Comments by "buddermonger2000" (@buddermonger2000) on "America Is Not Europe" video.

I think the biggest thing that the last clip hit on is that the US is an intentionally disunited and slow system and thus really only responds to very long cultural shifts which leads to a lot of mindless bickering. I think it's also worth noting that as a bloc, the US states are very much the equivalent of the EU countries in terms of level of governance which makes the focus on the federal government make even less sense overall. Individual states should probably embrace that and take more power but with the focus on the federal things won't change that way.
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@ashtons.2483 As much as he distrusted it and proliferated it, I don't think it can be discussed without also discussing his opponent. Remember that he is the most popular incumbent in history. And he lost to a guy who honestly barely campaigned and was liked by no-one really. It's also important to note that people distrusted the new method which hadn't Been done before (mail-in ballots are not the same as absentee), and then there was evidence that a few dead people did vote and a few addresses from voters did not exist. I think the real damage that was done (for the better) is the shattering of the illusion that the major media, long meant to be a watchdog of the government (and part of the reason for free press), really was about as blatant a partisan actor and full of money hungry corporations as any other business. In real terms it's damaged our democracy because what is true and what we know which is meant to create an informed voter base and foster trust, is shown to no longer be the case and diminish trust which helps to foster ideas that the democracy is bad and means the voter-base is more often misinformed than it was before.
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@stephenjenkins7971 I think the biggest thing is that the US has faith in its institutions and the populism really was just in the pure meaning of the word being popular among the people. In terms of battering the democracy he didn't even really do anything. Everything he did was pretty standard affair for the office so the populist wave did nothing but have a change in overall policy in some wings of the party.
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@ashtons.2483 No. Trump was the most popular incumbent in history this is a statistical fact. Within his own party is also fairly disingenuous as he drew a lot of people to the party who otherwise hadn't been politically active. He was more popular at the end of his term than before it. Biden did barely campaign I was trying to follow the Biden campaign and for decent chunks of time I couldn't hear a single bit of news and some stories came out saying "Where is Biden?" as it wasn't just campaigning in democratic states. That still gets in the news. The only way to stay out of the news is by not campaigning at all for a while. The biggest thing that was going against Trump is that more big mainstream sources who say "Trump bad" and "Trump wrong" all of the time were around than those who either give a balanced view or say what he says. He also with his mean tweets had people thinking he was the cause of division and craziness currently happening instead of a symptom that was borne out of the situation and thus voted against him for a return to normalcy. However outside of the "Trump bad" bubble, he was very popular with many moderates and independents which is why he is the most popular incumbent in history even if Joe Biden is "the most popular president in history" (I put quotes because I'm well aware he was a compromise candidate and more seem as trying to bring back Obama-era memories than being himself popular while many many other people voted against Trump).
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@MrPicky Considering the very important fact that was brought up by another here, I think it's worth noting that the American "two party" system is more analogous to a coalition system where both parties are realistically coalition parties who don't actually all agree on everything. This is reinforced by the fact that candidates in the same party get switched out for those with better platforms while in any other party realistically it would simply be choosing a different party. In fact such an example took place in the US state of Virginia where a candidate was half ousted by his party because he diverged in a few areas, so he switched parties, changed no positions, and won as the other party candidate. Now does that sound like a real unified party or does it sound like a coalition with a party changing to the other coalition? In the other idea of "abolishing the electoral college" the issue behind that is that the US is a federal system. The electoral College remains for 1 purpose: choosing the chief executive who runs the whole country. To that end, he's chosen by the electoral college which represents the states. The system is in place to ensure that the chief executive represents at least the interests of a majority of states. While of course every state is not equal thanks to population, if it were based entirely on population then it would be Entirely dominated by the needs of a few states who have vastly different concerns due to things like geography. To compare this with Europe, it would be like the EU choosing a representative that meets with other world leaders and supports certain policies chosen by a majority of member states and weighted by their populations. This means that states like Poland, Hungary, and the Balkans get a chance to be represented and have a candidate who focuses on defense from Russia instead of focusing solely on western Europe and relations with North Africa (I'm not sure of the population dynamics but for this let's just assume that the states from Portugal to Germany have all of the population). That is the purpose of that system. My final thing is simply a question as to who funds the campaigns for the European political parties? Absolute pure curiosity as the money has to come from somewhere and they can cost a lot. At least for the US it can easily be in the millions especially for the presidency as you have to campaign everywhere from Oregon through to Florida to secure enough votes to assume the Office. Not to mention competing with your own party members for the chance to even run against the other party in the first place. Its EU equivalent is having to campaign from Portugal through to Romania against other members of your coalition before getting pitted against another candidate from the opposing coalition.
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@ashtons.2483 The question is "Does he actually think of them as authoritarian or did he support them for different reasons?" as while yes he literally couldn't have done anything, I have many more doubts as to him supporting subverting Democracy. Even when he was trying to overturn the election, the man seemed to genuinely believe there was fraud and only finally relented once things got out of hand to the point that his supporters started a riot in the capitol building. Btw while he literally didn't have the support, the secret here is that if you have the power and loyalty, you can simply not follow the law as ultimately it is simply a piece of paper. The strength of American democracy comes from a culture of having over 250 years of unchanged rule from that initial creation of the republic while in comparison countries like France went through at least 4 governments since the creation of the American republic. And in because of that any populist candidate would HAVE to submit to democracy or else the people would literally attempt to oust them. The only way people would accept illegal actions would be if they see it as legal or somehow see the ruling party as corrupt enough to start from scratch or if they saw those illegal actions as legal because of framing.
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@hoodaticus 5th republic and 7th constitution IIRC
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@MustacheDLuffy Originally they were "These United States" However being "The United States" has only been a post-WWII thing. You're also trying to somehow equate what I'm saying to the US under the articles of confederation? The federal union of the states does in no way necessitate a growth in federal power and its growth has been borderline unconstitutional since it's been under the interstate commerce clause while having little to do with that fact. While there's definitely been a cultural shift where people identify themselves more as "American" the issues have come in the overstepping of bounds where policies are trying to be enacted for the whole of the union where they make no sense coming from the federal government when they should be local issues. Once people learn to focus more on their own communities there will likely be much less bickering at the top since the energy will be redirected towards places that matter such as local communities and states which they'll likely spend their whole lives in. The only reason there has even been such a focus on the federal government is the fanfare of the federal politicians and their disproportionate news coverage being essentially TV celebrities for each year. Once people realize it doesn't change much for them and focus on where it will that will likely end.
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@qinby1182 I'm 90% sure our income tax does not simply count salaries as paid wages but any sort of money you accrue except I think capital gains. Also I believe it for Sweden or even many other places. The issue with counting the US as a single bloc is that if you want to get an accurate comparison between it and anywhere in Europe you're going to get more comparable numbers if you either A: divide the US states or B: take the EU as a single country for comparative purposes. Also absolutely they know how to avoid that and it's why accountants make so much money.
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@stephenjenkins7971 He was literally the most voted for president in US history. And any "lies" he spread about the media were found to be true. The only things were voter fraud which were actually found in a few instances. And he pushed for recounts in the states with the context of "finding him votes" being that votes meant for him were lost. If you care at all about being honest saying he damaged democracy is just disingenuous
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@wich1 The reason for the executive orders is so that when action requires they can be taken very quickly. And it's part of why the president can get operations of up to 60 days for the military without congressional approval. It's also worth noting that the two US parties are in reality two coalition parties with how separated the base is in between and the fact that the voters choose who runs from within the party. It looks like it's united on the surface but underneath it really isn't. It's also worth noting that what you see now with the constant flipping isn't the norm. The parties, being coalition parties, ended up with a lot more concensus, mixing, and agreement than now, however a shift in the world and direction of the parties have made them at complete odds in a way they just usually aren't making each other complete ideological opponents when they normally wouldn't be. This is largely driven by the increase in socialist and postmodern voices which have joined with others who have abandoned what is still the traditional values of their opponents and thus is basically a near religious war that would create such a system anywhere else. Back to the separation of the legislature and executive, this makes the system move ideally even slower as each branch tries to pull power away from the other and thus it works even slower than the European system while simultaneously freeing it from control of the legislature. While it makes the American system on the surface more variable, the policies between administrations aren't usually that different and gains a strength in allowing for more flexibility and is thus more adaptable (it also means temporary measures stay temporary more often at least from the executive).
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@honkhonk8009 For that it's more that there are substantially less regulations in the US which means businesses get up quicker but they do also get a big long-term market easier.
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@wich1 How does it demand a two-party state? There's nothing in it which incentivizes that. The only thing that's incentivized is a majority of states for presidency. Voting for the candidate you like has no effect on lowering the number of parties.
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@wich1 It's simply because that party tends to be an offshoot of one party and not both parties. If a third party was an offshoot of roughly equal members of both it'd have no such effect.
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@MatthewChenault That's not a genuine argument and it shows you don't know your history. It wasn't that they tried to embrace more state power but that their entire economic system would literally be legally voted out so they seceded in a last ditch effort to preserve it as it was. Funny enough you can read the platforms of the Republicans and democrats of the time (republican party was created 1860) and the platforms were the same but the republican platform was literally just calling them out on being hypocrites and only saying it for the sake of slavery.
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@GiRR007 Not necessarily. Especially since the system is usually mirrored heavily in the state governments. But it also wouldn't really need it since they'd be responding to local issues which really have little to do with cultural shifts.
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@Shorty88766 It's less that we were told to live with it so much that they survive on pure inertia.
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@TheBossManBoss319 It's not so much giving them more power so much as embracing the power they already have but don't use. If enough interests put state power first federal power would naturally shrink.
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@MatthewChenault I mean first off I explained and second off... I'm Southern
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@lVideoWatcherl I've a friend who lives in Germany and so I got a run-down of the system. And from that description I can say honestly no the German representation is in no way better and here's why: the US has a primary system where the party members are chosen by the voter base. This means that you're never voting for a party, you're voting for a candidate. And since both parties are coalition parties at their heart you have much more control of those coalition parties as a voter than in Germany. And because the platforms are usually very loose while having to have a broad spectrum, you're not really just being part of one party for very long. The libertarians, green oriented, and conservatives are easy to see from their platforms they they run on, often against other members of their own party. And since the way things normally work is that members of both parties who share interests will vote together, they still go between parties incredibly often. With the multiparty system often devolving into two coalitions anyway the us vs them mentality stays just as easily. Once you understand the US system as a coalition system that changes internally the systems look very similar.
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@qinby1182 Europe does tax more but they also tax EVERYONE more. Also the US has no wealth tax even if they do have an estate tax. It's worth noting that the highest tax bracket in Europe is taxed a majority of their income while in the US it is simply a sizable chunk (I've seen the highest tax bracket in Sweden too). Honestly the only one with a comparable highest income tax bracket is Finland which is still slightly higher by a few percent.
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