I mean, in previous years we did pass some environmental laws (like banning internal combustion cars), not as much or as strict as I hoped, but change was there. Sure hope that doesn’t all get undone ‘to boost the economy’ (in the USA sense - so help the existing big corps to boost their profits & do nothing for the majority).
Hell, I rally like the vast majority of EU regulations (various directives and delegated acts) that were passed & are being constantly updated (to keep up with the times/trends & tech) over the last 20 years, I think its a rally good balance between protecting the people whilst at the same time working with the market to actually achieve a meaningful & painless change over several years. That’s why we have representatives. The added “bureaucracy” as companies call it is just extra reporting & testing (to confirm compliance with standards). This benefits us all & is of unbelievably marginal cost when you look at the economy, regardless of what lobbyists say.
Mexicans should absolutely be keeping an eye on American politics. Especially since half the debate was: Sir please explain how much you hate Mexicans and what you’ll do to prevent any Mexicans from entering our fair country and how you’ll remove the Mexicans problem when you’re in power.
Trump: internment camps, American Auschwitz if he can
Biden: further tighten border control and further restrict ability to obtain legal entry
Honestly that’s something I never learned about until I was like, 23, 24. Still know bugger all about it and that’s fucked. Do you know any good resources where I can learn about this stuff?
Wilson, and to a lesser extent Monroe are the presidents that caused those, with Wilsonian Military Doctrine, and The Monroe Doctrine, specifically so perhaps start there.
For a fun and light read I’d start with Wikipedia entry on the attempts on the life of Fidel Castro.
For chronological read I’d start with Iran then Latin America, Wikipedia as well. Don’t skip the chapter where they associated themselves with drug lords that sent drugs to US as a way to finance anti communist operations in Central America. I think that was Nicaragua.
Well I suppose the answer I'd give is that because of how right-wing the US is compared to much of the Western world, it becomes a patient zero for whatever the far-right is cooking up - which inevitably influences far-right groups in other Western countries
Putin planted his seed with Trump in his greatest enemy (democracy/America). It quickly caught on & has spread globally.
Hundreds of Billions of dollars in US defense hasn’t done a thing to halt the attacks on democracy Putin has wraught with a few million spent on his troll army.
The man can’t carry out a physical attack for shit, but his cyber attacks have no equal, only willing collaborators (Murdoch et al, the maga army).
You’d rather believe Trump is result of foreign interference, that our own institutions would never result in this without being sullied from outside. It’s fan fic, it’s Cold War nonsense.
Trump is the consequence of our political systems, of our spiteful culture, of our economics that promises success and leaves people sick, broken, and in debt. So what if the Russians had a few hundred Facebook posts? That “seed” would not have taken if the soil weren’t already fertile. Frankly, I don’t think it made a difference. We were barrelling toward Trump with or without the oh so spooky slavs typing on a keyboard.
I recommend you read up. And quit sounding like you’re on Putin’s propaganda team: ‘oh that’s cold war nonsense’
Putin funded Trump, fed him the whole Obama’s a Kenyan schtick, Hilary’s a criminal ploy.
Trump can’t think up or accomplish a damn thing without a cheer squad to goad & lead him where to go.
Tom Snyder’s the Road to Unfreedom has the path well researched. I highly recommend you read that.
Yes, Rupert Murdoch had been warring against real news since Reagan (Bush’s puppet) withdrew laws that required stations labeled ‘News’ carry truth & news
Yes, Reagan was an early predecessor to the incompetent celebrity politician role that Trump walks. Yes, Danny Quayle was a shining example of idiocy in politics.
Putin saw these things the Murdoch & Bush families put forth & jumped on the band wagon, gave it a nitro boost. Not much difference? Follow the money.
You are looking for a Great Man of history to pin this on. You’d rather believe someone nefarious is in charge and pulling the strings from an ocean away, than to see this for what it is; an empire with no real conscious oversight. A pile of self-interested businessmen, politicians, and militarists doing whatever they can to line their pockets, profits above all else.
The US has, per capita, the largest prison population and, outright, the biggest military on the planet. If there’s a road to ‘unfreedom’, we traveled down it a long time ago.
You are looking for a Great Man of history to pin this on. You’d rather believe someone nefarious is in charge and pulling the strings from an ocean away, than to see this for what it is; an empire with no real conscious oversight.
No, I just prefer to have realization of all of the components.
A pile of self-interested businessmen, politicians, and militarists doing whatever they can to line their pockets, profits above all else.
Agreed.
The US has, per capita, the largest prison population and, outright, the biggest military on the planet. If there’s a road to ‘unfreedom’, we traveled down it a long time ago.
Also agreed. As I said before, we were on this path, many made it worse. Putin put it on steroids.
I follow closely what is happening in the US from France because even though we have a very different culture I still think US politics is a preview of what’s to come here.
Right now I consider we are at the step where our media are crumbling and becoming unable to properly inform us. A step that has been reached a couple of years ago in the US in my opinion.
The next step will probably be our own coup attempt in a few years and a steady increase in the division of the country and far right movements.
But think of all the popcorn we are able to consume watching you shitshow. This is way more entertaining than the usual movies, series, and shows that you produce!
How is this fascist right wing shit show not a global debacle? Putin, Netenyahu, Bolsanaro, Trump, Modi… Italy & Germany both rolling right. North Korea (of course) jumping on the Russian bandwagon and Xinny the Pooh.
Does Britain’s finally dumping the Tories (after a decade & a half+) make them one of the few to break left at this time on the global stage? {Something about broken clocks being right from time to time.}
No I wouldn’t think that about the UK. Tories shifted massively rightwards over the past decade and they are really losing most voters to Reform - a hard right party, so they are simply not hard-right enough for most voters, meanwhile Labour has shifted massively right to occupy the space Cameron-style neocons were in before.
The right win in the long run because if labour wins, the dynamic will be of that between Cameron-esque conservatives under Starmer Labour and hard-right conservatives under Reform/UKIP/whatever Farage party as the two major parties. This is the final form of the overton window shift, on which the UK and US led the world on in 2016.
If anything the lib Dems - if you take their manifesto at face value - are far more progressive than Labour at this point and don’t adopt the “managed decline” style of governance.
This is where the UK FPTP system might actually work well, Reform could get as many as 17% of votes, ahead of Tory 15% and become the 2nd largest party, and yet end up with like one parliament seat because they dont end up with a majority in any one county this time around.
The only hope then is that Starmer is just secretly a really good guy who won’t say so because the tory media would eviscerate him on culture war shit, that he survives the power struggle of a labour seat supermajority and kicks out the likes of Duffield and Streeting.
Seems all but impossible they’ll switch candidates now. There’s not a mechanism for it. It would have to be something like Biden having a major medical issue or dying.
Those don’t seem implausible based on my watching half the debate… Biden was struggling to get anything out(and it wasn’t just stutter, he seemed to not be in the room part of the time) and trump just vomited lies and non answers constant
That is technically a mechanism. I’m wondering if Biden, Trump, or both experience some incredibly bizzare…accident…before November.
Idk if it even needs to be complicated. With Biden it could be every bit as simple as “Oh wow, look, he died in his sleep. NEXT!”. He looks rough. Wouldn’t take much.
She’s fried toast. She’s been trying to raise her profile but she doesn’t poll well at all. If they went with her suddenly, it would be worse than staying with Biden. Newsom is probably the highest profile person who could feasibly replace Biden now. Unfortunately at this point parties don’t tend to take extra risk so it would be a straight white man with just the right amount of gray in his hair and in their political prime.
The real problem they face, if they want to switch Biden out, is convincing the governor of California to resign to run. He has 3 years left on his term. But he’s also term limited so he could go for it.
At least you can tell where something happens by place names, I get headlines ‘12 shot in Manchester gun fight’ or ‘Birmingham man kills 8 in roadrage incident’ and there’s just no way of telling it’s America… OK, well those examples are obvious but the point stands.
As a French tho, do watch the debate between Gabriel Attal, Merdella and Manuel Bombard. See how Bompard (the left wing candidate) politely wipes the floor with both shitbags.
The thing that’s pissing me off though is that the centrist party decided it would rather demonize the left than the alt right, I suppose they know they already lost and are trying to get as many votes off of those they know might vote for them (some socialists).
Yeah, I think going toe to toe with the far right once again was always Macron’s plan. This is the foe he’s familiar with, against whom he won before. The short deadline for the anticipated election was probably to keep the left from organizing, as to not disturb their duel. But it backfired when the left immediately formed the Front Populaire. Now he’s nervous. The polls give his party third place, so he’s playing for second. He thinks if it’s the centrist against the far right, the “barrage vote” will save him once more.
What’s shocking is the extent to which they go to demean the left, and the amount of media that help spread his baseless accusation. Everyone knows at this point that the center will lose, so they’re choosing who they’ll lose too. They maybe think it’ll erase the left and let Macron’s clan be seen as the alternative to fascism during the next presidential elections…
Centerists will always attack the left rather than the right. They are actually right wingers that don’t want the social stigma that goes with admitting that you’re right wing. Once the progressives have been killed off by the right wing, the liberals will take the mask off.
The lot of them are cowards and the left is a whole lot less scary than the right, since we don’t go on random killing sprees frequently.
Indeed. I created a Lemmy account the moment I saw an opportunity to block US-specific communities. But alas, US content makes it onto other, more general communities as well (like politics on the memes community)
Some cunt could post a meme about a samurai in Cote/ d’Ivoire eating a durian fruit and some yank would still say “Ya that’s such a democrat thing to do brah”
I mean I wasn’t really serious as we are in a shit post community right now.
But do you realize how fucking hard it is to keep US politics out of your experience here? So many seemingly unrelated communities post election bullshit it’s not even funny :/
I do think that the next presidential US election is important not only for Americans but the world. Although it really is tiring to watch from over here and I can only imagine how tired most Americans must be…
I mean, I follow the presidental race somewhat because it has global impact, but watching the debates is not worth my time, and I’m fairly certain it’s not worth anyone’s time, especially non-americans.
They’re both right wing, but moderate right wing bought by corporate interests isn’t the same as fascist. It’s trending towards fascism, sure, but it’s less likely to go on a killing spree.
It’s obviously a common vernacular simplification from authoritarian with a broad definition. This is a commonplace and accepted vernacular in most modern western media based social media outlets.
Fascist can be liberal, they can also be conservative. Or communist. Or almost anything. More often fascists will lie and say they are more socialist than many of their policies would lead you to reasonably expect.
Grown ups are talking. Go play outside. You obviously need to touch grass, child.
It’s what modern elections are, and maybe even all historical elections, though I’m not old enough to determine that. What elections should be is throwing your support behind someone that you think is going to be beneficial for everyone. I know that is idealistic, and unfortunately the current system makes that basically impossible, but Washington said that partisan politics would be the downfall of this country, and his words are playing out in front of us. I really wish we would throw the parties, and lobbyists, out and force candidates to run on policy and merit.
See, you’re talking partisan politics, I’m talking “you literally have to pick someone”. We’ve had these candidates before. You already know which one you’re going to vote for. You picked your side four years ago when you were asked the same question.
Beyond that though, there’s “parties” and then theirs “sides”. One side is xenophobic, homophobic and actively wishes harm on a lot of people. The other side doesn’t, for all their flaws.
There are more parties than there are sides in the past few elections.
By saying you think you should vote for someone who will be good for everyone, you’ve picked a side. The side that doesn’t want to do good for only the “right” people, or make sure only the “right” people get hurt.
The only question is if you’ll vote for that side to win, or if you’ll let idealism or anger drive you to vote otherwise.
I shall, once again, for the 6th time in my life, hold my nose and vote for the milquetoast candidate the DNC has foisted on us. I wish we had RCV so I could vote for someone good, like Bernie, or heck I’d almost take Vermin Supreme at this point.
Dude, have you actually read vermin Supremes platform, or rather his actual political philosophy and beliefs?
I read through some of them once, and had the horrifying realization that the contemporary political figure that I think I agree with most closely is:
unelectable
best known for wearing a boot on his head
I couldn’t find where a lot of his actual opinions got discussed a bit more formally, but this random video snippet from 2008 does a decent job capturing it.
If I had (got? Got. I’d love to need to make the choice) to pick between a democratic socialist or a social anarchist, I think I’d honestly lean towards the social anarchist, all things being equal.
Oh yeah, he’s totally not a viable candidate, but he does have an actual political philosophy and opinions that are surprisingly agreeable. He just lacks the actual political fortitude or will to get elected.
A side as opposed to either side is how it should be. But don’t take my word for it, George Washington allegedly warned us of the potential perils of a two-party system on his deathbed but I’m unsure if that is common myth or actually true
George Washington eschewed political parties because he didn’t want to establish a precedent where his choice as first president set the standard everyone else had to conform to, and there’s a little irony in people holding him up as an example in that light more than 200 years later.
He, and the other founders largely, disliked political parties in their entirety, not just having some specific number of them.
They also built the system that enshrined the two party dichotomy as the only option, actively sought to ensure that the “right” people could override the will of the people if needed, and founded the parties they had previously argued against.
They are far from infallible bastions of correctness in this matter.