There was a time when visiting America felt like entering a shared dream.
You didn’t need to understand every line of dialogue. The plot carried you. Freedom. Reinvention. The open road. You arrived knowing roughly how it would go and left with stories that fitted neatly into the myth.
Now, more Europeans are watching from a distance… popcorn untouched.
Not because the film is boring. Quite the opposite. It’s just started to feel like one of those intense arthouse releases where everyone insists it’s “important” but nobody’s sure they actually want to sit through it twice.
The statistics, bless them, are doing their best not to editorialise. Declines here. Double-digit drops there. Western Europe quietly stepping back in early 2025 like someone who’s realised the dinner party has turned into an argument about identity, loyalty, and who’s allowed to speak.
No boycott. No manifesto. Just fewer bookings.
Which is often how the loudest verdicts are delivered.
Since Donald Trump returned to power, America hasn’t suddenly changed its laws for tourists. The planes still land. The hotels still smile. The border still asks its questions.
What’s changed is the tone of the trailer.
Increasingly, when Europeans talk about the US, they do it through the lens of Civil War.
Not because they think the film is prophecy… but because it feels uncomfortably plausible.
That alone should worry someone.
When a fictional civil collapse becomes shorthand for a real country’s mood, something has gone slightly off-script. The film isn’t subtle. Journalists dodging militias. States fragmenting. A nation arguing with itself so loudly it forgets the rest of the world is watching.
And watching, it turns out, is exactly what Europe prefers to do right now.
Tourism is a confidence game. You don’t visit a place because it’s perfect. You visit because it feels stable enough to hold your curiosity without demanding your allegiance.
Lately, America feels like it wants to know whose side you’re on before it hands you the brochure.
That’s tiring.
Europeans are no strangers to political theatre. We practically invented it. What we’re less keen on is being extras in someone else’s domestic drama. A holiday shouldn’t require emotional preparation or a working knowledge of internal fault lines.
You can sense it in the questions people now ask before booking.
Will I be welcome… or merely tolerated?
Is this a city break… or an ideological obstacle course?
Am I visiting a country… or entering a live-streamed argument?
None of this is written on a government website. That’s the point. It lives in atmosphere. In headlines. In viral clips. In the sense that everything, from a flag to a phrase, now carries a charge.
The irony is that America hasn’t become smaller. It’s become louder. And volume, as anyone who’s ever tried to sleep next to a motorway knows, doesn’t equal attraction.
While the US debates itself in ever sharper tones, the rest of the world has quietly made alternative plans. Portugal offers sunshine without subtext. Japan offers order without interrogation. Eastern Europe offers history without a sermon.
No one announced this shift. It just… emerged.
Which is how systems actually change. Not with fireworks, but with footnotes.
The tourism boards will eventually respond, of course. Campaigns will soften the edges. Smiling faces will return to adverts. The message will be reassuring. Friendly. Normal.
But normal is hard to sell when your global image is increasingly shaped by a film that imagines the country tearing itself apart.
And here’s the part satire loves most…
America still calls itself the greatest show on Earth. But audiences, it seems, are becoming selective. They don’t hate the performance. They’re just not sure they want to be in the front row anymore.
You can shout “freedom” as loudly as you like. You can promise greatness on repeat. But if fewer people feel curious enough to come and see it for themselves, the echo grows uncomfortable.
Greatness, after all, isn’t self-declared. It’s witnessed.
Right now, Europe appears to be watching the United States the way one watches a gripping but unsettling film… impressed, uneasy, and quietly relieved they’re not inside the screen.
The credits haven’t rolled yet.
But plenty of people have already decided not to buy a ticket.
Editor’s Note
This isn’t a verdict. It’s a temperature check.
Travel has always been one of the clearest mirrors we have. People go where they feel curious, welcome, and steady enough to wander without armour. When they stop going, it’s rarely about one policy or one person. It’s about atmosphere.
You may read this and disagree. You may think it unfair, incomplete, or overly cautious. That’s fine… disagreement is part of the story too.
But if fewer people are showing up, it’s worth asking why.
Not defensively. Not angrily.
Just honestly.
The floor is open.
Until Next Time
Discover more from Dominus Owen Markham
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.