Politics & Power Quote by Phyllis Schlafly

Schlafly’s line isn’t really puzzled curiosity; it’s a strategic sneer dressed up as common sense. Calling it a “mystery” frames pro-EU sentiment among Americans as not merely wrong, but irrational - the kind of position no reasonable person arrives at without being duped. That move matters because Schlafly’s political brand, built in the battles over the Equal Rights Amendment, thrived on recasting complex policy debates as moral clarity versus elite manipulation. The “mystery” is a rhetorical trap: if you support the EU, you must be either ignorant of “real” American interests or seduced by internationalist fashion.

The intent is to police ideological borders. Americans, in her telling, should instinctively resist supranational governance because it violates a civic reflex: sovereignty as identity. The EU becomes shorthand for a whole anxiety portfolio - bureaucrats, judges, regulations, and the slow replacement of national self-rule with managed consensus. Notice how the sentence doesn’t cite trade, security, or diplomacy; it’s not an argument about outcomes. It’s a test of allegiance.

Context sharpens the edge. For decades, U.S. conservatives have treated European integration as a cautionary tale about technocracy and “soft” politics, even as Washington benefited from a stable, cooperative Europe during the Cold War and after. Schlafly collapses that history into a culture-war parable: Europe as the future America must refuse. The subtext isn’t just anti-EU; it’s anti-elite, anti-institution, and suspicious of any politics that asks citizens to trust structures they can’t easily vote out.