In this interview, Professor Carles Boix offers the best synthesis of the typical European paternalistic view of (or blindness to) what is going on across the Atlantic. To the question “What do we read wrong about Trump, from Europe?,” he answers:
You don’t look at yourselves enough. The very same forces that are behind Trump exist in Europe. And, truth be told, I would say they are even worse. Because Europe hasn’t grown as much. And because Europeans are much more ethnic in their conception of nationhood than Americans.