I'm not sure I necessarily agree with that. Undoubtedly all of Europe is more left-wing economically (UK, Spain & Italy less so), however socially you cannot group all of Europe together as all the nations are different.
Poland is socially very conservative (think a catholic version of the deep south), Austria is also quite conservative. Holland, Belgium, Denmark & Iceland are very liberal (although rural bits in these nations can be quite conservative). In general however I would say the main difference is that Europeans tend to believe what you do in your private life is your own affair. Things like sexuality and abortion etc. tend to be viewed as OK, so long as people keep it to themselves. For example hate crimes against gays and attacks on doctors carrying out abortions are probably much rarer in all European countries than in America.
Regarding xenophobia and racism, I must say I agree with you. All European nations have far-right racist/xenophobic parties and many are quite powerful.
There's the Vlaams Blok in Belgium, List Pim Fortuyn in Holland, The British National Party in the UK, The Front Nationale in France, The Lega Nord in Italy. As far as I know the US possesses no such extremist parties.
Despite wackos in America, I would say overall people in Europe are more racist.
Europe is definitely more "left-wing" economically, but socially it's not.
Firstly, Americans are much more 'loose' morally. Americans have sex MUCH more and at much younger ages than Europeans do... outside of select cities, wild partying is much more common in the US than Europe. That's why it's ironic that porn is taboo in the US, but predictable: there is a huge gap between religious people and secular people. Each side gets its way some of the time.
At any rate, it's hard to compare how far "right," say, Le Pen is vs. Jeff Sessions or Pat Roberts or someone like that. Because Le Pen's views on immigration mirror David Duke's, while his criminal justice positions are very mainstream by US standards, as is his pro-military stance. Economic issues have not been as big a part of his message, but he is not particularly conservative in that area.
Bossi is legimately far-right, though Haider isn't really (his troubles stem from a few random comments, not really extreme political acts). Generally speaking, Europeans are much more xenophobic than Americans are... but all these things require perspective. Comparisons are rarely useful as a result.
It's not so much that French people are wusses, they just despise the US. So when they opposed the war in Iraq, it had nothing to do with war being "wrong," it was simply not in their interests.
