As an european I always found it astounding how easily the US voters let themselves be split into voting just two parties.
I know this is a systemic issue of the chosen representative models — but the outrage it would produce in Europe if the person with a fewer number of absolute votes would win would be absolutely of the charts. In the US it is more like a "unfortunate, but what can you do" type of reaction.
Looking at the current state of the US democracy worrying about the parties visions of "americanism" seems downright naive given that one of the parties seems to be in the process of trying to get rid of the democratic vote altogether.
As an Austrian living in Germany I can't help but thinking of the Weimar Republic before the Nazis came to power. Stories about people bashing the social democrats back then, with the Nazis rising on the horizon. Nazis setting fire to the Reichstag and blaming it on the communists. I said that Trump was a fascist back when he was elected and most US commenters would tell me I was paranoid, delusional etc. I told them that I was not sure if this guy would go peacefully if he lost the next election and I was right on the money. The problem right now is that Trump is not the only fascist in the republican party. Of course there is also true believers in democratic principles in the GOP, but they seem to be in the minority.
Given those thoughts I wonder whether the US has the freedom right now to complain about the vision of the one party that still stands for democratic principles not aligning a 100% with their own ideas. Personally I'd rather vote for a 1000 regulations I absolutely hate, implemented by people I absolutely despise than voting for someone who could potentially get rid of me being able to vote in the future.
Once you lose the right to vote, you won't have the possibility to alter that choice anymore. I always perceived US citizens as people who valued democracy above petty party politics, bit I am not sure about that now.
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As an european I always found it astounding how easily the US voters let themselves be split into voting just two parties.
I know this is a systemic issue of the chosen representative models — but the outrage it would produce in Europe if the person with a fewer number of absolute votes would win would be absolutely of the charts. In the US it is more like a "unfortunate, but what can you do" type of reaction.
Looking at the current state of the US democracy worrying about the parties visions of "americanism" seems downright naive given that one of the parties seems to be in the process of trying to get rid of the democratic vote altogether.
As an Austrian living in Germany I can't help but thinking of the Weimar Republic before the Nazis came to power. Stories about people bashing the social democrats back then, with the Nazis rising on the horizon. Nazis setting fire to the Reichstag and blaming it on the communists. I said that Trump was a fascist back when he was elected and most US commenters would tell me I was paranoid, delusional etc. I told them that I was not sure if this guy would go peacefully if he lost the next election and I was right on the money. The problem right now is that Trump is not the only fascist in the republican party. Of course there is also true believers in democratic principles in the GOP, but they seem to be in the minority.
Given those thoughts I wonder whether the US has the freedom right now to complain about the vision of the one party that still stands for democratic principles not aligning a 100% with their own ideas. Personally I'd rather vote for a 1000 regulations I absolutely hate, implemented by people I absolutely despise than voting for someone who could potentially get rid of me being able to vote in the future.
Once you lose the right to vote, you won't have the possibility to alter that choice anymore. I always perceived US citizens as people who valued democracy above petty party politics, bit I am not sure about that now.