Europe is not a bastion of freedom despite being the cradle of Western civilization, which is much broader than the democratic tradition identified with the West today. America was a major part in the modern view of the West and America is needed to preserve that definition of the Western tradition.
The danger signs in Europe aren't really from the grassroots right (allegedly "far right" as the proto-autocrats and apparatchiki of the ruling center-left political parties assert). The real threat is from the institutional and ruling left:
In a depressingly predictable judgment, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has essentially ruled that free speech stops where ‘hate speech’ begins. ...
The ECHR was originally set up to prevent states from carrying out extreme actions that all decent people agree are outside the civilised pale – including torture, death squads, wholesale suppression of anti-government speech, and so on. Yet now it has effectively decreed that governments should protect their citizens from any and all unpleasant speech.
I've noted that rule of law democracy is a post-World War II feature of Europe. And America had a role in achieving that:
It is easy to forget--and this was a useful reminder to me--that Europe with its autocracies and monarchies was not fully part of a free West (although obviously part of the Western tradition) until we rebuilt Western Europe in that template after World War II. And NATO expansion after defeating the Soviet Union was more explicit in demanding democracy and rule of law for new members.
Walking away from Europe in the belief that Europeans will naturally defend our common view of freedom founders on the reality that only American power and influence in Europe has made freedom and rule-of-law democracy a common view. A view that is fading in Europe at a horrifying pace.
UPDATE: A warning about restricting freedom of speech to only "good" speech in inter-war Germany.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
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NOTE: I made the image with Bing.
