Do people in countries other than the US look at our election craziness and think it’s the Republicans fault? Or do they think both sides are crazy? Or do they think there isn’t anything crazy about our elections? Does anybody think it’s the Democratic party that is the problem?
I do exist in somewhat of a bubble, but I don’t mean to!
From where I’m standing it’s been crazy for four years, it’s just gone up a gear.
Brit here, quite a liberal one, so in my own personal bubble, but even among people I know who I know vocally support Brexit (I hesitate to call them ‘friends’ but some are family) they all find Trump to be awful.
Because it’s from a distance I think the understandable fear and hatred of Trump isn’t present? But it’s interpreted as ‘lol Americans, amirite? They voted for Trump!’ which permits them to indulge in the typical superiority complex of ‘at least we’re not THAT stupid!’
Those who are politically more fully interested like me and my friends share your fear and loathing, though. My dad dislikes Trump but still supports Brexit and when I tell him of my fears that the Republicans are going to steal the election with suppression and rigging of votes, and that America is perilously close to something akin to a civil war or rebellion, his brain just cannot parse it. He doesn’t believe it’s true. I don’t know how to work with that.
I look forward with mixed feelings to knowing that between America and Britain, Britain’s the stupidest.
My wife and a good chunk of my social circle are non-Americans. At the top of the list of things they think are crazy about American politics is the Electoral College.
Even in other countries, where you stand depends on where you sit. Canadians love Obama and think many things about American politics are crazy. Apart from the 10-15% of Canadians who support Trump, most would blame both parties a little, Trump a lot, and the Republicans much more than the Democrats.
The electoral college is crazy. A politicized judiciary is crazy. It is crazy that decisions about elections are made by people with a D or R beside their name instead of a national non-partisan body. The Republicans used to say “We can teach Trump”. “Trump was Presidential today”. Later, “Let Trump be Trump”. Next, “I am unaware of that specific tweet”. Followed by “I have not been following that specific issue”. Next, “I saw nothink! Nothink!”. More recently:
”And did they get you to trade
Your heros for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange
A walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage.”
Really? I don’t know one single person who does. I think most Canadians pity the Americans.
I recall that when my oldest went off to the US for college, I sat them all down and explained about the electoral college. They were incredulous. Now she is preparing to move to Canada if necessary.
I have a friend who married an English woman and has lived in England for the last 16 years, a brother-in-law who married a German woman and lives in Hamburg, and a sister-in-law who married a German man and lives in Berlin. I have visited all three places in the past few years, and trying to explain the Electoral College is a fool’s errand.
Most people I have met in other countries think Trump is a complete buffoon, and are incredulous at the things he says and does. On the whole, though, most people think Americans as a whole are idiots in the first place, so they aren’t really surprised we elected him.
The one exception: some in the Berlin group are BIG supporters of the AFD, so they think highly of Trump’s actions, though not what he says or does. Last visit was very contentious.
It is not so much the crazyness that has me gobsmacked, it is more the hate and the hypocrisy*. How they feed on each other, it looks like a violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.**
Well, yes, and Trump, of course. Absolutely shitbat crazy. The orange elefant in the room. And they say he still has a chance?
*Yes, on both sides. On one more blatant than the other, but still, considering that both sides would count as right wing where I live, the acrimony must mean that the stakes are very low indeed.
** I know the 2nd Law does not apply because it is not a closed system, but still fascinating to watch.
I know several Canadians who, surprisingly, support Trump. Their reasons differ considerably.
Scandinavian here. Among the developed countries, we are among the most leftist, so even your Dems would probably fit pretty well in the right wing of our Conservative Party. And Bernie would fit right in with the right wing of our Labor party. Overton window and all that. Still, it was one of our politicians who nominated #45 for the Peace Price (only marginally more cringeworthy than the decision to award Obama the Prize, for… not being GWB, I guess?).
Where was I? Oh, yes. Rambling. Anyway, we’re rather concerned about the depth of the divide between the two sides over at your place and rather shocked at the amount of hatred and violence we see through media (FWIW). And I think that most of us agree that we’d have a hard time imagining a less presidential US president than the one you have now.
We have US friends and acquaintances, and luckily they’re not Trumpers. Even those who used to be conservative even by US standards. If they were, that would’ve made the contact rather… awkward.
The Republican party to me, a slightly conservative Canadian, looks positively insane. The entire conservative movement has left reality. The Republican party does not look like something that should exist in a democracy (or democratic republic if you prefer) except as an extreme fringe far-right party that gets a handful of votes.
As for Donald Trump, it is 100% certain that he is all of the following: a conman, a criminal, incompetent (certainly as president and one could argue in business as well), lacking intelligence, and personally vile. It is madness to me that he has any percentage of the vote greater than zero percent. I could understand why somebody may have been fooled into voting for him in 2016 (the desire to elect a political outsider), but after the past four years. Nobody with any sense can possibly support Donald Trump.
nobody in the US really cared much about the electoral college until 2000 and then 2016. The problem is states like NY and CA are so big and blue but they don’t get enough electoral college votes because smaller states get too many.
Yes, it didn’t matter much when it had been a hundred years since the Electoral College awarded the presidency to someone who had lost the popular vote. Now it has happened twice in 20 years, so it matters.
A poll of decided Canadians from late September found that 84% would vote for Biden over Trump if they could. Even in Alberta, Canada’s most conservative province, Trump only got 32% support.
Most people I speak to in the UK think Trump is an insane monster but I’m a Londoner and it’s a liberal city. But American politics seems to me to be a choice between the right wing and the VERY right wing.
What I can’t believe is that citizens can cast their vote in an official way and then they can be disenfranchised later by a politically appointed lawyer in a court. Surely you should be deciding the legal methods of voting before the election. The politicisation and corruption of election processes is truly shocking to me. Surely that is something that needs to change.
“I don’t need to hear any shit about our elections from Americans ever again.”
Well, we’re hardly in a position to criticize many countries’ elections. But 2 questions – are you quoting somebody else? And, whose country does “our” refer to?
I have the same experience. Number two is that there effectively are only two parties. Number three, getting hundreds of postcards and flyers in the mail over a month before the election.
As a fellow German comedian commented one time about the 2000 Bush/Gore debacle: “Nobody understands the American voting system and it’s totally crazy, but just like everything American, dramaturgically perfect.”
Me personally, and I speak for the majority of my compatriots, American elections are fucked up beyond recognition, from the electoral college over the heavily sponsored campaigns, the inability to have a quick counting of votes and thus a quick projection of the outcome to the fact that you have to stand in line for hours(!) on a work day (all elections in Germany are held on sunday, and I’ve never ever had to stand in a line for voting It’s a process of 3 minutes, in a locality usually not farther than 2 kilometres from my home). Everything about American elections is different (and worse) than in Germany, and that’s not patriotism on my part (which I don’t have anyway), but just common sense.
Canadians tend to blame Republicans, but are also somewhat aware how ridiculous the system is. We tend not to criticize the Electoral College too much. That used to favor Democrats and isn’t that far off from our own first-past-the-post system. Our current ruling party lost the popular vote but won enough ridings to rule the country.
My brother does (influenced by Youtube videos). My aunt does (very vocally). My mother did, until COVID-19 hit. All three are very religious, and all three are gullible and believe in conspiracy theories (vocally in my brother’s case).
US influence hits here in Canada too. We have gun right protestors, even though Canada does not have gun rights! TVTropes discusses this (in a non-political way) in its Eagleland Osmosis article, pointing out that many countries do not use 911 as an emergency code but their citizens still try to call it. We even have our own far-right Fox News-style media empires, but they’re much less influential. Some of our centre-right media publications have opinion columnists who support Trump.