US Elections 2020

[LadyV]

You know I have never felt so cold as to hear the Foreign Minister of Germany tweet this about my home.

https://twitter.com/HeikoMaas/status/1346917794827309057?s=20

“Inflammatory words turn into violent acts – on the steps of the Reichstag, and now in the #Capitol.” “finally accept the decision of the American voters and stop trampling democracy”.

[mvgulik]

> What's it take to get refugee status in Canada?

Being a pro democracy Chinese living in Hong Kong perhaps.
Although ... those already seem to have been given a way out by the founding fathers (those that still think they are an empire where the sun never sets).

But than again. Its just history repeating itself. Nothing new under the Human sun.
With the exception of WMD's, MST and GCC perhaps.


... Computers & The Internet. Two great invention. What could possible go wrong with that. ...

[NeoBasilisk]

This country is a fucking joke. The mass psychosis of 2020 has followed us into the next year. Republicans are beyond redemption at this point. This was the logical conclusion of the arc that began 12 years ago.

[Procne]

Just popped in to take a look at this thread, as it was on the top of the forum board, and found this gem on the first page

At this point I am torn between which outcome will provide the best entertainment.
Trump supporters might just start burning cities to the ground if he loses

No. We have these wacky things called "jobs" that don't allow us to spend all hours of the night burning down stuff because we're angry.

It wouldn't be that funny if painhertz didn't decide to speak for the entirety of Trump supporters, as soon as they were mentioned

[shubla]

This country is a fucking joke. The mass psychosis of 2020 has followed us into the next year. Republicans are beyond redemption at this point. This was the logical conclusion of the arc that began 12 years ago.

I don't think its fault of republicans. But fault of all americans. Democrats are just fueling the fire and making things worse with pointless accusations etc. instead of trying to unite the people and bring in mutual understanding.

[MagicManICT]

This country is a fucking joke. The mass psychosis of 2020 has followed us into the next year. Republicans are beyond redemption at this point. This was the logical conclusion of the arc that began 12 years ago.

I don't think its fault of republicans. But fault of all americans. Democrats are just fueling the fire and making things worse with pointless accusations etc. instead of trying to unite the people and bring in mutual understanding.

You're either working really hard to troll right now, or you really don't understand what has been going on in the US for the last few decades.

[shubla]

This country is a fucking joke. The mass psychosis of 2020 has followed us into the next year. Republicans are beyond redemption at this point. This was the logical conclusion of the arc that began 12 years ago.

I don't think its fault of republicans. But fault of all americans. Democrats are just fueling the fire and making things worse with pointless accusations etc. instead of trying to unite the people and bring in mutual understanding.

You're either working really hard to troll right now, or you really don't understand what has been going on in the US for the last few decades.

Well maybe I'm wrong, but based on accusations of the protesters AND police both being terrorists there surely is at least some group doing forementioned.

[Zentetsuken]

The rhetoric being used by both sides is not doing anybody any favours.
But nobody knows wtf you are talking about with "pointless accusations," or fueling the fire
maybe just stick to finnish politics

[MagicManICT]

The rhetoric being used by both sides is not doing anybody any favours.

This is part of it. Part of it is that we only have two political parties, unlike in most other countries. Just about everywhere else with any form of democracy (that isn't a sham system or a one party system--Chinese Communist Party, for example), you have three viable parties, sometimes a fourth or a fifth. The best we've done since the Presidential elections of 1800s* was about a 5% vote for one third party in the 1996 Presidential election. (I'd have to research this again... it's been many years since I did a paper on this in a political science class.) We have no third parties in either of the country's governmental chambers (Senate or House of Representatives). We do have a few "Independents" but these are basically one side running in a district that typically votes the other side or holding an "alternate political view" in a district or state where their seat is safe enough for them to espouse those views. With this dichotomy, it becomes very easy to slip into rhetoric and "us vs them" fighting.

I have never really been quite sure why it has developed that way. Maybe we're such a large country that third parties never were able to get a foothold once we had really expanded out in the mid 19th century, and then there was always "yet another issue" that polarized politics. Maybe the two parties were quick enough to spot these emergent issues and sweep them up into their platform.

I will say that I've done my best to pay attention to both sides (though I've hardly been academic about it), few have been trying to unify things in the GOP that I can see... they're more likely to be "against Trump" rather than trying to speak of working together as a country. At least you have President-elect Biden trying to speak of healing and bringing the country back together again.

I will also say that we have had some 3rd parties in local and state politics. I believe a few have ran similar to the Labor party in the UK. There has been a Libertarian candidate for President that was the governor of New Mexico. It's not that we don't have alternate parties, they just make up less than 5% of the electorate.


*There's a couple pretty good articles out there about the history of the Whig party (which eventually spawned the Republicans under Lincoln.)

[shubla]

Maybe I'm just reading the wrong places but what I mean is that I see people saying stuff like "shame more terrorists didn't get shot" and "got what she deserved"
And stuff like "reason why they didn't try to stop is that police are allies of terrorists".
General celebration of killing and wishing more people to get killed for quite harmless and silly things...

If this is how americans think of their fellow citizens I'm not surprised at all how your country has become so shitty.

The president of Finland condensed in good form what actually happened when asked of whether it was an attempted coup or something else.

– Ei se ehkä ihan siltä näyttänyt. Pikemminkin hetkessä syntyneeltä, presidentti Trumpin puheen hengen synnyttämältä toiminnalta. Joukossa toiminta ja tyhmyyskin tiivistyy.
I don't think that it quite looked like that. More of thoughtless and reckless behavior decided in a small moment, fueled by the spirit of President Trump's speech. Stupidity condenses in a crowd. (Finnish proverb)
[approximate translation]