Our enemies have already turned against us. Our allies will not. Europe knows that in the end, its security depends on our strength and our protection. Europeans are the ultimate free-riders on American power. We maintain the stability of international commerce, the freedom of the seas, the flow of oil, regional balances of power (in the Pacific Rim, South Asia, the Middle East) and, ultimately, we provide protection against potentially rising hostile superpowers.
The Europeans sit and pout. What else can they do? The ostensible complaint is American primitivism. The real problem is their irrelevance.
And the conclusion:
We are in a war of self-defense. It is also a war for Western civilization. If the Europeans refuse to see themselves as part of this struggle, fine. If they wish to abdicate, fine. We will let them hold our coats, but not tie our hands.
My dad and his brother in law were in a bar in Nashville when a fight broke out. (Something that used to happen fairly regularly when my dad went into a bar.) He was doing all right until his brother in law tried to help him by pulling him out of the fight. Unfortunately, my uncle tried to pull him out by wrapping him in a bear hug, while my dad was trying to carry on a conversation with an irate gentleman brandishing a broken beer bottle. Needless to say, the result wasn't a favorable one for my dad.
We can't allow the EU to try and hold us back when we are already in a street fight. This isn't fisticuffs between gentleman, but an back alley brawl with no holds barred.
