When a married couple wants a divorce and does not want to accuse the other of infidelity or mental cruelty or financial negligence or spousal abuse, the reason cited before a judge is often "irreconcilable differences."

This is often described as a "no fault" divorce and that both parties just want to dissolve their partnership and move on with their lives.

If we stay with this metaphor to describe the current problems Denmark and the U.S. are having with their relationship, it would presuppose that we have understood each other's positions and agreed that our partnership has perhaps outlived its usefulness and that it is time to accept that fact and figure out a way to amicably dissolve it. I do not believe that that is the case with these two nations just yet, though we are fighting with each other like a couple that is on the verge of splitting the sheets.

Marriage counselors will always try to get husband and wife to engage in therapy in order to move beyond the intense emotions and find the true reasons for their difficulties. This can take months and even years, but sadly, when people have reached the point of therapy, their journey is often over. Good spouses will always make an effort, however, especially if they are heavily invested in the relationship. A good therapist will try to immediately calm both parties and then endeavor to find the real source of their problems which are not always visible. The goal is to peel back the layers of assumptions both parties have about each other to truly understand what makes each partner "tick."

In the case of the difficulties between Denmark and the United States, it would seem that both countries have been living with certain assumptions about the other that have affected their judgment and that many of these assumptions have been based on a lack of real understanding of each other's political system and culture.

Fact: Americans, in general, have little or no knowledge of Denmark.

Much of what they do know about the country has come from their own research or information from Danish friends or colleagues.

There are four things that form the average American's Danish IQ: Tivoli, Hans Christian Andersen, Ozempic, and the Danes' libertine view of sexuality. To that, I will possibly add a fifth, that very positive role model of the great comedic Danish pianist, Victor Borge. Denmark just doesn't register on the U.S. media radar, except for those times when it wins at sports or when a Danish film or TV series breaks through all the clutter. Even Søren Kirkegaard is mostly absent from Americans' literary awareness, the one exception being, Isak Dinesen's (Karen Blixen's) writings, but that was only due to a blockbuster American film, "Out of Africa."

Part of this lack of awareness is, of course, the Danes' own fault. Precious little money has been spent over the decades by the Danes in burnishing their "brand" in the U.S., the exception being the '60s when the Danish furniture industry and the electronics firm, Bang & Olufsen decided that America was a huge potential market.

An industry that has been a big plus for Denmark is its inbound American tourism industry which until recently experienced only upswings with the exception of the two years of the Coronavirus crisis.

High school exchange programs and Danish students studying in American universities have served as person-to-person ambassadors from Denmark as have businesses that have invested in both countries.

While all that is positive, it has not been enough. Otherwise, we in Denmark would not be experiencing the national animus and public anger at the U.S.A. that is being exhibited here today. That wave has not hit Americans' shores as of yet, but I suspect it is coming due to the anxiety over the trade war and President Trump's insistence on owning Greenland.

What is it that the Danes don't understand about Americans that has led to such anger and a consumer boycott of American goods?

Let's start with the basics. The Danish system of government is vastly different from that of America's. Americans choose their leaders, directly, in nationwide elections. Danes don't. Instead, they vote for political parties which then choose the country's leader for them when the governing coalition participants horse-trade for the Prime Minister's spot.

This effectively short-circuits any support for a particular leader type by the Danish voters. The U.S. is a constitutional republic with fifty states comprising that republic, each with their own leaders and legislatures that operate in tandem with the national government, but are free to enact their own laws and regulations as long as they don't conflict with the nationally implemented constitutionally approved laws.

The U.S. doesn't use referenda to decide issues (only states and municipalities do this). If Americans don't like their leaders they can either try to get them impeached or wait until their term in office is over and then vote for someone else.

American governments don't fall because the Congress is unable to pass a budget, for example.

The same is not true in Denmark, a constitutional monarchy. If the ruling coalition cannot agree on a budget, the government will fall, and if the Prime Minister feels that it's time for an unscheduled snap election, he or she can call it.

While the U.S. Congress is made up of elected members voted into office by their constituents, they are not bound to vote along political party lines, but may "vote their conscience" even if they vote against their own political party's wishes.

The U.S. has two principal political parties that represent either conservative or liberal thought/policies and they represent the majority of American voters who are effectively split along ideological lines which is why America sees a pendulum swing of power every four-to-eight years in national elections.

"Leave us alone. Let us live our lives our own way. Stay off our backs."

During the last sixteen years, American liberals (Democrats) controlled the levers of power for 12 of those 16 years. Conservatives (Republicans) controlled the national government for four years. Casual observers might conclude that most Americans wanted it that way – with power firmly residing in the hands of Democrats who have been big supporters of more government involvement in average Americans' lives.

The election of Donald Trump in 2024 was a response from a normally relatively docile conservative voter base (except for two times in the recent past when tempers flared during the occupation of the Capitol Building in January 2020 and the rise of the "Tea Party" movement back in 2009).

Danes do not understand why Americans don't like government's involvement in their lives.

The reason is simple and is traceable back to the American Revolution. Americans believe that they do not need other people telling them what to do nor do they believe that government is their best friend. Most conservatives see government as a necessary evil and not a partner for progress. Democrats believe the opposite as long as government power resides with them! Democrats believe that by passing laws they can change American culture. Conservatives know better -- that real cultural change only comes when people are willing to alter their behavior or attitudes on their own.

While many Danes and many Americans are true blue skeptics, they differ in degree. Danes are willing to regard improvements to the collective society as reason enough to endure change that may adversely affect the individual. Americans believe that change that ignores the wishes or rights of the individual is not something they will vote for or accept without a fight. So strong is the belief in the rights of the individual.

How could Americans have chosen a leader like Donald Trump?

Two words: Kamala Harris, a totally unqualified and inexperienced candidate who had never managed anything larger than a lawyers' office and who represented a continuation of the Biden administration's policies that were regarded by a majority of Americans as antithetical to basic traditional American values. Voters wanted America's borders secured and were not willing to support a radical non-biologically based cultural imperative that allowed people to "identify" as someone of the opposite sex in order to gain competitive advantage in sports, business, the military, schools or in government.

They also rejected continuing an administration's policies that would tell Americans what kind of products like appliances and cars they could buy and that had totally ignored basic economics by attempting to decimate Americans' energy sector out of a desire to be "greener."

Donald Trump was not an unknown commodity.

He had previously served as president for four years and was in the news for four years thereafter because of constant media attention and a number of lawsuits filed against him. Americans knew how he spoke and how he acted. While many of them didn't like his style, they did like his decisions. They liked the fact that he sounded like an ordinary American, one with self-confidence and optimism.

Americans don't want weak leaders or weak governments that have forgotten who they serve and they've been elected. Donald Trump stands for America, first and foremost. Everybody else comes second. This is not the Danish way nor certainly the European Union way and is one of the biggest reasons that Europeans are against Trump. However, I suspect, that he says what many of them are afraid to say … that their country also comes first for them.

American envy has morphed into American hatred.

In the past, Europeans accepted the fact that Americans were loud, boastful, and often not as well-educated as themselves. Americans were considered naive, ignorant and arrogant, but Europeans were happy to take their money as they steadily moved to strengthen their trading block, the E.U.

They maintained high tariffs on American products and justified them in a variety of different ways like erecting non-tariff barriers. Several American governments over several decades did nothing to correct the imbalance. Most Americans and most ordinary Danes didn't focus on the disparities until Donald Trump called them out for being onerous and unacceptable. All of a sudden, the Danes and Europeans became upset that such a man would dare to challenge the status quo.

They were caught off balance or as the Danes say, "sleeping in class."

Now they are worried that an actual president is making an actual threat and may actually win a battle to even the playing field and cost them billions of Euros and loss of market share in the process.

Danes don't understand how so much power could be vested in one man.

"How can one man control so much?" say the Danes -- a man they have been calling a variety of demeaning names, taking every opportunity to ridicule him in public and laugh at him out loud. It seems that nothing is out of bounds for this normally tolerant tribe. Perhaps the Danes don't care what Americans (or Trump) thinks of them as they brand him a dictator, a bully or an oligarch or demean him by calling him deranged, crazy and dangerous.

Do they think that Americans do not hear what they are saying about them or their or their duly elected leader?

The world is a small place.

Information spreads quickly. Newspaper articles in Danish are easily translatable by ChatGpT and other AI generators by private citizens, and inside the American Embassy on Dag Hammarskjolds Allé I can tell you from first-hand experience that the embassy Political section, the Public Affairs section, the Defense Attache's office and the CIA are busy sending cables (the word for messages sent by internal secure means) about the "Danish situation" back to their respective agencies in the U.S. 

CEOs of Danish subsidiaries of American companies operating in Denmark are also in contact with their corporate headquarters.

The words we choose define us.

That goes for marriages, business partnerships and international relationships. Nothing that is said these days goes unnoticed by somebody. Every nasty or demeaning comment, every half-truth or completely false statement gets slung into the ether to computers and smartphones and ultimately ends up on social media and in millions of in-boxes.

Danes would do well to muster some restraint and observe a modicum of decorum if they want the United States to do the same. Burning bridges is easy. Re-building them takes time and costs money. At this point, the neither American media nor the White House nor the Congress is engaging in reciprocal name-calling of the Danish prime minister, of Danish politicians or of the Danish people. There are no boycotts scheduled against Danish products in the U.S.A.

Americans are used to being criticized.

As long as I can remember, the outside world has criticised the United States for either going to war (in Iraq or Vietnam) or even for avoiding it. We have been told that we are willfully ruining the planet by driving too much and not participating in the Paris Climate Convention and relying on our own native fossil fuels, that we have turned our back on the poor, that we care more about ourselves than anyone else. We've been called racists, predator capitalists, white supremacists, supporters of dictators and dictatorial regimes. We've been accused of being bullies, misogynists, anti-homosexuals, anti-blacks, deaf to the pleas of the third world and cruel to environmentalists. We've been told we're greedy and unfeeling, and many of those comments have come from people we regarded as allies and friends, believe it or not! Americans have gotten used to being criticised – sometimes unfairly and sometimes fairly, but we've always listened. When we've disagreed,we've said so and why.

Honesty is something we owe each other and is not a bargaining chip. If you don't like us, or don't like our president or his policies, okay. If you want to protest, do so. Feel free to make your voices heard and make your case, but if you want us to keep listening, you are going to need to remember a few basic rules of engagement one of which is that the loudest voice will not win the argument. Another is to avoid berating or insulting the very people whose help, cooperation or friendship you want. If you don't and the shrillness escalates, we will soon stop listening. That would not only be your loss, it would be ours, too.

Perhaps Danes should step back from the brink of a seemingly out-of-control and rapidly growing America-animus to take a deep breath, count to ten and remember what they practice on their own soil with their own countrymen. That is, quite simply to afford everybody the same respect, allow them to give their opinion, and remember that all will have to work together when the dust has cleared.

While relationships are not made in Heaven or in our minds, they are all too often irreparably harmed by people who refuse to listen to those who disagree with them, those who are willing to avoid uncomfortable facts and who are too quick to claim the moral high ground. More divorces could be prevented if we all remembered that the differences in our marriages as well as those in our cultures and countries are something to be understood, and if possible, valued rather than despised. Ignorance is never an excuse for making bad decisions and should never  be used to justify destroying an otherwise good but albeit complex relationship.

Stephen Helgesen is a retired career U.S. diplomat specializing in international trade who lived and worked in 30 countries for 25 years during the Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, Clinton, and G.W. Bush Administrations. He is the author of fourteen books, seven on American politics, and has written over 1,500 articles on politics, economics and social trends. He now lives in Denmark and is a frequent political commentator on Danish media. He can be reached at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Image: NARA & DIVIDS public domain archive


 

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