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American politics is toxic. I'm not sure you can find a nation where people are so divided. Without trying to generalize things too much, half of this country wants extreme austerity and authoritarian nationalism. The rest wants economic populism. These are two totally polar opposite forces that simply cancel each other out like two waves of opposite amplitude. Then you have a system of representation that simply makes unrealistic promises to the people to get elected and then takes large checks from corporations and the extreme wealthy and more or less puts in the minimum effort to represent their constituents. Our founding fathers designed our representation and electoral college to actually suppress pure democracy. They didn't trust democracy, and felt "the rabble" (as they called it) would simply vote to take away the wealth away from the rich land owners. That's why the senate was initially appointed and not elected by the people. That's also why we have 2 senate seats for every state regardless of how populated the state is, whereas the house of representatives is population based. So there's fundamental barriers there against pure democracy and majority rule by design.
Americans are extremely hostile against one another and disagree fundamentally on many core issues (guns, education, taxes, healthcare, environment, trade, the role of government, safety, individual freedoms, etc...). They don't have this sense of community and social commons that many other capitalistic European country agree on. It's a society of individuals and "me me me". In reality, there's probably a lot of core issues we do agree on, but we're blinded by other ideological and social issues that we use as a wedge to divide us into 2 buckets and accept political party platform talking points as whole sale.
I can respect different views as long as they are argued with sound logic and reasonable supporting evidence. What I can't stand is loud mouth low-educated "American-exceptionalism" people, and unfortunately this country is choked full of them on both sides. Americans are arguably among the lowest informed voters when it comes to their understanding of how their government works. They think a president has all the power and the rest is just details. And on top of it, our voter turnout is abysmal.
It's no wonder little progress is made and each election simply kicks the can down the road.
American politics is toxic. I'm not sure you can find a nation where people are so divided. Without trying to generalize things too much, half of this country wants extreme austerity and authoritarian nationalism. The rest wants economic populism. These are two totally polar opposite forces that simply cancel each other out like two waves of opposite amplitude. Then you have a system of representation that simply makes unrealistic promises to the people to get elected and then takes large checks from corporations and the extreme wealthy and more or less puts in the minimum effort to represent their constituents. Our founding fathers designed our representation and electoral college to actually suppress pure democracy. They didn't trust democracy, and felt "the rabble" (as they called it) would simply vote to take away the wealth away from the rich land owners. That's why the senate was initially appointed and not elected by the people. That's also why we have 2 senate seats for every state regardless of how populated the state is, whereas the house of representatives is population based. So there's fundamental barriers there against pure democracy and majority rule by design.
Americans are extremely hostile against one another and disagree fundamentally on many core issues (guns, education, taxes, healthcare, environment, trade, the role of government, safety, individual freedoms, etc...). They don't have this sense of community and social commons that many other capitalistic European country agree on. It's a society of individuals and "me me me". In reality, there's probably a lot of core issues we do agree on, but we're blinded by other ideological and social issues that we use as a wedge to divide us into 2 buckets and accept political party platform talking points as whole sale.
I can respect different views as long as they are argued with sound logic and reasonable supporting evidence. What I can't stand is loud mouth low-educated "American-exceptionalism" people, and unfortunately this country is choked full of them on both sides. Americans are arguably among the lowest informed voters when it comes to their understanding of how their government works. They think a president has all the power and the rest is just details. And on top of it, our voter turnout is abysmal.
It's no wonder little progress is made and each election simply kicks the can down the road.
I agree with this post.
I've said this before and I'll mention it again so our non American audience can get a better idea of why we seem so chaotic and hostile toward one another.
When you think about it, the original states came together largely out of necessity more so than outright desire. The states formed the federal government rather than the other way around. What has kept the country together for the most part has been outside threats. The revolutionary war against King George and the forgotten war of 1812. After that, there really weren't any outside threats and Americans found differences with one another and a bloody civil war ensued. After that, the focus was on rebuilding the country and within that period came the Mexican-American war. After that, it was about settling newly acquired territory. Then there was the Spanish-American war. Not too long after that was WWI followed rather closely by WWII which the US tried to avoid. After the second World War, the cold war created a very strong unity within the country which was punctuated by the Korean and Vietnam wars. Once the cold war ended, the US for the first time found itself in a world where the threats were much less urgent. With this we began to focus on our own differences once again and this was seen with the first political rift in the mid 90's particularly with the Republicans "contract with America" movement. This lasted until the 2000 election with further polarized the country politically. Now, we have this election which is another point of no return like 16 years ago.
A good portion of American politics, particularly the conservative side is that it is embedded in the south and largely influenced from there. The civil war was never really resolved so to speak but was a war of attrition. This is in part why we see so much regionalism in our polarized politics. The US is one country formed by states that each have their own government and constitution and they contribute to cultural differences as well as political differences. It is an environment perfect for what we are seeing today.
That's interesting I am sure, but I think the topic is "how the REST OF THE WORLD views American politics"
I agree. I just felt it prudent to give an explanation of the political topology in America and current state to help non-Americans understand why things are the way they are. I am very interested in hearing their views of this country.
French here, American politics are seen as important but nowhere near French politics. The 2008 election had a lot of coverage here because it was historic but the 2012 election didn't interest many people.
Same for this election now, it only gets some coverage because of Trump.
I'm American and agree with this. America definitely has a lot of extremes and they hate each other (a very divided nation doomed to fail imo)....this election looks to be the worst I've seen.
I agree. I think the current election campaign is a disgrace. I've never seen anything this bad in previous elections. There is no focus on issues and responsibilities in regard to the job of President. It is nonstop name calling like children. All of this unprofessional behavior is another sign of a decaying society. To come out and say it. Neither candidate should be running. It is very alarming wih all the people in this country. All we have running are these two. I imagine we must look like fools to the rest of the world.
I would have to add, that thanks to the importance of cross-border trade, Canadians often pay quite a bit of attention to state and city politics that are happening just across the border in the neighbouring states. Thank goodness we get U.S. media here, we can follow along... we don't get to vote in your elections though!
I agree. I think the current election campaign is a disgrace. I've never seen anything this bad in previous elections. There is no focus on issues and responsibilities in regard to the job of President. It is nonstop name calling like children. All of this unprofessional behavior is another sign of a decaying society. To come out and say it. Neither candidate should be running. It is very alarming wih all the people in this country. All we have running are these two. I imagine we must look like fools to the rest of the world.
I'm not thrilled by any candidate right now, but Trump is the biggest joke I've ever seen and is quite scary that he could be our next president. The sad reality is Trump is just the first of his kind. Trump represents a rise in Authoritarianism. There will be many other Trump's down the road.
But it's not just happening here. It's happening in other areas as well. I read that Austria nearly elected their own semi-version of Donald Trump. Just a few 10's of thousands of votes shy of winning.
I'm not thrilled by any candidate right now, but Trump is the biggest joke I've ever seen and is quite scary that he could be our next president. The sad reality is Trump is just the first of his kind. Trump represents a rise in Authoritarianism. There will be many other Trump's down the road.
But it's not just happening here. It's happening in other areas as well. I read that Austria nearly elected their own semi-version of Donald Trump. Just a few 10's of thousands of votes shy of winning.
Hm, European politics are quite a different animal from the U.S. though, for one thing Europe's population is ageing more rapidly, and...excuse my ageism here... older voters tend to skew more to the right. There's a trend in that direction, and in my defence, I'm far from the first to make that observation that there's a connection to the current age demographics in Europe. Europe generally veered more to the left 30 or 40 years ago, but the bulk of the population has aged and gone very conservative since then.
My own feeling is that the U.S. is going through a difficult, complicated transition to a post-TV, post-mass media era. Many Americans are turning away from mainstream media (MSM), and prefer to get news, forum chats, social media networking, etc. over the web nowadays. So media choices are more niche. The way information and news disseminate has changed drastically for many people since the 1990s.
We're just beginning to feel the impacts. Politics is having a rough, conflicted adjustment to the "new normal"... it's not surprising that in a chaotic media and political landscape, that opportunistic Trumps would come along to try to exploit the situation for their own agenda. Trump hasn't figured out how to do it properly (actually, his attempt has turned into quite a fiasco for him)... it doesn't mean that other opportunists won't come along, with a bit more finesse and cunning, and figure out how to use circumstance for their own ends. Sadly, I could see someone a lot sharper than Trump coming along in a few years and seizing power. Is U.S. society ready and willing to counter a smoother Trump?
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