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by hintklb 312 days ago
I'm a European citizen and I disagree.

Compared to the US and a lot of places in the world, Europeans generally care less and have more trust in their government. There is a general sense that elected officials generally do what is best for the people. This leads to less scrutiny and push back in general. Definitely way less than in the US.
1 comments
shafyy 312 days ago
This probably differs from country to country though. I have worked and lived in Switzerland (I know, not EU), Germany and US, and it does not feel like people don't care here in EU. In fact, in terms of people going out on the streets and demonstrating, it takes a lot less in countries like Germany and France to so compared to the US, in my experience.

For example in Switzerland, there's the instrument of a "Volksinitiative". If you can collect 100k signatures, the government must hold a national election on this issue. And these are quite common and popular in Switzerland. In Germany, those unfortunately only exist on a state-level, not federal level, but are also common.

So, in my experience, people are very much involved in government here. This might be different in different EU countries of course. Or maybe you have a vastly different bubble you live in than I do.

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hintklb 312 days ago
I think you make good points.

The main difference that struck me between the EU and living in the US is that by default EU citizens will assume good intent. I see European protests as interest groups that need to show that they are still important once in a while.

In the US, people will assume bad intent by default for politicians. This will lead to a ton more push back and scrutiny

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shafyy 312 days ago
> In the US, people will assume bad intent by default for politicians. This will lead to a ton more push back and scrutiny

Maybe... Again, this might differ from country to country. I currently live in Germany, and here scrutiny of the current federal government (and also the state government in my state) is pretty decent.

Also, some of the decisions that were made (mostly related to working with the far-right party AfD and on immigration law) led to nation-wide protests where over months and months millions of people went on the streets.

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