Author and Atlantic Council nonresident senior fellow Max Brooks told viewers of HBO’s “Real Time” that Western Europe’s approach to immigration is shaped by a burden he described bluntly: guilt over colonization. Speaking during the show’s online “Overtime” segment on Friday, Brooks argued that the dynamic differs sharply from both the United States and Europe’s eastern half, according to clips reported by Breitbart News.
“The problem is guilty honkies,” Brooks said. “It’s the same problem here. It’s the problem over there. In Western Europe, they are crushed by their guilt of colonization.”
Brooks, the author known for works including “World War Z,” made the remarks while drawing a series of distinctions between how immigration plays out in different regions. He began by noting that the issue is “very different” in Europe than in the United States, in part because European nations are composed of their indigenous populations, and because immigrants in Europe draw on the continent’s welfare state in ways that change the political calculus.
Welfare states and the assimilation question
That welfare structure, in Brooks’s telling, is central to why European immigrants assimilate less readily than American ones. He said immigrants to the United States assimilate because they work, whereas in Europe that process is weaker because of the welfare state. He also pointed to the pressure the system creates on native-born populations, saying immigrants in Europe take from their welfare state.
Brooks went on to warn about the political consequences of Europe drifting rightward, saying Europe going to the right is dangerous because when Europe goes right, it tends to go “far to the right.”
The comments arrive at a moment when immigration remains one of the most combustible issues in Western politics, with parties across the continent arguing over asylum policy, labor migration and the sustainability of generous social programs. Brooks’s framing suggests he sees the tension as less about economics than about a psychological dynamic among majority populations in former colonial powers.
A divide between East and West
The sharpest part of Brooks’s analysis was his contrast between Eastern and Western Europe, which he said stems from his think tank work in the region. He described the eastern half of the continent as historically colonized rather than colonizer — and therefore free of the guilt he attributes to the West.
“In Eastern Europe, they were the colonized, right?” Brooks said. “At no point in history, in a tropical country, did someone say, oh, God, run, here comes the Czech. So, therefore, they have no guilt. They say, we take care of our poor people first before we open up. And that’s a huge difference in Western Europe and Eastern Europe.”
The remark drew a contrast with his characterization of Western Europe, which he said is “crushed” by its colonial history. In his account, that guilt produces a politics that is more open to immigration but also more vulnerable to a nationalist backlash — a combination he suggested does not exist in the same form further east.
Brooks’s appearance was part of the “Overtime” companion segment that follows HBO’s “Real Time” broadcast, in which panelists continue the evening’s discussion online. The clip was reported by Breitbart News.
The Atlantic Council is a Washington-based think tank where Brooks holds a nonresident senior fellow position. His comments add another entry to a long-running debate over how Europe’s colonial legacy shapes contemporary attitudes toward migration, an argument that surfaces regularly among commentators on both sides of the Atlantic.
Whether Brooks’s diagnosis lands will likely depend on the audience. For critics of mass immigration in Western Europe, his description of a guilt-driven politics may read as confirmation of a policy they oppose; for others, the suggestion that colonial remorse is the root of the continent’s immigration friction is a provocative oversimplification of a debate that also involves labor markets, demographics and security concerns.
What is not in dispute is the direction of European politics in recent years, with right-leaning parties gaining ground in multiple countries on platforms centered on migration. Brooks’s warning about that trend, and his insistence that Eastern Europe offers a different model, positions him on one side of an argument that shows no sign of cooling.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2026/09/12/max-brooks-western-europes-immigration-problem-is-guilty-honkies-like-in-u-s/