[markus_zhang]

From an outsider's view (and many of my friends hold the same view), the two parties are not that different. They are different in some minor issues that grab eyeballs so that to create drama, but for the big ones (foreign policy, economics), they are not that different. I mean look at those bi-partisan issues, they are all big ones.

[sanderjd]

This is a common, but fundamentally incorrect, assessment.

[bee_rider]

I think this is sort of the result of looking at any country’s politics as an outsider. For Americans, most of us are in between the parties and so they point in different directions for us. Also, because the specific policies impact our lives, we are more interested in the details (where the parties actually do look pretty different) than some aggregation or big picture view.

In terms of some big issues being bi-partisan… I mean, it would be sort of weird if the broad strokes weren’t somewhat bipartisan, right? Like if we actually switched between having a capitalist and a communist economy every four years… that would not be a feasible way to run a country, haha.

But I mean we’re going to see some pretty big differences: support for our allies in NATO will look different (I don’t think we’re pulling out or anything but the relationships will change). The parties seem to have different visions of how we should try to get semiconductor manufacturing back over here (an industry that basically… determines what a lot the overall economy will look like). Abortion access will probably be determined by states (which will be a life-altering change of circumstance for some folks).

These are big differences.