1. I mention only one eastern European country in the last five paragraphs. I fail to understand how that is “increasingly relying on examples” from the east. You said, “I think when people talk about Europe as a political standard for progressiveness, they’re talking about western Europe, no?” That is literally the entire point of this column. That is exactly what people do and it makes as much sense as using New England as politically representative of the US.
2. “…elected representatives tend to be politically conservative…” This is an opinion with little weight to it. Environmentalism is most definitely a left position in most Europe, especially the east. It is thankfully more mainstream and basically a nonpartisan political standard in western Europe but not in Poland, Romania, Italy, Russia, Malta, Greece, Hungary, Turkey, etc.
3. I gave specific examples of European abortion laws that are far behind even America’s most repressive. This is a fact. Whatever they do in Mississippi pales in comparison to places like Malta. My family there has to travel to Israel for abortions. Until just five years ago, divorce was illegal there!
4. American religiosity is an outlier, but still not as much of one your making it out to be. Africans and South Americans are extremely religious, as are eastern Europeans, and their politics reflects this. I urge you to travel to these places and actually speak to the people there.

Thanks for reading and commenting though.