From where comes Wall Street Journal’s big idea, “The Europeanization of America”?

So where is the new Obama administration likely to take us? Seven things seem certain:

* The U.S. military will withdraw from Iraq quickly and substantially, regardless of conditions on the ground or the obvious consequence of emboldening terrorists there and around the globe.
* Protectionism will become our national trade policy; free trade agreements with other nations will be reduced and limited.
* Income taxes will rise on middle- and upper-income people and businesses, and individuals will pay much higher Social Security taxes, all to carry out the new president’s goals of “spreading the wealth around.”
* Federal government spending will substantially increase. The new Obama proposals come to more than $300 billion annually, for education, health care, energy, environmental and many other programs, in addition to whatever is needed to meet our economic challenges. Mr. Obama proposes more than a 10% annual spending growth increase, considerably higher than under the first President Bush (6.7%), Bill Clinton (3.3%) or George W. Bush (6.4%).
* Federal regulation of the economy will expand, on everything from financial management companies to electricity generation and personal energy use.
* The power of labor unions will substantially increase, beginning with repeal of secret ballot voting to decide on union representation.
* Free speech will be curtailed through the reimposition of the Fairness Doctrine to limit the conservative talk radio that so irritates the liberal establishment.

These policy changes will be the beginning of the Europeanization of America.

From where? Maybe from here…

…Obama is being attacked not because he is black, but because he represents the Europeanization of the American democracy.

And here…

The real rupture in American politics is in the area of the Republican party. The exact location of this break is between its working-class base and the top layer of its professional/business elites. The break is not an isolated event but a part of the larger transformation of American politics—its current Europeanization. Obama’s rise to power is also a consequence of this process. The result of Obama’s presidency will be an increase of the government’s role in the management of civil society; as for the break in the GOP, the result will be an American political system that has three parts: the Dems, the Republicans, and the far right. Or put another way: Obama, McCain, and Palin.

It’s possible.