We're meant to believe that the 49%-to-48% election of Trump is some deep window into the eternal American psyche, but Orban's fifteen-year drive into corrupt, racist autocracy, endorsed by the voters at every turn, is just some sort of very temporary oopsie that says nothing at all about Europe.
When Meloni uses her pulpit as a popular Italian prime minister to attack gay families, you don't see anyone claiming this reflects the bullying nature of the Italian people, but that's par for the course for coverage of Americans and Trump. Swathes of Poland declaring themselves "gay free zones" is an aberration from European values, whereas anything that happens in deepest Alabama is the truest reflection of the American spirit.
It's mere hypocrisy.
The far-right party is most popular by far: https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/france/
The majority of second-round polling has the far right winning the next presidency in France, potentially even by a landslide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2027_F...
For that reason, it's rather ironic to me when I see Europeans rally around Macron. France is poised to rug-pull Europe. Sorry guys.
BTW, guess which party is most popular in the UK? It's not particularly close: https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/united-kingdom/
At least AfD is merely a very close #2 in Germany: https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/germany/
Europe is sleepwalking.
Le Pen's far-right National Rally (RN) has had ties with the Kremlin for a long time. That alone should have discredited this party a long time ago, but no, it is ranking as high as ever, even after russia's overt invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Mélenchon's far-left "France Insoumise" party ranks very high too, and is similarly pro-russian, anti-EU, anti-NATO.
In the town where I live, more than half the votes have gone to the RN these past elections. I often feel like a Cassandra.
Because you do know that Labour in the UK won a landslide victory a year ago and the last date for holding a new general election is in 2029.
The Scandinavian experience is that these parties crash as soon as they get to real power and have to compromise. Suddenly they had to be responsible.
If we do see these Trumpian parties win the majority in these elections in more rather than one-offs then we have a problem. But you're just fearmongering because you can't accept how completely wacko Trump is and need to blame it on "everyone does it!!!".
So what happened in Hungary, or Italy, or other examples mentioned by troad?
Are you aware that RN, at this very moment, has by far the most seats of any party in the French parliament? Those far-right sentiments didn't magically disappear on election day.
>The Scandinavian experience is that these parties crash as soon as they get to real power and have to compromise. Suddenly they had to be responsible.
>If we do see these Trumpian parties win the majority in these elections in more rather than one-offs then we have a problem.
The "majority" comparison is meaningless in this context because the US only has support for two parties. (Imagine Germany had a contest between AfD and Die Linke only. That's akin to the situation in the US right now.) "Governing coalitions" aren't really formed here, so the notion of "they get to real power and have to compromise" doesn't exist in the same way.
So: Even assuming we grant your argument, Trump's power in the US has more to do with quirks of our political system than something fundamental about American culture.
>you can't accept how completely wacko Trump is
I never said he wasn't completely wacko. I simply said he doesn't personify the US any more than Biden does.
And the Social Democrats has been the largest party in Sweden since the early 1900s. Given that the left, with all parties combined, haven't held a majority since 2006 while managing to rule with a minority government from 2014 to 2022.
You make a lot of noise for understanding quite little.
Yes. The US has a broken political system, and you the American people haven't done jack shit to fix it.
> So: Even assuming we grant your argument, Trump's power in the US has more to do with quirks of our political system than something fundamental about American culture.
Trumps power in the US is entirely because he is what the American psyche wants or tolerates.
You keep attempting to dodge the outcome and blame it on everyone else. But you need to own it.
Trump is personifying America, which is quite evident given how he has won twice. The American people wants him.
Understand why your argument is a very poor one? If not, I have 46 more of these examples.
Yes, Orban says nothing about Europe. It says plenty about Hungary though. Europe not being a country, and the EU being very heavily decentralised, that makes sense.
Hungary is literally in Europe. If Orban says nothing about Europe, then nothing can ever say anything about Europe.
Your country is choosing to stay in a union with Orban's. If EU membership is meaningless, as you imply, it should be easy for your country to quit in order to make a point about Hungary.
so are the Vatican and Andorra and Belarus, so all of Europe is theocratic and/or a kleptocracy?
> Your country is choosing to stay in a union with Orban's
Because the benefits far outweigh the association with that pigshit, who will also die some day. Also, the EU can and does exert influence over countries, so some of Orban's excesses can be curbed.
All of the places we're discussing are part of Europe, so insofar as any place can be said to "say something about" Europe, each says something about it.
>Because the benefits far outweigh the association with that pigshit, who will also die some day. Also, the EU can and does exert influence over countries, so some of Orban's excesses can be curbed.
One could make similar arguments for staying in the US. Trump is 79; Orban is 62.
I don't believe collective punishment or collective guilt was ever the point of democracy, sorry.
What's the point of moral reasoning, if people can blame others for events they didn't cause, simply by saying the word "democracy"?
That's easy to explain. Trump is so much out there in being aggressively obnoxious, criminal, racist and senile. His platform was a list of nonsense combined blatant diminishing of rights and social progress. The fact that a majority of voting Americans chose him is irredeemable.
Biden, Bush, Obama were normal candidates with pros and cons, where depending on your views, you could pick one or the other, and you could understand others who voted otherwise.
Trump? I cannot understand anyone who voted for him. They were either extremely narrowly self-centred and thought they could make a buck at everyone else's expense, extremely misinformed and/or dumb, or just hate specific groups of people they know will get hurt. There's nothing redeemable in any of those. He and his voters are the personification of the "fuck you, I've got mine mindset".
It's normal for countries to prioritize their own self-interest. The unusual thing is the degree to which the US attempted to take responsibility for world affairs for as long as it did, to the point where other countries took the US for granted. Now other countries interpret America's failure to take responsibility for their problems as aggression. See here: https://www.hackerneue.com/item?id=45035076
I'm not talking about countries, I'm talking about Trump voters. An "America first" approach is totally fine, nobody outside of the US cares about.
An "America first" approach by a convicted criminal that is obviously senile, that results in arbitrary tariffs, threats of invasion of various allies, and a million other absurd consequences, is a problem for everyone. It's a problem for US partners, allies, and also the US for it's short and medium term future. Nobody will trust the US as a future trade and military partner.
In any case, as I said, I'm talking about Trump voters. The "extremely narrowly self-centred" ones are of the Andreessen types, the ones who think they can make a little bit more money if Trump is in power, even if objectively he's a terrible candidate on literally every level (criminal, rapist, pedophile, senile, can't string more than half a sentence, mocks disabled people, lies, doesn't comprehend realtively basic things, promises to deport millions of people while that being physically impossible, makes up stuff on the fly, wants to curb rights for women, LGBTQ folks, etc)
Do I get to blame you if RN wins the presidency? Same country, after all.
"by far" only if you get stuck on political party; considering there has been a united left coalition for multiple years and rounds of elections, that seems purposefully omissive. United left and RN are pretty close, polls and election results wise, with the centre-right and traditional right trailing closely behind. Neither of them have anything resembling a majority though, as is reflected in the current parliament, where each block has a bit less than 30% each.
And yes, I can understand them. RN's program contains points which cater to large amounts of French people, especially in rural disadvantaged areas. They're unrealistic or just fluff, mind you, but still sound good. RN is led by moderately charismatic people who have a good media presence - the party's head is Bardella, a young guy with a TikTok following who talks a decent talk. He's a nepo baby (son in law of Marine Le Pen), and mostly a grifter, but he can link a couple of phrases together and sound semi-convincing. Also, while Le Pen is a convicted criminal, it's "just" for stealing government and EU money, which a lot of people don't actually mind, and Bardella isn't.
Comparing to a delusional and senile old man who is literally convicted of rape, and there is plenty of credible evidence, out in the open, is also a pedophile. With a shit program with little concrete other than fucking up groups of people. After seeing his "work" his first term.
Yeah, I can understand, and probably have a discussion with an RN voter. (Those of the "black/brown people bad" variety mostly vote even further to the right, like Zemmour, those are the people I don't understand and wouldn't be able to talk with). A Trump voter? Something is seriously wrong with you to either like that, or pick your potential personal benefit over everything else.
I think your double standard is pretty clear at this point. I won't be offering further replies to you in this subthread after this one.
>Comparing to a delusional and senile old man who is literally convicted of rape, and there is plenty of credible evidence, out in the open, is also a pedophile. With a shit program with little concrete other than fucking up groups of people. After seeing his "work" his first term.
IMO, the fundamental reason people in the US vote for Trump is because they don't trust the establishment/media. So yeah, if you uncritically believe everything that's reported about Trump in left-leaning ("mainstream") US media, of course you won't understand why people vote for him.
I'm no Trump voter, but I think conservatives have good reasons to distrust the establishment/media: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/01/neutral-vs-conservativ...
What double standard?? I'm merely pointing out that people distrustful of the government/EU are fine with Le Pen stealing from them. It's not an opinion I share, but I can understand it. I can't understand those people being fine with Putin bankrolling Le Pen though.
And still a million times better than Trump who not only stole from a cancer charity, but whose corruption is directly in the open and undeniable.
> IMO, the fundamental reason people in the US vote for Trump is because they don't trust the establishment/media
Regardless of that, they can see and hear with their own eyes and ears that he cannot string two coherent sentences together, and is obscenely disturbing as a human being.
It's slightly weird to me how foreigners seem to look on the Trump era as personifying the US to a greater degree than e.g. the Biden or Obama eras. Trump is not especially popular right now: https://www.economist.com/interactive/trump-approval-tracker