I certainly don't think Republican's hate Europe, if they had, would Reagan have even bothered about it in his foreign policy? Being a Centre Left European, I give credit where credit is due. I do not like President Bush, but I did like his father and President Reagan, just as I admire Margaret Thatcher here in the UK. I would not dare say (as some fools have recently) that 'I Hate America' simply because Bush is prez. I would say that I love America because they have a system that allows Bush to be kicked out! I agree there can be some confusion. Tony Blair for instance is championed by the Neo-Cons, yet his actual policy positions in general would make Howard Dean seem cuddly to the Republicans, but to say they have a general disregard for Europe is naive.
OK, I don't know how many times I will have to restate what I meant...I started a discussion on how a healthy relationship between the US and Europe could be maintained, and the answer from the Republican could be summarized as "Who cares if Europeans don't like us, they're no good anyway". That is what led me to the conclusion, as well as the general ridicule of European countries that many Republicans seem prone to. I never used the word hate, and I did not mean to imply that every Republican feels a certain way about Europe. It seems like you have proved me wrong in thinking that a great many Republicans are rather hostile to Europe, and for that I am happy. I hereby apologize to anyone who felt insulted, and I retract my statement on Republicans.
Anyway, I thought of a more likely reason, it's funny that no one thought about it before. Roughly 50% of the 50% who vote vote Republican. That's a similar slice of the electorate that votes for the Conservatives in Sweden. But in many European countries voter turnout is much higher than in the US. In Sweden it's regularly at 80%. Maybe there are a similar number of left-wingers in the US, but they don't vote as much?