Europeans believe in democracy - or, at least, in republican government - but they have considered the alternatives, and continue to do so, and that scandalizes Americans.

It is one of the perceptual defects of Western government and press to assign Western-style motives to what people do in non-Western societies, as if these are universally relevant.

The truth is that history constantly presents new problems in the guise of old.

But Americans are different from everyone else in the world - except the Canadians, and Americans are more different from the Canadians than they often think.

The center holds; passion falls away. That is what happened ideologically in Western Europe over recent years.

The achievement of nationhood is a product not only of time and circumstance but usually of war and suffering as well.

The problems of elites is an old one for which Americans have found no solid answer.