Well I, for one, am terrified about the collapse of the German coalition, recent regional results an the upcoming outlook. Less up to date on Sweden, beyond the fact that they’ve been yet another struggling center right regime and the abuse of their crises, and in particular their crime stats, as a far-right propaganda strategy. Of Belgium off the top of my head I can tell you their struggles to form stable governments are legendary (and that this is despite better than average economic performance across the inflation crisis) and that process is very much ongoing.

Now, I don’t blame anybody, myself included, for not having a full understanding of the many vectors of EU politics across the Union. That’s an impossible task. I do, however, find it horrifying to actively dismiss the relevance of far-right, pro-Russian advances in any Union member as unimportant to one’s own interests. Doubly so if the person in question can name more than two US Senators or members of the House.

I don’t care that you don’t know off the top of your head, I care that you don’t want to know and think it’s irrelevant. Because it does have a real impact. It impacts Union security, it impacts the power balance in the European Council and, if turned into a trend, will eventually impact the power balance in Parliament.

And again, those matter to you because they literally write laws directly applicable to you. If that doesn’t trigger alarm bells for you, then yes, I’m gonna say you’re not paying enough attention. You don’t need to learn the intricacies of post-communist political alignments, or how typical left-right alignments don’t work the same way in that context or the names of everybody involved… but at least I’d expect the news to make your ears perk up and read a report, especially if you’re busy doomscrolling individual Trump cabinet appointments at the time.