As an American, I’m allowed to call them that. By US Under Secretary of State Sarah B. Rogers.
Germany infamously retains very few Jews, yet imported barbarian rapist hordes (as an American, I’m allowed to call them that) under Merkel. Even today, Germany suppresses political opposition who point this out.
This is remarkable to watch on multiple levels. There is the diplomatic dimension, where an American Under Secretary of State is not supposed to call a spade a spade.
But when the people demanding deference to those outdated conventions are the very same elites who fear their own citizens and suppress them through increasingly tyrannical censorship, they have forfeited any claim to courtesy. You can almost picture German elites getting whiplash just from reading it.
Then there is the tactical side of it. Sarah Rodgers knows perfectly well that what she is saying is not permitted speech in Germany. That is precisely why she says it so bluntly and forcefully, almost daring the German government to react. The point is the opposite of subtle persuasion (that did not work). Instead, she’s inviting the German government to lash out at her, which would make their repression even more visible and self-incriminating.
There is also a deeper historical message embedded in this. The United States did not sacrifice blood and treasure to liberate Germany after World War II so that it could quietly slide back into old authoritarian habits under a different pretext. And if it insists on doing so, it should not assume American indulgence or silence. That era is over.
You could write an entire essay unpacking what Sarah Rodgers is doing here, suffice it to say that it is long overdue and that none of it would be happening without President Trump’s miraculous reelection win. Under any other administration, it would be business as usual, turning a blind eye to the slide into authoritarianism and leaving future generations to clean up the inevitable mess.
She also warned Albanese over new hate speech laws:
A statute that imprisons you for calling to deport jihadist extremists — but provides safe harbor if you are a jihadist extremist — would be deeply perverse.