America’s Words and Amsterdam’s Example

Since the time of Tocqueville, Americans have been best able to understand themselves through the eyes of an insightful outsider. It should therefore be no surprise that the best summation of the lessons of the 2024 election came not from an American pundit but from a farsighted foreigner. On the morning of November 6, Konstantin Kisin, a British intellectual born in Russia, penned a list of 10 reflections regarding the results of November 5, 2024. The reflections are all the more interesting because America is not his intended audience. As Kisin tells us, his thoughts are mainly for “my British and European friends who are ‘shocked’ and ‘surprised’” and who “didn’t see it coming.”

All 10 comments are worth reading, but several stick out. Thus there is, for example, Kisin’s reflection on wealth creation in the United States:

Americans do not believe in socialism. They believe in meritocracy. They don’t care about the super rich being super rich because they know that they live in a country where being super rich is available to anyone with the talent and drive to make it. They don’t resent success, they celebrate it.