(if you really "living in Scandinavia") You literally don't understand what are you talking about, which is damn obvious when you comparing Scandinavia or even US to Russia. You basically comparing Tesla car to horse-drawn carriage and draw similarities on a basis that both have 4 wheels and therefore they are both great and safe transportation devices.
> I'm not from Scandinavia and the vast majority of US politicians look like interchangeable parts to me as well.
USA citizen. What's hilarious is that 10 years ago, I would have readily agreed with you. Both parties were too deeply beholden to special interests and corporate interests. There were some policy differences, but not that much, really.
In the last five years, however, one party has gone completely batshit insane. Norms, precedent, common decency, acceptance of basic facts, acceptance of basic common sense... these have all gone out the window. And been replaced with cult-like unwavering loyalty to a single man.
The other party, though still frequently dissapointingly inept and incompetent, now has my unhesitating support. It is not even close in my mind anymore.
Same here. I used to vote for a third party candidate in most elections since that was usually who my views aligned most closely with, but in recent years I've switched to voting for the least bad major party because of how awful and terrifying the opposing side has become.
The way I see it, one party has gone dumb, and the other party is obviously going evil (I am from Russia so you can guess what I think of leftism). The question is whether you prefer your government dumb or evil; I think dumb is... the lesser of two evils.
But I can agree on the timing aspect, I'd vote for Obama OR Romney over literally any politician prominent in 2021.
I am of course comparing to the USSR, not modern Russia. Pretty much the entire "progressive" wing of the party, with its anti-capitalism and fostering massive welfare state dependency, as well as the recent focus on "oppression" and "power", and purity testing.
I am pretty meh/cynical about the economic aspects, actually; sure, I think these are bad ideas, but unless they run the thing entirely into the ground, I believe there's going to be enough for me until old age at this point, and of course I view legally abusing government programs as libertarian activism - e.g. if there's universal healthcare it would make it so much easier to retire early and use it for all it's worth ;)
What I am actually genuinely afraid of is the cultural garbage, esp. as it infiltrates the education system. See the capitalism/socialism approval polls among the young people, etc.
USSR has collapsed when I was 7, but I was still brainwashed enough that I remember asking my parents about the English Premier League - how come they have soccer in England? I was surprised because I thought it was a capitalist system where everyone was oppressed, so at 6-7 or whatever I didn't understand how they could have a soccer league. That was of course while living with 2 STEM MSc parents and a sister in a 700sqft 2-room flat, not being able to afford a car, and knowing nothing about the actual living conditions in England.
From what I know about the school systems in big cities (I know some people who work at schools who are pretty left-wing and they talk about this stuff as if it was a good thing, plus from the news/leaks to right-wing sources), the oppression/anti-capitalist propaganda is rampant, and the current "far-left" wing of the Democratic party are very popular. If it's between this stuff and dumb nationalist rednecks with whom I disagree on 90% of pretty much everything, I'm going to throw my lot with the rednecks.
The "left wing" in the USA is the "center-right" in other parts of the world. We're still a ways away from basic stuff like universal health care that every other developed country has.
It doesn't matter. What matters are how many of them and their staff or supporters gets bullied by the authorities, forced to flee the country, found themselves or their relatives in the middle of absurd lawsuits, gets beaten, poisoned or killed?
My point was purely about elections, and that elections only matter if you have a reasonable amount of choice. You're arguing about something completely different.
My arguing is exactly about that! You can't name something as "elections" when ~~a huge~~ any part of country's people not just don't have a political representative at all, but gets actively counteracted to have such representative.
As someone living in Scandinavia you probably have a King.
Anyway, these law makers are still democratically elected in the US (more than we can say about the king of Norway), and these parties are more like coalitions anyway since they're so large and broad.
Like really.