[patrickmcnamara]

Trump 2 is worse than Trump 1 by far from EU perspective. And it also proved that it wasn't a once-off that Americans will vote in someone who threatens to dismantle NATO, invade Greenland, or start trade wars with allies for no reason.

[vga1]

Also Trump 2 proves without a doubt that at least half of the american voters are absolutely insane or incredibly stupid. For 1 there used to be some doubt.

We in Europe are enjoying roughly 15-20% insane/stupid ratings at this point, which is not great but still a bit better.

[karteum]

The algorithm/method of vote determines a large part of the political landscape (and in the US, only 2 significant political parties can realistically exist. People have to choose between those 2 and lot choose to abstain).

Other methods of vote exist, e.g. if https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rated_voting was implemented I think the political landscape would be very different.

[influx]

Anyone that doesn't agree with you politically is insane or stupid?

[BYazfVCcq]

Yes, anyone that threatens to invade a NATO ally is insane or stupid.

[Telaneo]

No, he does't hate pancakes.

[vga1]

What the hell made you think that from what I wrote?

[rdiddly]

This logic applies if you believe it was an honest and fair election.

[intended]

Doesn’t matter does it? If it wasn’t free of fair it still means the Trump team is the dominant team in America.

[rdiddly]

The question wasn't which "team" (grow up!) is "dominant," it was whether the election result proves anything about the American public. It does if you think it was an honest and fair election. Simple as that.

[rapnie]

Let's face it. Trump 2 is about dismantling democracy. The administration radiates hostility and aggression to anything democratic. In the new national security policy the EU is the adversary of the US. If that isn't a wake-up call.

[embedding-shape]

> Trump 2 is about dismantling democracy

Seems strange to me that not everyone, including republicans, aren't aware of this, when he's pretty outspoken about not wanting any more elections, and how "if you vote for me this time, it'll be the last time you have to vote".

If a presidential candidate anywhere else was openly talking about wanting to remove elections and democracy in the country (not to mention triggered an insurrection [?!]), I'm fairly sure they'd almost be automatically disqualified. Really strange situation all around.

[frumplestlatz]

Sources for those quotes would be very helpful for anyone interested in this, because I’ve certainly never heard this before.

We’re two years into his term and democracy does not appear to be dismantled, or even remotely at risk of being dismantled. I also expect the same or similar accusations to be leveled at the next Republican candidate, who if elected, will also not “dismantle democracy”.

[embedding-shape]

> We’re two years into his term and democracy does not appear to be dismantled, or even remotely at risk of being dismantled. I also expect the same or similar accusations to be leveled at the next Republican candidate, who if elected, will also not “dismantle democracy”.

I'm not American, I dislike Democrats and Republicans in the US, they're both horrible, just to preface this. Secondly, no other president has urged people to vote for them so people don't have to vote ever again, nor has any president threatened to put previous presidents in jail, nor has any president talked about wanting to skip the mid-terms.

I dislike politicians in general, but also, I'd be blind to not see when someone is extremely dangerous to democracy in general, beyond political affiliations. I'd say the same if it was Obama or who else, because as I said, I don't like any of them.

[encom]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7l0Rq9E8MY

[embedding-shape]

Useful, thanks.

[tcp_handshaker]

>> Sources for those quotes would be very helpful for anyone interested in this, because I’ve certainly never heard this before.

Asking for a quote of what he said so many times, and that is so easily found with a basic web search, says a lot about your comment.

[frumplestlatz]

He hasn’t said what the parent said he did, and in the peer comment linking a video of him saying something similar, the context supplies quite a different meaning than was implied above.

[Alacart]

Here is a video of him saying it:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=bTm0du4kUH0

[frumplestlatz]

Thanks for the context.

He’s speaking to evangelical Christians that do not regularly vote, and in the context of instituting voter ID to secure future elections.

ID is required to vote in most (all?) EU states.

[crote]

The issue with voter ID laws isn't with the concept of having to identify yourself at the ballot box, it is with the way it is implemented.

For example, in my EU country I can vote with my passport, my drivers license, or my ID card, and they accept documents which are expired for up to 5 years. For context: this is less restrictive than the documents anyone is technically required to carry every time they leave their home! The number of people who can't meet this requirement is basically zero, and a decent bunch of municipalities offer them for free to poor people.

Meanwhile US has no universal ID system, which allows the pro voter ID groups to carve out a list of "acceptable" IDs which just so happens to be popular with the people that are going to vote for one side of the political spectrum, while excluding the forms of ID which are popular with the other side. And of course it's not just about identification, as they also add a bunch of irrelevant details to the requirements like the information having to exactly match your birth certificate.

Combine that with the failed two-party system where even a handful of votes often completely swings the political landscape and it is pretty obvious what is going on.

[Alacart]

I think you’re being disingenuous and deliberately trying to refocus the conversation on something else now.

He literally said “if you vote for me, you won’t need to vote again”. It’s not an ambiguous statement and doesn’t require extra context. Everything else you said didn’t really have anything to do with it.

[tcp_handshaker]

>Seems strange to me that not everyone, including republicans, aren't aware of >this, when he's pretty outspoken about not wanting any more elections, and how >"if you vote for me this time, it'll be the last time you have to vote".

1) Puerto Ricans were called publicly on a Trump rally in New York, an "island of garbage" and they massively voted for Trump.

- Second generation Latinos, whose many parents, and grand parents and other close family are illegal immigrants, were repeatedly warned of what would happen, and its one of the constitutions, that massively voted for Trump...

- Trump continued to state, as late as 2024,that the Central Park Five were responsible for the 1989 rape of a woman in the Central Park jogger case, despite the five males having been officially exonerated in 2002. - Trump was a leading proponent of the debunked birther conspiracy theory falsely claiming president Barack Obama was not born in the United States - Trump and his company Trump Management were sued by the Department of Justice for housing discrimination against African-American renters.

Donald Trump made big gains with Black voters in 2024.

- Trump is a convicted rapist and felon, and is known 44 million women voted for him...

We are past strange, and we are in the phase of electorate deserves what they voted for.

[frumplestlatz]

If you find yourself with a view of reality that massively differs from others, you have two options.

(1) Assume they’re irrational, uninformed, and wrong, or

(2) Reconsider your priors and attempt to understand why they think the way that they do.

Let’s take the “island of garbage”. It was said by a comedian during his set. The Trump campaign stated “this joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign”.

The way that you framed it, however, was very careful to be true while also being misleading.

[saulapremium]

I think the viral quote "Dear America: You are waking up, as Germany once did, to the awareness that 1/3 of your people would kill another 1/3, while 1/3 watches." is probably pretty apt. The IRGC also has real support among the Iranian population. Putin clearly has strong support in Russia.

Generally, a lot of people are just not good people.

[embedding-shape]

> Generally, a lot of people are just not good people.

Worth remember, no one sees themselves as the "bad people", in each one of those 1/3's point of view, they're the "good people".

[stodor89]

Disenfranchised people wanting the system to crash and burn is nothing new.

[mrits]

From the a US perspective, EU hate each other and I see no way any temporary cohesiveness will last. Most EU countries are just as likely to elect a Trump in the next decade

[palata]

> EU hate each other

I see how it may look like this from the outside. But I think it would be like saying that siblings hate each other because you witnessed an argument.

Most people in most EU countries consider the other EU countries as allies, even though they don't agree on everything. Now the fact that 27 countries argue means that they talk to each other. I think it's a lot less polarised than in the US. Or course there are extremes too.

[gmueckl]

The EU needs to be more vigilant than ever, though. Russia has been trying to export their nationalistic totalitarianism to the EU for decades and now the US has openly declared a goal of exporting their brand of blind ignorant nationalism to the EU as well. Both influences will boost alt-right parties if successful. The obvious intended outcome for both powers is a EU that is breaking up from the inside.

On the positive side, this shows that the EU has gained a level of international influence that is taken very seriously by other major powers. It's not 100% certain that it will survive this current wave of assaults, but if it does, it will be even stronger.

[palata]

I don't think it's new: dividing Europe makes Europe weaker, so if you are not Europe, it is generally in your interest to divide it. Be it Russia, China or the US.

That is also why the nationalists inside of Europe want to be friends with those other players: because if you want to make Europe weaker (because you think you are better off on your own as a European country), then your interests align with those other players.

[gmueckl]

What's new to me is the openness and agressiveness of those attempts. This isn't a quiet power struggle wrapped in diplomatic niceties anymore.

[j_maffe]

> Russia has been trying to export their nationalistic totalitarianism to the EU

Let's not pretend that nationalism doesn't have deep roots in Europe.

[gmueckl]

Do you think that I do? Nationalism existed at the edges of the political spectrum for a long time. I'm saying that outside propaganda tries to actively boost the popularity of those parties.

[j_maffe]

I think it's easy to blame foreign nations for issues in the local population. Would be great if Europeans take responsibility for once in their life.

[palata]

Well of course there is nationalism in Europe. The thing is, it weakens Europe. And nationalists outside of Europe are very happy to help them. Not only Russia: look at Elon Musk and his nazi salute and publicly endorsing neo-nazis in Germany...

[crote]

The new part is that the nationalists of various countries are now, ironically, banding together in international cooperation.

[pjc50]

I have no idea how you'd measure it, but I suspect Republican states hate Democrat ones more than most European countries hate each other. Listen to the way they talk about California and New York.

[embedding-shape]

> EU hate each other

What gave you the impression that EU members hate each other? It'd be a weird union if that was the case. Not saying it's not possible, I just haven't seen it myself, although I am a Swede so clearly I do hate the Danes and the Norrbaggar with passion, but it's love-hate, not hate-hate.

[rapnie]

Likely OP refers to individual countries and quarreling leaders often favoring national interests to what would be best for the union.

[embedding-shape]

> leaders often favoring national interests to what would be best for the union

If we're talking about leaders for member states, then they're doing their job right :) They're not meant to figure out what's best for the union, we have separate elections for those people who go to EU and represent the country + care about the union. The national "leaders" of the country are quite expected to put national interests above what's best for the union :)

[jurgenburgen]

Because of the convoluted way the EU works, those national leaders can have outsized power and even veto some decisions (Hungary, anyone?). The parliament needs to have more power if we want to make the EU more democratic.

[GJim]

As a Brit, I consider it my god given duty to take the piss out of the French; a duty I know is entirely mutual. Please don't however, consider this anything other than a slightly odd friendship.

[embedding-shape]

Ah, as someone who live on the border to France, and every summer experience lost Frenchies asking for directions in French, when we're not in France, I agree :)

Still, love em, let the weirdos eat their snails in peace and may we always be brothers and sisters <3

[theICEBeardk]

We love-hate you and the Norwegian Fjellaber as well, you Swedish drunkard.

A Dane.

[hvb2]

I don't think it's worse than Midwest vs the coasts or Republican vs Democrat.

In the us these groups have just stopped talking to each other. The only time that happens is over Thanksgiving and that's when it stops for some of those conversations.

At least in Europe the split is usually not within families...

Are you referring to the time when the world Cup is going on? In that case, absolutely. We all turn into monkeys climbing onto our own rock lol

[crote]

In the same way that the US hates itself, yes. How well do the various US states get along? Surely there is absolutely zero tension between, say, California and Alabama?