How the US views British membership of the European Union: hardly at all

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/24/us-views-british-membership-european-union

Version 0 of 1.

Writing about American reactions to the proposed British referendum on membership of the European Union would be very easy if I could turn in a blank sheet of paper – or, say, the emoticon for distracted befuddlement (it involves an ampersand, right?).

As carefully watched a Prime Minister David Cameron's speech was in the UK, it made something less than a ripple here. The only reaction of note came from the White House briefing room. In that carefully patrolled newsless wasteland, the administration's statement came with an almost audible sigh. While they believe the two entities are strengthened by the relationship:

"The internal processes by which these matters are considered within the UK or any other country are obviously the province of those countries and those governments."

Next question.

US cable news and political junkies were transfixed by the spectacle of Hillary Clinton's Benghazi testimony rather than the "internal processes" of the UK, which may explain why no member of either the House or Senate foreign relations committees put out any statement on the issue. Of course, I had a hard time finding statements about the EU from the committee members, period.

I don't think I'd be exaggerating too much to say that most Americans – and by extension, congressmen and women – would probably identify the European Union as a soccer team or a clothing line before they'd remember it's a governing body. Fully 40% of Americans polled said they knew "nothing at all" about the EU. Another 37% said they knew "very little".

Add to that the unidentified number who know little to nothing but won't admit it, and the probably larger number of people who <em>think</em> they know something but really don't, and no wonder most political discussions in the US regarding the EU veer toward the farcical, if not fantastical. This is especially true among American conservatives, whose suspicions and ideas about the EU do not make for the kind of immediate alliance with their British counterparts that you'd assume, or that the British would even want.

Dana Rohrbacher, who chairs the House foreign relations subcommittee on Europe, once pitched a novel idea for using the EU's power to address global climate change. At a 2011 hearing, he asked:

"Is there some thought being given to subsidizing the clearing of rain forests in order for some countries to eliminate that production of greenhouse gases? Or would people be supportive of cutting down older trees in order to plant younger trees as a means to prevent this disaster from happening?"

Rohrbacher has since gone on to co-chair the House science, space and technology committee, so perhaps he'll find a more realistic avenue for that proposal – like zapping trees with a laser.

The heyday of EU misinformation came in 2010, when the GOP became enamored of stopping the value-added tax that the Obama administration never actually proposed. The Senate was so concerned that they voted on it anyway, while the House organized an "Anti-VAT caucus", responding to thinktank warnings that "the VAT threat will lurk in dark corners until either Congress brings the deficit under control or Obama is ready to bring it out into the open."

For conservatives, the VAT was yet more proof – alongside healthcare reform – of Obama's (ongoing) plan to turn America, as Ann Coulter put it, into "a pathetic western European country without the charming cobblestone streets". Glenn Beck made the next obvious connection: eventually, the International Monetary Fund and the EU would impose a "global VAT", and those cobblestones would be torn out and used for building cells:

"Do you know what kind of prison is built for every free man on the planet with that kind of money?"

Prison is really the least of humanity's worries, however, since, later in 2010, Beck would assert that the European Union had more spiritual punishments in mind: specifically, in pushing Ireland to take an IMF bailout, "what they are aiming for is an affront to God."

Proof of this lay in the architecture of the European parliament building, whose superficial resemblance to a Roman coliseum was, according to a guest of Beck's, evidence that "they intentionally are building the Tower of Babel." (I encourage you to read the transcript in full. No, really. That's the only way you'll fully appreciate this Daily Show parody.)

Democrats are comparatively well-informed, if also comparably silent, on the European Union. They are more likely to mention it lately in the context of an ambassadorship.

Republicans' fanciful ideations about what the EU means or is are as disappointing as they must be surprising to their potential allies across the Atlantic. After all, most strident arguments for leaving the EU closely mirror conservative arguments for leaving our own Union: distrust for central government wrapped up in complaints about regulation and higher taxes. If GOP partisans saw and understood the discussion underway in the UK, they'd either be inspired or jealous – if nothing else, leaving the EU looks a lot easier.

I can't speak to what exactly motivates Euroscepticism. I am an American, after all, and I don't believe fads that happen to run parallel between the two countries necessarily have the same origin (unless it's the one for Sherlock Holmes). Our love of Downton Abbey, for example, is not tinged with any knowledge of class strictures, but rather, anticipation of it.

Yet <em>our</em> secessionist impulses might share a common root: anxiety over a world both too large and too small, where the traditional boundaries have gone porous and traditional modes of enforcement have morphed into powers too diffuse to fully reject.