One week after an ISIS-linked radical murdered a person at Berlin's Pride parade, European officials responded the only way they know how: bigger parades, more police, and defiant slogans about identity politics — doubling down on the very cultural posture that leaves a continent unable to name, let alone confront, the threat inside its borders. For Americans, it's a preview of what happens when a civilization substitutes sexual identity celebrations for the will to survive.

The facts of the attack are clear. Abdul Ballout, a 21-year-old German citizen with Lebanese roots, plowed a vehicle into the Berlin Pride crowd on July 25, then exited the car and slashed people with a machete, according to CBS News. He killed one person and injured more than two dozen. Ballout had known ties to ISIS and was already on authorities' radar for multiple incidents. He was enrolled in a government deradicalization program — and was about to be disqualified from it after staff spotted red flags. Instead of acting, officials let him slip away. After the attack, Ballout evaded police for roughly 24 hours before officers shot and killed him in a Berlin suburb.

DW barely mentioned the attacker or his background, framing the story around "big turnout" and community resilience. CBS reported the details of Ballout's ISIS ties and the failed deradicalization program — the actual mechanism of failure that neither outlet pressed further.

The response? Hamburg hosted its annual Pride parade one week later with roughly 300,000 attendees, per police and organizers. Hamburg's deputy mayor, Katharina Fegebank, told RTL television: "After the brutal attack on the CSD in Berlin, many are unsure in the queer community but also in society whether here and today is the right place. I say, now more than ever." Hamburg's police chief deployed roughly twice as many officers as last year, CBS reported. The event's motto: "Queer in solidarity. Take a stand — for a future without fear."

Amsterdam held its canal boat parade the same day, with openly gay Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten waving from a small boat as techno music pumped from speakers. Police motorboats cruised the canals; a helicopter hovered overhead. Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema promised extra security measures that visitors would "hopefully notice as little as possible."

A woman at a makeshift memorial in Berlin told CBS News: "This is not normal; those are just people. They should not be judged or killed for their choice of love."

Here is the open question: A man known to have ISIS ties was running free in Germany after flunking out of a government deradicalization program. He killed someone. Europe's answer was more parades, more police, and more identity politics — not a reckoning with immigration policy, counterintelligence failures, or a deradicalization apparatus that couldn't deradicalize. Americans watching from across the Atlantic should ask whether the same reflex — respond to failure by doubling down on the failed policy — sounds familiar.