George Hahn

None of them shitpost about higher tax bills.

They told me they don't mind paying more, as they trust their government to spend the money wisely.

I witnessed a similar attitude in the Netherlands.

Among the 38 OECD nations, Sweden ranks eighth when it comes to trust in the government.

The Netherlands ranks 19th.

And the U.S.

is third from the bottom, ahead of Colombia and Slovakia.

Meanwhile, when it comes to its citizens trusting one another, Sweden ranks fifth, the Netherlands eighth, and the U.S.

nineteenth, sandwiched between Northern Ireland and Hong Kong.

America has the parts to build a car that combines capitalism's horsepower with a welfare state's seatbelts and airbags.

We just don't trust each other enough to ride in it together.

After Stockholm, I visited Amsterdam for the wedding of my childhood best friend's son.

I'm now that age.

I arrived early and stayed late.

Amsterdam is a singular city, prosperous, beautiful, weird, where tolerance is the connective tissue between personal freedom and social order.

It's also a city that reminds residents and visitors, with every step they take, that democracy is fragile.

Hundreds of brass-plated stumbling stones mark the homes of Amsterdam's Holocaust victims.

The Netherlands wasn't especially anti-Semitic, but after the Nazi occupation, it became a kill zone for Jews.

75% of Dutch Jews were murdered during World War II, nearly double the rate in Belgium and triple the rate in France.

The takeaway?