The name ‘Marco Rubio’ has been bruited about as a presidential possibility for years now, longer than I’ve been cognizant of politics in a meaningful sense (given I only started paying attention late 2015). Of late, however, he’s been the second-runner, following up on J.D. Vance, benefitting from his position as Secretary of State among other factors. A fair few seem to really like him, though his odds against Vance have historically been dismal. Recently, Sec. Rubio gave a speech at the Munich Security Conference, a speech I’ve heard lauded by some and called execrable (my words, not theirs) by others. For my part, careful study of the speech has convinced me of this: Rubio’s Munich speech cloaks deadly poison amidst its cloud of conservative talking points.

Disclosure

I did not come to this speech expecting to like Rubio. I’ve never been a fan of his, as he is a long-time politician who has played well with many of the wrong people (Bush, etc.); I also really never paid attention to him in the past. I really only started to understand politics in 2020, and Rubio was never on my radar. Nevertheless, I saw him speak, and I hoped, in the early days of the current Trump administration, that Rubio could be, if for ascititious reasons, a good appointment. Then, the current Trump policy started.

Further, I have taken into account the assessments of Robert Barnes and Richard Baris, particularly the first. Barnes has proved clear-sighted on Bondi, Barrett, Patel, and others, erring largely on the side of being too optimistic, and his word on Rubio therefore carries weight.

All this, but my analysis of the speech stands on its own for your inspection.

First Warning Sign

This speech is impressively deceptive. It is a masterclass in politics, in suggesting without saying. It is positively aesopian, as demonstrated by the double reaction, by the fact that some hear a message of cultural renewal and others, including Ischinger, the conference chair, hear an endorsement of America’s status as a European power. The second interpretation is much the more accurate.

Regardless, the first warning sign of Rubio’s position, how it differs from the suggestions summoned by his framing, comes around 2:20 in the C-SPAN video. He speaks of how the end of the Cold War led to a “dangerous delusion” of entering the “end of history,” where “every nation would… be a liberal democracy.” He speaks also of a “rules-based global order.” He finishes the trio by referencing a “world without borders,” an idea he immediately condemns.

Note, please, that Rubio does not condemn the ideal of every nation becoming a liberal democracy, and he does not condemn the idea of a ‘rules-based global order.’ He suggests the condemnation of these, and perhaps, if the rest of the speech didn’t exist, that would be enough to exculpate him, but he never condemns them. He simply states that the term “rules-based global order” is over-used (which implies its validity as an ideal, though not definitively) and condemns the third in the trio, unrestricted immigration. He condemns it specifically, though; he does not say, ‘These were foolish ideas’; he says, “This-” meaning borderlessness- “was a foolish idea….”

This last condemnation aligns with a common element of this speech. Rubio endorses a few worthwhile ideas out-of-step with the neo-con/ neo-lib consensus, such as immigration and tariffs, at least rhetorically, and these form a cover for the wicked ideas he still pushes. Pay attention: what is not said is not said and cannot be a defense. Do not suppose that a suggestion-by-association of condemnation amounts to a condemnation, not to the point of negating even an implicit endorsement. If I say, “We had cupcakes, pickles, and feta cheese for lunch,” my subsequent strident condemnation of feta cheese does not amount to a condemnation of the other two elements.¹

Before moving on, I should explain why I focus on these two non-condemnations as a problem. Don’t we want liberal democracies to predominate? Don’t we like a ‘rules based order’?

First, liberal democracy, as it exists in reality, is the third totalitarian system of the twentieth century, totalitarian because it claims the right of the state to decide all, with a more maternal bent to its tyranny than fascism. Philosophically, as I showed in this article, liberalism is closely related to communism and its ilk. Democracy, meanwhile, is in politics merely an appeal to ‘vox populi, vox dei,’ Rousseau’s deity which the government alone can truly speak for (discussed in this article). The liberal democracies which Rubio speaks of are and were fundamentally compromised, in ways blatant to many at the time and extremely evident now. A wise man would recognize this; a righteous man would act against the evil.

Second, if the rules in this rules-based order were God’s laws, I would be eager to establish it. The rules which Rubio refers to, however, are not God’s rules. They are the manufacture of (liberal) man reaching for utopia through human legislation, bureaucracy, and government. The futility of these rules, referenced starting around 11:40 in the speech, was not the failure of a desirable thing; it was the collapse of a false god, an antinomian order (to use the Rushdoony terminology²). This expression of internationalist totalitarianism, however, Rubio seems almost to desire, as per this segment and 11:40 both.

Rubio omits to condemn either of these evil ideas; he omits to distinguish his use of the terms from their wicked conventional meanings. He seems even to regret the failure of them. These ideas, significantly, are central to the orthodoxy of the European elite he speaks to in Munich- and the immigration remarks, while uncongenial to the European elite, form an ideal distraction for the American voter, if he is inattentive to the subtext. But this is not the end of the problems.

Culture and Casuistry 

Rubio speaks much in this speech of America’s cultural connection to Europe. This emphasis is welcome to many American conservatives. Indeed, I myself warm to it. I consider myself a grandson of England inasmuch as I am a child of America (although the imagery has limited accuracy). I rejoice in the cultural inheritance I have from England and even from Europe. What I don’t do is let Rubio use this to sucker me into an entirely different sort of connection with Europe.

America does rise from an essentially European heritage (even if much of the good in it is a Christian heritage first, born of Israel despite their corporate rejection of the Lord). We ought not to forget this heritage, and we ought to regard Europe’s history as in a sense our own, its monuments as signs of our inheritance. So far, so good, but Rubio goes farther.

(He exaggerates, to my ear, the pan-European element of our heritage. America rises first and foremost from England and Scotland. We have a little Irish, too, though much of our ‘Irish’ is actually second-hand Scotland. Germany, France, and Scandinavia all have noticeable shares in our origin, whether in themselves or through England, though England and Scotland remain far and away the most important. Our connection to Southern and Eastern Europe, meanwhile, is relatively tenuous; we have some, certainly, more connection than with, say, Zimbabwe, but it pales before our connection to Northern Europe. And on that note: no, the ‘cowboy’ isn’t a Spanish invention. Sure, it has some Mexican influence (meaning: Spanish mixed with Mesoamerican), but the cowboy as we know him is an American invention with deep roots in the English heritage of knight-errantry and outlawry, Gawain and Robin Hood.)

All that aside, the real problem in Rubio’s words here is the application he makes. Rubio argues that because of our cultural connection, we in America are to be tied to Europe not just culturally but economically, militarily, and politically. In this, he is contrary to the tradition of George Washington, the Founders in general, and American Populism (in its sane moments- i.e. not in the middle of war-fever). Americans in the Founders’ day recognized their connection to Europe, particularly to Britain. They had explicitly fought the War for Independence in order to preserve their rights as Englishmen. But they did not allow that cultural connection to cozen them into entanglement. America is not Europe, no matter our friendship or culture, as Washington recognized in his farewell address.

Don’t get me wrong. I would love America to be friends with Great Britain- if it is productive of virtue and prosperity. But that friendship has limits. If England were to ask America to be its patsy or to fight a war against America’s own interests, I would sever the alliance, with pain but without doubt. Our cultural connection to Europe should (when they aren’t busy trampling over their own culture) promote greater friendship, better relations, and mutual good-faith. It does not, however, constitute a duty to sacrifice America for the sake of Europe, for any part of Europe. America’s job is to do right in its own house and to its own house first.

Rubio argues by implication. We are culturally united; therefore we ought to be united in formal, political terms as well (5-11:00). The conclusion does not follow. The shared heritage is a foundation for political friendship, but it is not a necessity therefor. It certainly does not justify entanglement which subordinates the interests of America to those of Europe, as has been the practice of the rules-based global order and its liberal democracies.

Rubio says that our shared cultural heritage is “the very foundation of the transatlantic bond” (17:00). Perhaps it is. But it does not amount to the political-military connection which (as we will see) he makes it the reason for. America’s history has been one built on Europe but separate from it, a friend, not a component or a servant. A good bond of one sort does not justify or require an evil bond of another sort; cultural connection need not become military connection.

(It behooves Europe to recognize that this same argument applies internally as well. The European Union and similar pan-European efforts have been a bane to those countries, deindividuating and savaging them, drawing resources out, drugging with welfare to the governments, propping up foolish regimes, and imposing tyrannical regulations. England recognised this, as a people if not in the ruling class. Europe must recognize that cultural heritage is not a destruction of national individuality.)

Fundamentally, when we strip away the pretty words, Rubio is here peddling cathedral³ Atlanticism. He is promoting the unification of America with Europe in the global order of Western ‘liberal democracy,’ the hegemony which Europe’s leaders are still dedicated to fixing. He is not celebrating cultural heritage as cultural heritage; he is using it to support the erasure of national interests and of the government’s responsibility to its own people. The consequences of this thought-structure in the past include our involvement in World War One (which probably resulted in World War Two), our interference in 1917 Russia (which was a significant aid in putting Communism in power, intentionally or not), and the continued relationship of mutual abuse post-WW2 (including the Marshall Plan and our reserve currency status). Its consequences in the future….

Bombs Away

When we look at the unity with Europe which Rubio lauds, we must ask what the unity actually consists in. Rubio, when we attend to the results he sees, is clear: at the very least, this unity consists in military intervention and military alliance (exactly contrary to Washington’s dictum). As seen starting 12:00 up past 16:00, the purpose of the alliance is to continue the course America has recently undertaken: bring Russia to the table by supporting Ukraine, stop the Iranian nuclear program with bombs, and stop Venezuelan ‘narco-terrorism.’

(Presumably, as I edit this 2/28/26, Rubio is happy with the American war with Iran.)

Rubio has thus traded on shared cultural heritage as an argument for military interventionism. This military interventionism is the essence of the deep-state foreign policy. It is also the stick which was the true center of the “rules-based global order” Rubio mourned earlier in the speech. American interventionism is precisely what America’s founders, John Quincy Adams and George Washington among them, warned against, and here’s Rubio, champing at the bit, eager to harness the inertia and power of Europe to drag America into war.

Rubio even appeals to the World War Two mythos, saying “[The] two great wars of the last century serve for us as history’s constant reminder that ultimately our destiny is and will always be intertwined with [Europe’s].” He forgets, apparently, that America spent a century essentially apart from European politics (and prospered), that America had no real need to go to war in 1916 (it only bought us World War Two). Mystic ideas of ‘a destiny entwined’ are worthless, merely rhetorical. The reality is that Europe is relevant to America’s security and prosperity just as any significant player on the world stage is relevant. This relevance merits only normal concern for Europe, the concern we give any foreign nation or region. It does not merit political and military interbreeding.

Rubio is thus preaching of American entanglement in Europe and the necessity of military intervention. Leaving aside that the Trump administration has since repudiated that assertion of preventing the Iranian nuclear program, this policy is directly opposite to the ‘No foreign wars’ assurance which in large part won Trump the presidency. Cultural heritage and pretty words cannot be the coin which we are paid to spend more American blood in regime change on behalf of the liberal world order, on behalf of Europe’s suicidal tyrannies, on behalf of those who spit on that cultural heritage every time they kill another child in the womb.

Conclusion

We should look not just at what Rubio appeals to- cultural heritage- but what he wants. What he wants, if we are to believe his own words, is increased military involvement in Europe, increased alignment with the liberal global order which Europe and its Atlanticists represent, and a re-establishment of the American military monopole which was the fulcrum of liberal democracy utopianism. Rubio is not an ally. Rubio is not a friend to those who want to restore Christian heritage. Rubio is a parasite leaching off the aesthetic and vocabulary of that laudable desire in order to push the poison which America has been chugging for the past century, the orthodoxy of the institutionalist global state.

God bless.

1. As a matter of fact, I like cupcakes, enjoy many pickles, and loath feta cheese. ↩︎
2. I’ve been reading the second volume of his Institutes of Biblical Law. As usual, he’s interesting, if not always right. ↩︎
3. In the Curtis Yarvin sense: the orthodoxy of the elite in media, academia, corporations, and government. ↩︎