Don’t leave us alone! – My political trip to Washington D.C.
Dear friends!
Not even two weeks after the US election, I boarded a plane to Washington D.C. to talk to civil society, activists and decision-makers in Congress and the White House.
We discussed democracy and digital platforms, as well as strategies for preventing Trump from winning a second term. In this email, I will take you with me to my meetings. What united them all was the despondency and not infrequently fear in the face of the repression and persecution threatened by Trump and his people. And the great plea to us in Europe: don’t leave us alone!
These were my stops:
- Station 1: At the civil society round table between helplessness and resistance
- Station 2: The White House and the fear of Trump’s retaliation
- Station 3: In the Senate, it is clear that Europe is leading the way, and that’s a good thing!
- Station 4: The Federal Trade Commission in the crosshairs of Musk’s ‘DOGE’
- Station 5: The big scandal at the Project Liberty conference and the hope in the Blue Sky
- My conclusion: The situation in the US is serious and threatening, but we in Europe are not powerless.
Read on for all the details:
Station 1: At the civil society round table between helplessness and resistance
My first appointment on Monday in Washington was a round table with a whole range of civil society organisations from the fields of democracy, consumer protection and digital issues. The mood is subdued. The election has been lost and there is great fear of persecution by the new government. There is a sense of helplessness.
Their analysis was fascinating for me: the major influence of social media was at the centre of this, which, particularly on the topic of migration, has instilled fear and terror in people. If you watch – like the majority of Americans – the right-wing television channel Fox News, you will see constant images of crowds crossing the border. The group agreed that the US labour market needs migration and will absorb them well. The actual problem is low wages, which drive many people into poverty.
It was also interesting to note that in many states, people did vote for Trump, but not for his right-wing and neo-conservative agenda. In conservative Missouri, for example, voters approved paid sick leave and a higher minimum wage in a referendum, but they also voted for Trump. Trump has even managed to present himself as a defender of social rights in some cases, for example by proposing that tips should not be taxed as a wage component. The desire for lower living costs and more extensive social rights were central issues for many people. Likewise, people in many states voted for extensive abortion rights, but also for Trump. Trump’s self-portrayal as an ‘anti-establishment’ candidate was therefore a complete success. The boundaries of a traditional understanding of politics and traditional right-left categories are blurring. Instead, social media, which rely on strong negative emotions such as fear and anger, are dominating political events.
If you then look at who voted how, one thing stands out: those who regularly engage with politics mostly voted for Harris, while those who are little or not at all politically informed mostly voted for Trump.
When asked what we in Europe can do to preserve democracy and human rights in the US, the answer is clear: there is a lot of hope placed in Europe.
Europe must now remain strong, resist authoritarian tendencies and consistently enforce good legislation, especially in the digital sector, so that all opinions have a chance in social media and not just hatred and disinformation. At the same time, we should not give up on the US, but work together with those states, such as California, that are themselves progressive and have a keen interest in close cooperation with Europe.
Station 2: The White House and the fear of Trump’s retaliation
The next appointment takes me to the heart of power: the White House. The mood in the White House is gloomy. The conversation centres on the fear for employees and scientists who will now be targeted by members of the future administration. When it comes to issues such as climate change or health, facts are not welcome. This is not the normal transition from one democratic administration to the next of a different colour, but a sense of the demise of democracy itself, with the victor taking revenge on the vanquished. The conversation focuses on the role of disinformation and paid advertising, which has been used to spread lies by the second. It’s good that we in Europe have passed legislation that will prevent a similar lack of transparency in the future, at least when it comes to paid political advertising.
Stop 3: In the Senate, it is clear that Europe is leading the way, and that’s a good thing!
My next stop in politics is the Senate. There I meet with the office of Senator Edward Markey, a progressive senator from Massachusetts who is strongly committed to climate protection, but, like me, is also working on the regulation of tech companies. Markey himself has to rush to the marathon of votes in the Senate at the last minute, because judges are being appointed across the country before Trump takes office. I talk to his team about data protection, algorithms that promote hate speech against migrants, women and trans people, and the protection of minors. I am just glad that we in the European Union have already passed laws in recent years that protect our data and our democracy so much better. We have already passed much of what the Americans want through Parliament. So now we can work on implementation to keep our democracy strong.
Station 4: The Federal Trade Commission in the crosshairs of Musk’s ‘DOGE’
The mood is also depressed at the important competition and tech regulatory authority, the Federal Trade Commission. Under the leadership of Lina Khan, this agency in particular has shown great courage and commitment in recent years in bringing antitrust proceedings to strengthen citizens’ position vis-à-vis the digital giants and to protect them from unlimited commercial surveillance – i.e. the data collection frenzy of Google, Meta, Tiktok and Co. This is now likely to come to an end with Elon Musk, the embodiment of Silicon Valley capital, personally sitting in the government. He has already announced that he wants to disempower numerous authorities with his so-called ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ (DOGE), presumably precisely those that set limits for his companies to protect the environment or American taxpayers.
Stop 5: The big scandal at the Project Liberty conference and hope in the Blue Sky
The big ‘Project Liberty’ conference, which I am attending on Friday as a representative of the EU Parliament, should actually be a celebration. Project Liberty Initiative wanted to buy the American arm of TikTok and turn it into a social network without surveillance and toxic algorithms (more info here). But at this conference, too, the mood is subdued. No one really believes that a Trump-led government will allow one of the largest social networks to be taken over by a pro-Democrat entrepreneur and his project.
But right on the first panel, I can see live how the debate is escalating not only on social media but also in real life. It was supposed to be just about data protection, where Democrats and Republicans do have some common ground. The Democratic representative for Silicon Valley, Ro Khanna, and the Republican Nancy Mace were sitting on the stage for this. Mace had constantly made headlines in the days leading up to the conference because she had denied a democratically elected trans woman access to the ladies’ room in the House of Representatives.
Instead of answering the question about data protection, she launched into a verbal attack on trans people. Activist and singer Evan Greer responded to this from the audience. The debate went completely off topic. Ro Khanna tried to make a factual contribution to the question that had actually been asked, but the lies about trans people were left unchallenged. This is how the attention economy works: lies stick in people’s minds and become more and more mainstream. Many people in the audience will remember Nancy, but only a few will remember her democratic discussion partner, who speaks with facts on the subject.
There is hope only on the second day of the conference: Jay Greber, the head of X Alternative Bluesky, sits on the podium. The platform has just seen a huge increase in the number of users who are disappointed in X and no longer want to feed Musk’s right-wing extremist hate machine. She shows that there is another way. Social networks can work without surveillance and toxic algorithms and can be a place where people exchange ideas and network, find information and discuss politics (I am active in Bluesky myself.)
My conclusion: the situation in the US is serious and threatening, but we in Europe are not powerless.
When I am back in Brussels, I receive messages from people I met in the US with a request: If Trump’s announcements come true, don’t leave us alone! Help us get out of the US. This is not just said lightly, I already sensed that there. Even if Trump plays the statesman like he did yesterday in Paris, we in Europe have to watch very closely what he does in the US. Because acting moderate abroad while undermining the rule of law and successively dismantling civil rights at home is a strategy of the New Right, which can also be seen very well in Giorgia Meloni. We must not be deceived by this.
And there is more we can do: people like Trump – and this is what unites him with Putin – only understand toughness. We must remain firm on platform regulation and not be intimidated by threats from the US. That was also the clear request of my dialogue partners. Stand firm, that helps us!
But it is also clear that now more than ever we as Europe need to become less dependent on the US and China and build our own digital infrastructure for AI, cloud and social media. In the end, this will also help the defenders of democracy in the US, because it weakens the political dominance of Musk, Bezos and Co.
With best regards,
Alexandra Geese