"Smooth brains" vs "Do something that gives you votes instantaneously" is exactly the way the political world works right now.
Like, do you want a guy who'll say "RETIREMENT STARTS AT 45 YEARS OLD, BECAUSE IT'S COOL THAT WAY" or a guy who says "well, we'll have to rise the age of going to retirement, because if we don't, then your children will be poor from the start"


Seeing the populist vibe is important, no matter the country.

If a government is doing stuff you didn't anticipate; or stuff you don't think will be good for you during the next five years, then you should start looking at the bigger picture (of the socio-economic worldview).

I live in a country that is living the Donald Trump-style (though it's much worse here) nightmare for 7 years now. And believe me: you want to vote for the Democrats; just because of the "common sense" these people bring.

Populism is not good.
Hard-to-explain stuff, that works in the long run is good.

I've lived in a country where the so-called left wing has been so terrified of their overwhelming loss to a right wing scumbag (Ronald Reagan) that for four decades they've been falling over themselves to show how right wing they can be too, and it hasn't won any right wingers over. It's just emboldened them to be even more right wing.

Donald Trump is not an aberration. He's the culmination of a right wing project decades in the making, and our left has done nothing but pretend that nothing has been happening and that our norms and "common sense" have been A-OK all this time.

It's not ****ing working and pretending that it is is just pushing my country into its own destabilized hellscape. You don't stop this **** with smiles and moderation. That's a ****ing band-aid.

Look, I’m not saying anything really about the american political scene right now.

I live in a very different place (at least according to independent news sites)
It’s just that, I do believe USA could be some sort of a „democracy flagship” (or something as full of pathos as that sounds)

I’m from a country that is devoured by populism and fascism the last couple of years; and it Saddens me to see people (in a much more privileged democracy) having doubt or second- thoughts.

Like, you guys don’t even know what’s it like to have a Real Donald Trump actually making laws, and amendments to the constitution (or just breaking any law that’s written in the constitution), that push you towards authoritarian or totalitarian state.

Even more so when the US is one of the few (if any other) countries that can stop the **** that’s happening around here.
(This last sentence wasn’t about some sort of «*messianism*», just the simple truth - there’s a law that passed today through the congress, that is endangering US-based companies in Poland. Which could’ve been stoped, if some immediate dimplomatic action had been taken)

We are not going to be any flagship democracy, nor have we ever been. When a third of the country believes in nonsense conspiracy theories about how the last election was illegitimate that is not a foundation for greater stability.

No, it’s not

But that’s not even half of the bull**** we have to deal with here




Also, from what I’ve read and heard, I actually do believe the US to be a „flagship” democracy. Not country or whatever (like not a „moral compass”).
But democracy? Come on. There’s people believing the voting was fixed either way, but in reality, the american people voted against populism and bull**** and fake news in the last elections. It only took you guys one presidential term to get to vote against such stuff.

I’m living in a place, where such people as Trump won the presidential elections twice, the parliament elections twice, the federal elections THRICE; and ****, they even won the European Parliament elections twice (that’s info if you know how the EU parliament works).

We’re not Russia or North Korea Yet, but the government is really trying hard to make us one of those contries.

Technically a democracy sure but for the most part voting is a ritual that gives people the illusion of control over and participation in the system that governs us. Most of our votes don't really matter much and that's by design. The electoral college alone assures that people voting outside of swing states have little too no chance of altering the election results.

And honestly if Jeff Bezos murdered somebody on a crowded street in broad daylight I can't say I believe he's going away for it.