I'm an European (Belgian, more specifically). When talking politics with foreigners - especially USA - there's one thing I really don't like to repeat so much but which I pretty much have to: The USA doesn't have left-sided politicians.
Things are polarised between democrats and republicans, and because both sides claim to be so different (mostly describing the other side as diabolical, really) it's not as easy as a foreigner to chime in. But it's true: democrats are politically on the right side, republicans extremely right. I'm personally what I would call "moderately left". Judging by Belgian political parties that's pretty accurate (oh, right: we've got far more political parties than you can shake a stick at). But it's not fun when politically uneducated Americans throw me on one heap with democrats, which I at best see as "the lesser of two evils" (if I was a fan of 'em, I'd vote open VLD or Vlaams block in my country...but again: I'm moderately left, not moderately right or "extreme right").
"But what about Bernie Sanders?" I hear you ask. Yeah...Bernie. He would've been what the USA desperately needed. The irony is that he is seen as a radical leftist, whereas he just wants to get to where Europe has been since the Marshall plan went into effect.
The reason I'm writing this blog now is not just so I can quickly reference it in future posts (I really don't like repeating this stuff all the time), but also because I saw an interesting youtube video about it:
More specifially, this image of the political compass (which I strongly urge you to get to know if you're unfamiliar with):
View attachment 211552
To me personally, the interesting part isn't so much that it proves my point of US politicians all gobbling up the (economic) right part of the scale (which I've banged on for a few years now), but the tendency to authoritarian. I always assumed USA was more of a "live free" country wanting as little governmental influence whatsoever. And if that's even remotely true...what is everyone doing in the authoritarian half of that diagrem?
Granted, I don't know most of these names (most are/were presidential candidates, right?). But with all these political candidates going on...it still surprises me somewhat that there can't be that much difference in content.
Compare it to Belgium. Before covid-19 threw all political differences aside to fight a common enemy, the fight was between Bart De Wever (whom is about on par with Biden but less right-sided) and Paul Magnette (left libertarian somewhere...certainly more than Sanders). Roughly the same amount of voters in different parts of the country (who speak different languages to boot), and absolutely a different view on the direction of the country. It's good we don't have a "first one past the poll vote" thing into place or there'd be bloody riots. But instead we have endless discussions which lead to strange results (hey, guess who the current president of the EU is? It's our fucking last prime minister. No doubt he's fit for that job, but he nonetheless quit his actual job
)...that nonetheless remain very civil.
In the US? If it wasn't for Trump creating scandals to blame others for, everyone would just agree on the course of action.
Things are polarised between democrats and republicans, and because both sides claim to be so different (mostly describing the other side as diabolical, really) it's not as easy as a foreigner to chime in. But it's true: democrats are politically on the right side, republicans extremely right. I'm personally what I would call "moderately left". Judging by Belgian political parties that's pretty accurate (oh, right: we've got far more political parties than you can shake a stick at). But it's not fun when politically uneducated Americans throw me on one heap with democrats, which I at best see as "the lesser of two evils" (if I was a fan of 'em, I'd vote open VLD or Vlaams block in my country...but again: I'm moderately left, not moderately right or "extreme right").
"But what about Bernie Sanders?" I hear you ask. Yeah...Bernie. He would've been what the USA desperately needed. The irony is that he is seen as a radical leftist, whereas he just wants to get to where Europe has been since the Marshall plan went into effect.
The reason I'm writing this blog now is not just so I can quickly reference it in future posts (I really don't like repeating this stuff all the time), but also because I saw an interesting youtube video about it:
More specifially, this image of the political compass (which I strongly urge you to get to know if you're unfamiliar with):
View attachment 211552
To me personally, the interesting part isn't so much that it proves my point of US politicians all gobbling up the (economic) right part of the scale (which I've banged on for a few years now), but the tendency to authoritarian. I always assumed USA was more of a "live free" country wanting as little governmental influence whatsoever. And if that's even remotely true...what is everyone doing in the authoritarian half of that diagrem?
Granted, I don't know most of these names (most are/were presidential candidates, right?). But with all these political candidates going on...it still surprises me somewhat that there can't be that much difference in content.
Compare it to Belgium. Before covid-19 threw all political differences aside to fight a common enemy, the fight was between Bart De Wever (whom is about on par with Biden but less right-sided) and Paul Magnette (left libertarian somewhere...certainly more than Sanders). Roughly the same amount of voters in different parts of the country (who speak different languages to boot), and absolutely a different view on the direction of the country. It's good we don't have a "first one past the poll vote" thing into place or there'd be bloody riots. But instead we have endless discussions which lead to strange results (hey, guess who the current president of the EU is? It's our fucking last prime minister. No doubt he's fit for that job, but he nonetheless quit his actual job
)...that nonetheless remain very civil.In the US? If it wasn't for Trump creating scandals to blame others for, everyone would just agree on the course of action.
