified in being like grossly anti-Semitic, calling for from the river to the sea. Do you think that that could somehow again be codified in society? 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, once again, you know, take to the streets and they chant, you know, from the river to the sea. If you were to ask them, what river are we even talking about here? They wouldn't even be able to name the river.

Right. So it's just this, you know, it's the current thing to do. are we even talking about here? They wouldn't even be able to name the river, right? So it's just this, you know, it's the current thing to do, virtue signaling. Even EU Parliament is not capable of just 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, full of not only anti-Semitic slurs but openly calling for the death of Jews. And the EU is funding these school books, and we haven't stopped. So the hypocrisy, once again, is staggering. This sort of nonchalant—you mentioned the word nonchalant, right? I mean, I can't help

but think back to Matthias Desmet's work, you know, the psychology of totalitarianism, the current thing, the nonchalantness. There's just this... Banality of evil. Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, because you said they have no idea what river it is. They might not even fully grasp that they're chanting, eliminate the Jews from this entire piece of land

and things like that. Yet, you know, the thing that people can't see or find it difficult to see in these circumstances is how does the rhetoric, how does that translate to actual genocidal behavior? Yet, I think history is rife with this. You just can't imagine that something like that could happen. As Heraclit said, a 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. But

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. So they thought it's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. But yet it did. Yet it did. So whenever you think that this is so far off, that this is so, you know, don't think it won't happen. Just because you cannot imagine it will happen. To do that, we have to accept that we as human beings are capable of terrible things. Yes. Right? Even we think we're a good person, I would never do that. But history shows us that lots of perfectly normal people, not psychopaths, have done absolutely terrible

things. Right. Every human being is capable of doing the most terrible things to our fellow men and inflicting pain on our fellow men, you know, given the right circumstances. There is a certain criteria have to be met and it's been proven. And, you know, the Milgram experiment, the ash, that is just who humans are. So, But unless you're willing to accept the fact that, yes, I am too capable of doing horrible things to my fellow men, unless I'm capable of acknowledging that and embracing that side within myself, I will have no mechanisms to keep it in check. It has to really be a conscious decision not to do it.

Right? But if you're not going to happen because I'm so pure, I'm so great, you will have nothing to actually keep that dark side in check. So, yeah, we needed to revisit who we actually are. There's a good side and there's an evil side. And this conscious decision we have to take not to let the evil side pretty much prevail and come out. You know, and I think I did mention this in our previous interview, but I'll mention it again. You know, of course, Solzhenitsyn's famous line, the line between good and evil cuts through every human heart. Yeah, exactly. Right? And that we have to be aware of that.

You mentioned that you don't have a lot of hope for Western Europe, which is a difficult thing, probably, 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 future exactly? Well, I wouldn't go as far as saying I have no hope for Western Europe. But what I have not seen in the last years, yeah, we do have anti-Semitism by the millions in Western Europe, not only there. I don't see anyone being willing to really take a hard look at this and possibly say, okay, what do we need to do to undo this? Right. So it's not that I don't have hope.

I just kind of guess I have come to terms with the fact that we will not be able to undo that. There will always be Europe. It might be a little smaller. Right. And my hope also lies actually with the American people, because the American people, they have a way, a much more of a concept of freedom.

It's not like that in Europe. You know, we kind of like freedom, but it doesn't have the same significance as it does for the American people. So my hope lies with the Eastern European countries, where we'll have actually a Europe, how we knew it and how we, how I want it anyway, and with the American people. And it was just a couple of nights ago, we had this event going,

and it just hit me suddenly. It was like, gosh, the United States of America, the land of the free, the land of the unlimited possibilities. And I am being asked to come here to speak about freedom to Americans. It really hit me. It was such an honor, you know, that I would be allowed to do that. So, but I really, I, we need the American people to just, yeah, stay American people and, you know, uphold that concept of freedom that is deeply rooted within the Americans. And we need that if we want to save all the peoples around the world from this tyrannical system they're about to impose on us. Just one final thing as we finish up. You mentioned earlier that people

say that all of this stuff actually came from America, this global, the Borg, whatever people will call it, right, globalist, transhumanist. So that's interesting or perhaps ironic if you see the hope for the future. Do you see it as having come from America as well? Well, it depends on setting the stage and gaslighting people and manipulating people. Yeah, that seems to start in the United States. Like I'm talking about safe spaces for minorities at universities, including that students can no longer or should no longer be exposed to certain topics, even though they are kind of required. So protecting is overly, that came from the United States, right?

So in certain ways, the safety is culture. I think that's what you're talking about. Exactly. So in a lot of ways, you know, yeah, the stage is being set. It starts in the United States and then, you know then swaps over the planet. When it comes to flooding societies with illegal immigrants, it seems to be Europe, especially Germany. So depending on what aspect you're focusing on, something starts here and something starts 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, in the Western democracies. There is where you have to set the stage. So speaking of framing 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, fundamental rights, is so profound, deeply rooted within all of the American people, that's where you have to attack it. That's where you have to attack it. And once you

get that going, then it's a walk in the park to get all the other Western democracies to just fall in line. Like you said, it looks really dark for Western Europe. What do you think about America? It actually is not quite accurate to say it's looking very dark for Western Europe. It's just, it will be different. Like I said, it may be a little smaller. What I think will happen to the United States, I truly believe that American people, they

are, like I said, their concept of freedom, their concept of fundamental rights, it is so deeply rooted within all of you. I think the United States will actually be fine. There isn't, I don't see, you know, states dropping out or, you know, none of that. No, I think the American people, they 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 in Europe, the spoiled brats, the Western Europeans, spoiled brats, it's kind of like, you know, freedom, democracy fell out of the blue sky on one fine day, and boom, there it was. No, it wasn't. It

wasn't. Our fathers and grandfathers, forefathers, they had to wrestle it from the former elites. And they literally spilled their blood over this. And yeah, and now they put no longer any value to this freedom, democracy, all of that. But I think the Americans will be fine. Well, I hope you're right. And Christine Anderson, it's such a pleasure to have had you on. Well, thanks for having me. I had a really good time talking to you. Thank you. Thank you all for joining MEP Christine Anderson and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. I'm your host, Janja Kelek.