Unlike his predecessor as vice president, J.D. Vance has proven himself an effective and slashing communicator in the face of hostile interviewers. At the 61st Munich Security Conference on Friday, he added to his reputation by delivering a speech challenging a European elite whose claims of “democracy” are belied by their attempts to thwart elections and silence their own people when they get out of line.

Though Vance’s remarks have been received by both European and American elites as an attack on Europe, the reality is that his stance is a defense of democracy and freedom for both Americans and Europeans.

Ironically, articles were still being published earlier this week condescendingly referring to Vance’s explanation of how the “order of charity” can clarify personal and governmental responsibility as “hillbilly theology” and falsely and viciously accusing him (without citation) of wishing to “justify loving only our own people and ignoring the rest of humanity.” Yet Vance’s Munich speech showed exactly the opposite. This hillbilly made a sophisticated pitch that clearly communicated that Uncle Sam is his brother’s keeper.  

Vance began with a heartfelt message of sorrow and prayers for the people of Germany in the wake of a terror attack in Munich just the day before. To the resulting thunderous applause, Vance wryly observed, “Now, I hope that’s not the last bit of applause that I get.”

It wasn’t. But the applause that did come was much more limited as Vance dove straight into the heart of the topic. Though it is natural and right to think about issues of external security at such an event, Vance said he was most worried about neither China nor Russia. Instead: “What I worry about is the threat from within—the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values that are shared with the United States of America.”

First, he recounted his shock in seeing a “former European commissioner” on television who “sounded delighted that the Romanian government had just annulled an entire election.” This official “warned that if things don’t go to plan, the very same thing could happen in Germany too.” Given that almost everything done in both America and Europe is justified on the basis of “our shared democratic values,” this “cavalier” attitude to the annulment of elections is very worrisome.

The Romanian election in question was nullified on account of supposed “Russian interference” – or as Vance put it, “the flimsy suspicions of an intelligence agency and enormous pressure from its continental neighbors.” But as the vice president argued, “if your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with.”

Vance might have added that the claim about Russian interference was actually false. An internal investigation by Romanian tax authorities showed “the highly effective TikTok campaign was funded by the liberal pro-E.U. party PNL in an effort to knock out a rival in a plan that badly backfired.”

“Now, the good news,” Vance continued, “is that I happen to think your democracies are substantially less brittle than many people apparently fear.”

It was a gentlemanly way of telling the Europeans to knock it off when it comes to stopping elections that don’t go the way their elites want.

Vance also discussed another worrisome trend that contradicts truly democratic values: censorship of speech and even prosecution for silent prayer in many countries. He talked about E.U. officials in Brussels considering how to control social media “during times of social unrest,” German raids on “citizens for posting anti-feminist comments online,” and a Swedish Christian activist prosecuted for burning copies of the Quran.

Vance took particular care to tell the story of “Adam Smith-Connor, a 51-year-old physiotherapist and army veteran,” who was charged by the British government “with the heinous crime of standing 50 meters from an abortion clinic and silently praying for three minutes.” This “crime,” for which Smith-Connor was forced to pay thousands of pounds, was silent prayer inside a “buffer zone” that forbids any action that could influence someone within 200 meters of an abortion clinic.

Vance went on to say that this case was no “fluke.” This past October, he recounted, “the Scottish government began distributing letters to citizens whose houses lay within so-called Safe Access Zones, warning them that even private prayer within their own homes may amount to breaking the law” [emphasis added].

While some have declared Vance a fearmonger, it’s fairly easy to find a picture of the letter to which he referred. It clearly states that if people are visibly praying in their home in a safe access zone, they can be found guilty.

Vance had the goods on the Euro-elites. And he didn’t let them off the hook. But he also made clear that he was not playing the ugly American who says everything is better back home. He admitted “that sometimes the loudest voices for censorship have come not from within Europe, but from within my own country, where the prior administration threatened and bullied social media companies to censor so-called misinformation.”

Instead, Vance made clear he was looking out for America’s European allies. And he brought them an offer: “In Washington, there is a new sheriff in town, and under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer them in the public square, agree or disagree.”

This was an act of fraternal correction. There at the Munich Security Conference, populist countries on both the left and right had been banned from attending. They were banned, Vance suggested, in large part because they wanted to talk about the major issue that is roiling both Europe and the United States: mass immigration.

The very large numbers of immigrants were brought in, Vance said, by “conscious decisions made by politicians all over the continent, and others across the world, over the span of a decade.” These conscious decisions, he said, had resulted in the terrible attack the day before—a 24-year-old asylum seeker who drove a car into a crowd and injured thirty-nine people, two of whom have now died.

Simply trying to shut down conversations about these policies and others will not result in anything good. Healthy societies and competitive economies require an atmosphere in which the people have a say. If European leaders want American help, they must help themselves by forsaking their present path of censoring citizens, shutting down elections, and forbidding people from taking part in public conversations just because they say things uncomfortable to politicians.

“If you are running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you,” Vance advised.

The shrieking of the left began immediately after the speech. German defense minister Boris Pistorius was outraged that Vance was “comparing conditions in parts of Europe with those in authoritarian regimes.” Pistorius called this “unacceptable” without any explanation of the plainly authoritarian actions Vance had recounted.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz rejected Vance’s comments. He said, “Free speech in Europe means that you are not attacking others in ways that are against legislation and laws we have in our country.” In other words, you can say whatever you want, so long as it is what the politicians and E.U. bureaucrats want you to say.

All the complaints ended up supporting Vance’s claims. European elites, like the Democrats back home in the U.S., like to talk about “our democracy.” But once the people start voting for the “wrong” candidates or policies, they become the enemy. The problem, as Vance was explaining to them, is that this is wrong. And, if they don’t like that judgmental word, it is no longer feasible. Those issues on which the people aren’t happy—mass migration being the most important—are not going away.

If European leaders want to keep their political posts, they will have to deal with citizens’ legitimate concerns. The U.S., J.D. Vance told them, will indeed help those politicians if they are willing to give their own people the freedom to speak and to vote the way they want.

Vance did not have to offer this challenge. He could have offered a series of bland bromides that neither offended nor interested anyone. But he did not. Recognizing the historic bonds America has with Europe, he followed the order of charity in offering Europe’s leaders the kind of tough love a brother ought to give.

The speech Vance gave will be remembered. Whether it bears fruit in Europe will depend on whether European leaders are humble and smart enough to accept it.

David P. Deavel teaches at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. A past Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute, he is a Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative. Follow him on X (Twitter) @davidpdeavel.