this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2024
334 points (98.0% liked)
Europe
8324 readers
3 users here now
News/Interesting Stories/Beautiful Pictures from Europe 🇪🇺
(Current banner: Thunder mountain, Germany, 🇩🇪 ) Feel free to post submissions for banner pictures
Rules
(This list is obviously incomplete, but it will get expanded when necessary)
- Be nice to each other (e.g. No direct insults against each other);
- No racism, antisemitism, dehumanisation of minorities or glorification of National Socialism allowed;
- No posts linking to mis-information funded by foreign states or billionaires.
Also check out !yurop@lemm.ee
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It has become embarrassingly clear that US Republicans are not interested in honoring alliances, reassurances, and good relations.
The world best take note that dealings with the Republicans must be transactional. And until they have no reasonable chance of governing, so must any deal with the US be concluded within a 2 year frame. And any nation being cheated by a cancelled deal have only themselves to blame.
I agree with you except for this part:
It is still the US as a whole to blame. It is the US citizens who vote this party and it is the country that is failing its obligations.
A Republican president hasn't won the popular vote in 20 years.
Yet the Republicans are regularly voted to be a majority in the House and Senate.
Well, yes, that's how gerrymandering works...by giving outisize political power to a minority. I'm certainly not blaming the EU for the way a minority (like ~~Turkey~~ or Hungary) vote on things.
Turkey is not part of the EU.
The people of the US have the choice to not only elect their parliaments, but also the president. They also elect DAs and Sheriffs in many places. The people of the US have more democratic rights than most other people in countries considered democracies. This includes the ability to adress issues like gerrymandering and politically demanding to change them. But the people chose not to.
The people of the US are not victims of a system that they cannot possibly adress. Some marginalized groups are. But the majority of the American people are either in favor or indifferent to the current system. And if you are not sure about it, think about how bipartisan the resistance becomes, when marginalized groups are demanding a change to the system, like how the white democratic voters reacted to the civil rights movement or BLM.
This isn't true. We've got a lower democracy index than all of Western Europe, Canada, Australia, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Chili, and Uruguay.
As far as gerrymandering goes, states draw their own districts, and they're usually drawn by the party in power and only once a decade after the census. I'm assuming based on your instance that you're German...so try to imagine an election where everyone's only choices were between the AfD FDP (far-right proto-Nazis vs. neoliberal center-right) and whichever party won got to redraw all your voting districts. Neither of the parties really need to listen to their voters because the fascists will vote fascist no matter what, and everyone else is torn between voting for a party that's still too-right or not voting and risking the fascists taking it all. I think mosy Americans are about as culpable for the current state of things as the average German was right before Hitler was elected by about 43% of the electorate in 1933.
The fact that they're having more elections does not mean they have 'more democratic rights'.
I for example fail to see the point of the US mid-term elections. It doesn't make the US system more democratic, just more complex.
It is most definitely NOT the peoples' fault. 2/3rds of the government's branches aren't even elected (by the people at least).
Additionally there are massive propaganda machines dedicated to maximizing the power of the right wing across all aspects of society and government
Propaganda is ever-present. What doesn't have to be present is a "representative democracy" that is hardly democratic and only represents the rich...
If they are not interested, why should we be? Sever all ties... works fairly well with Russia, so why not the USA? Let them have their splendid isolation.
Because so far, American money and military muscle is needed to stop Russia in Ukraine and deter it from further adventures in Europe.
Do you really trust them? I don't.
As long as we are not willing provide the money and muscle ourselves, I see no other alternative to trust them.
I know that, you know that, apparently. But there are loads of people and countries in Europe that still see no need in building up defenses, that still want to close their eyes before what is inevitably happening.
You do realize that rejecting both Russia and America would in fact make the EU more isolated than either Russia or America in this scenario?
The only reason there is enough stability for the EU to remain in solvency is because NATO basically covers its entire defense budget. Even with this shield against hard power the EU has still fallen prey to soft power attacks, being picked apart from the inside.
Imagine what would happen to the EU if the individual member states actually had to cover all their own military expenses, had to negotiate for fuel From neither Russia or the US. The austerity measures alone would break the EU apart.
No democratic institutions are fairing well. If there isn't some effort to all work together, everything going to unravel at the seams.