a unified national identity is an absolute essential for a successful democracy.

In this episode, I sit down with John O'Sullivan, a former policy and speechwriter for

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and former editor-in-chief of National Review,

an executive editor of Radio Free Europe. Today, he's the president of the Danube Institute, a Hungary-based think tank.

His latest book is titled, Sleepwalking into Wokeness, How We Got Here.

If we continue on a multicultural path, it's a path which is going to go in the directions ever more aggressive and hostile identity politics and people will feel that

their neighbors are their enemies.

This is American Thought Leaders and I'm Jan Yaquilic.

John Sullivan, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders.

Jan, very nice to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

Well, let's talk about from the European perspective, what happened in this recent election

in America?

I think the reactions in Europe are an exaggerating version of the reactions in America.

If you think about the three or four months before the actual election, everyone, everyone in scare quotes assumed Kamala Harris victory, thought it was likely, thought a Trump victory would be a reversal of nature like water running uphill.

And where it was accustomed to thinking that it was a backward,

Trumpism was a backward-looking philosophy, no longer relevant to a modern world.

And then in America itself, you sensed a huge feeling of relief when Trump actually won.

And of course, there were none of the riots or violence reactions that had been anticipated if he were to win.

None of them happened. Those two things told you a great deal.

There was virtually no one who expected a Trump victory

in Europe, whereas quite a number of people did actually think he could win in America.

And secondly, when he did win, people were surprised at the American reaction, but also,

...