In a perplexing speech Saturday commemorating the World War II D-Day landings in Normandy, France, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth called for European leaders to combat what he implied was a second, modern D-Day—in which European countries were being “stormed by different dangerous ideologies” accompanied by “boats and men.”

The original D-Day was the Allied invasion to liberate France from Nazi German domination: the defenders were Hitler’s National Socialists and their army, and the “dangerous ideology” was anti-fascism.

At Normandy in 1944, genocidal far-right extremists “defended” a conquered Europe against a multiracial force fighting for democratic ideas. In 2026, Hegseth’s speech suggested, it was happening again: “When will European capitals do something about that........

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