James Howard Kunstler's 16 October 2026 Substack post "Things Have Changed" argues that Europe has become an adversary of the United States, especially of a Trump-led America, because it has "lost its mind" in pursuit of theories that nations don't matter, that high living standards can be sustained without productive industry, and that carbon is destroying the world. He treats this as an Orwellian reversal: the unelected EU Commission under Ursula von der Leyen now functions like a politburo, while post-Soviet Russia has become a normal nation interested in commerce and family life rather than exporting ideology. The piece is characteristically polemical and wide-ranging; free-speech restrictions are one element, not the sole focus.
Kunstler singles out the UK (outside the EU but still relevant) for "jailing their own people for impure thoughts" while permitting large-scale migration that he links to "wholesale rape of its womenfolk." He portrays Britain's remaining economic power as concentrated in the City of London's financial rackets, with leadership pushing a hopeless war with Russia as a last-ditch salvage operation. More broadly, he describes the EU and NATO as entangled in the Ukraine conflict (which he attributes to earlier Western efforts to draw Ukraine into NATO after the 2014 Maidan), lacking the money to sustain it, and manoeuvring in ways that put them at odds with U.S. interests under Trump. He notes that European publics are unhappy, and that current leaders may not remain in charge long. The essay also touches on Iran and internal U.S. politics, but the Europe-as-adversary thesis is the through-line.
This continues themes Kunstler has developed elsewhere: Europe's self-inflicted energy and industrial damage, migration pressures, and an ideological shift that he sees as more hostile to traditional Western norms than contemporary Russia.
The free-speech point is real and documented. The UK has seen prosecutions and police interventions over social-media posts, online comments, and public statements under hate-speech, public-order, and communications laws, cases involving criticism of migration, gender ideology, or Islam that would typically be protected under the U.S. First Amendment. Several European countries maintain criminal speech codes on Holocaust denial, "hate speech," or religious insult that have no direct U.S. counterpart. EU-level pressure on platforms for content moderation has further widened the gap. From a U.S. conservative perspective that prioritises broad expressive freedom, these regimes look like genuine illiberalism, especially when combined with high migration inflows and low native birth rates.
Other concrete divergences include energy policy (Europe's faster deindustrialisation under net-zero targets), approach to the Ukraine war (European governments have generally favoured continued support longer than the post-2025 U.S. posture), and demographic management. These create real policy friction even if they do not amount to formal enmity.
Kunstler himself hedges: "something of an adversary, if not exactly our enemy, yet." Shared NATO membership, trade, intelligence cooperation, and cultural history remain substantial. European public opinion is not monolithic; populist parties critical of migration, energy policy, and EU centralisation have gained ground in several countries. U.S. interests still overlap with Europe on many security and economic questions. Framing the relationship as adversarial can usefully highlight costs and ideological distance, but it also flattens internal European variation and the continued practical interdependence.
The essay is best read as a diagnosis of diverging elite priorities and public discontent rather than a claim of inevitable geopolitical rupture. The free-speech contrast, the migration scale, the industrial decline, and the Ukraine financing burden are measurable and politically salient for conservatives; whether they make Europe an "enemy" depends on how sharply one prioritises those issues over residual alliances.
https://www.kunstler.com/p/things-have-changed-78b