It's true that Europe doesn't have nearly as bad a fundie infestation as the US (except maybe in Poland, where there are some truly scary cults pretending to be political parties). But many of the European ugly parties are explicitly sectarian, and most of the overt chauvinism is couched in sectarian rather than ethnic terms.

They haven't managed to penetrate the deep state to anywhere near the extent they have in the US, but I suspect that it is less due to the absence of Baptist bigots and more due to a deeper cultural suspicion of public displays of piety among the non-sectarian majority. In the US you have the problem that your culture gives great latitude to public displays of piety, and pointing out that the preacher man is by any reasonable standard a frothing lunatic is not done. This cultural taboo is less pronounced in Europe, so the crazy cultists stick out more and can be purged more easily.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.