Peter Boghossian on Western Europe, Migration and Social Cohesion in The Rubin Report

Boghossian opens by saying he was in France just before the riots and that he believes Western Europe is 'completely toast.' He asks what governments will do about the migrant dinghies crossing the Channel, and whether they would shoot them. In his view, if governments do not stop illegal immigration, nothing else they do makes sense.

He adds that if an alarm level for Western Europe is 10 out of 10, the host should ask where that alarm level stands for America. The argument is that the scale of concern about Europe should be compared with concern about the United States.

The passage establishes the central test Boghossian applies: whether illegal crossings are actually stopped.

Boghossian describes a visit with a nonprofit group to interview young people using street epistemology. He says people objected to his use of the word 'slums,' but that the neighborhoods were, in his words, total slums. He says the interviewees told the team one thing off camera and then said nothing substantive on camera.

He says the subject they avoided was Islam: any kind of Islam, which people would not discuss. Immigration was a secondary topic they also avoided. The host responds by asking about the viral clip and whether Europe can reverse its direction.

The host asks whether Boghossian saw a clip of a police officer telling a man he was provoking people by being visibly Jewish. Boghossian recalls that the man arrived at a Hamas-linked rally and that the officer said something to the effect that the man was 'visibly Jewish, as if that's the affront to a civilized society, not the guys calling for destruction of the state.' He uses the remark to argue that the framing puts the blame on the wrong party.

Boghossian then offers his own hypothesis: governments have reached a point where they know they can do nothing about the problem because they cannot remigrate people, and there are too many. He notes that a fraction of the 9% of residents would be enough to radicalize, and points to shifting demographics, with the Muslim population having more children at younger ages.

He says his hypothesis is that governments have to appease, and calls this appeasement. He cites the work of Jan van der Beek in Holland, Eric Kaufmann, and Nicolas Monti in France, which he says shows each successive generation becoming more Islamized and more radical.

Boghossian says that people from overseas territories live in French slums, and that from hundreds of conversations a few themes emerged. The first is that residents feel they have no upward social mobility. He presents this as probably true, citing European economies in what he calls a catastrophic state and a French deficit of $4 trillion.

He also says that 10 of the top 10 AI companies in the world are in China or the United States, with almost no European investment in technological infrastructure. He cites Peter Thiel's claim that immigration works as a tax on young people and lower-income people, because newcomers buy homes and rent apartments, which raises prices for others.

He describes asking dozens of people whether they would fight for their country, citing Poland's conscription and Macron's remarks about Russia. He says he did not meet a single person in the slums who said they would fight for their country.

Boghossian argues that a half dozen European leaders might be willing to act, but that closing the border is not something they are particularly good at. Removing the illegal residents would be harder, he says, because it would require putting troops on the street, which he doubts any of them will do. Denaturalizing legal citizens is also not possible in London, according to the discussion.

He notes that French officials reportedly told the people he spoke with that citizens cannot be expatriated because they are French citizens, so there is no legal mechanism to revoke their citizenship. He says the alternative would be building large maximum-security prisons, like those in El Salvador, and incarcerating people for 20 years. He calls that extremely expensive but asks what the alternative would be.

Boghossian says France provides free health care, subsidized housing and free schooling, and that its school spending is among the top 20 percent in the West. He argues that removing the incentive structure for people who want to come would require taking away medical care, and that even this may be possible only to a certain extent.

He recalls visiting a school where a teacher, Samuel Paty, had been beheaded by an Islamist, and says teachers are terrified of speaking against Islamists or saying something that could insult them. The host asks how much of the problem is cultural, meaning religion and attitudes toward minorities and gay people, versus financial incentives. Boghossian responds that separating culture from religion is probably impossible, because the two are mutually reinforcing.

The host notes that about 5,000 people have been arrested across France in roughly the last month. Boghossian cites recent arrests in Paris of 1,200, followed by another 800.

He suggests a model in which convicts keep their French citizenship but are held in supermaxes built by a country such as Rwanda, incarcerated for 20 to 30 years. He notes that Trump and Nigel Farage have floated similar ideas and says the model would avoid legal hurdles over citizenship, but that it still assumes political will. The host argues that governments would still have to remove people from the streets and put them on planes, and that they have no appetite for it.

Boghossian recalls a Kurdish economist from Sweden who appeared on the Rubin Report, whose name he cannot remember, and whose later work he read. He says the economist identified the top factor predicting whether an immigrant will assimilate as whether that person is skilled and earns a good living.

Boghossian says he had expected radical Islamism or jihadism to be the key factor, but religiosity was not even in the analysis. He comments that if immigrants were somewhat radicalized but had good economic conditions, they might put that aside, but he notes that this argument applies mainly to first-generation arrivals, not to their children and grandchildren, and he points to prison radicalization in the UK.

Asked what he would do as a citizen living in London, Brussels or Paris with his family, Boghossian says that if he were Jewish he would leave first, since Jews and apostates top the list of people targeted for killing. He says that as an atheist he is further down the list.

He cites Raymond Ibrahim's estimate that about 15 to 20 percent of radical Muslims want to impose Sharia on the host population, and notes that 11 countries punish apostasy with death. He adds that he is not talking about all Muslims, and that this point has to be restated in every such conversation.

Boghossian says that if he were not on a kill list, he would wait until the last possible minute before leaving, and if he were on the list, he would exit immediately. The host responds that nobody knows when the last possible second is, and that an average Christian Frenchman may not know until the morning armed people appear at the door.

Boghossian says that in France, ground-floor apartments are inexpensive because people fear rioting, and that riots come in ebbs and flows. He calls Brussels a fetid cesspool and says Malmö, Sweden, is among the worst places. He adds that the French passport is quite good, while Eastern European passports are less useful, and that friends have asked him this same question.

Boghossian predicts that Buckingham Palace will be occupied by Islamists within 20 years, a claim he says led a BBC interviewer to freak out on a show he appeared on in Australia. The host discusses options such as moving to Argentina or El Salvador, and says the premise assumes those countries would admit large numbers of people.

Boghossian argues for surrender, saying that the earlier Europe surrenders, the better deal it can cut. He describes terms in which non-Muslims would have reduced status and pay a jizya tax. He says there is no possible way around the outcome and that a good deal is the only remaining choice, adding that 'we know how it ends.'

Boghossian says he expects that Europe's countries will face various versions of the problem. He describes the UK as effectively finished, says Belgium has raised the alarm, and says it is unclear what will happen in France. He describes Germany as a mess because its social programs are huge and because of the generational guilt that follows from World War II.

The host notes that France has advantages, including nuclear energy, which Boghossian says was a wise investment. He contrasts this with Germany's decision to abandon nuclear power, and says energy costs are rising in the UK and Germany. The host also discusses ideas about universal basic income and tokens raised in discussion of AI.

Boghossian argues that people form moral beliefs on the basis of what it means to be a good person rather than on evidence. He says media describe rioters as 'teens,' while everyone knows they are Black teens, but the media cannot say so because it is unpalatable to many people. He argues this makes the problem worse, because policy then cannot address where the problem comes from.

He cites his friend Matt Thornton's book The Gift of Violence, which he says argues that if people cared about young dead Black men, they would speak honestly about Black men killing other Black men, as in Chicago. Boghossian says people do not think through such problems because they put concern about how others will feel ahead of honesty about the nature of the problem.

Rubin cannot recall the name of the Minneapolis mayor, and Boghossian supplies Jacob Frey, calling him a clown. Rubin says that in Minnesota people should have an honest conversation about whether all cultures are equal and whether some immigrants are more vibrant than others.

Boghossian says he is not worried about the United States in the same way, citing states' rights, guns, the country's origin in revolution, and a melting pot that he says works in a way Europe never managed. He says the immigrants the United States receives, particularly Muslim immigrants, assimilate far better and are less radical than the types of immigrants Europe received, but that he is concerned about several things, including debt and the rift between Musk and Trump over a spending bill that added $3 trillion to the debt.

Boghossian says that he saw people praying on mats outside churches in the UK, which he did not see in Taiwan or in the Middle East, where public prayer on mats is more typical. He says there are a million places to pray and asks whether people really need to pray in public.

He says he is not speaking as a Christian but as an atheist, and that public prayer of this kind is not a good step for social cohesion and is not respectful of religion. The host closes the conversation by suggesting a future discussion of Hungary and the way some countries seek to preserve their Christian culture.