Question for those of you who don't live in the U.S.
 

I'm curious, is politics as divisive in your country as it is here in the U.S.?

There seems to be an abnormal amount of hatred on both sides here. Alot of de-humanizing the opposition to the point where they don't just disagree with you, they want to punch you in the face.

Is it like this everywhere? I don't follow politics outside the U.S. so I don't know.

It's not restricted to just politics on GFY. And the U.S. doesn't hold the monopoly, either.

It's everything it seems. Race, religion...the color of the sky.

Hatred seems to gravitate like a magnet to this forum - for a variety of reasons we can only guess at.

My guess is the lowbrow mentality factor knows there's a sizeable audience here - and being the attention whores they are...parasitically feed off that.

I'd say that European politics are somewhat easier on the party members involved, in the way that there's a lot of respect for each other on both sides. It is more of a consensus based leadership, one where side A know they can lose power to side B, so the big decisions are usually a consensus. If not formally and officially - at least there is a backside understanding which might not be publicly communicated but the rules and regulations won't be changed even if the government would.

Also, in almost all European countries the President or the Prime minister is also the party leader. So you are really first elected party leader, or President of party X, and then the public vote for their specificly favoured party, not person. And when one party wins a majority or can form a coallision to gain majority in the Parliament, then that party leader automatically becomes President or Prime minister.

In short, one could say that in Europe you vote for a party, which has its values and standpoints already in place. So the elected party leader (elected only by party members) doesn't really get to put their own sign on important/hot topic subjects like say for example abortion. So Europe votes for a party, whereas US vote for a person. It is so much more about character and charisma in a US election and US politics in general.

Aslo, most European countries have more than two parties. They are usually grouped as left wing or right wing, where left wing would roughly equal the US Democratic party and the right wing the Republicans. Often more than one party has to join forces to gain a majority in that country's Parliament. it is easier to work alongside with another party in "your" right wing/left wing group, than it would be to work accross those borders but sometimes the voting results go that way that the only feasible alternative is for the two largest parties on each side to join forces. During World War II many European countries had some kind of joined forces govenments and still leave that option open for eventual future use during extremely hard and presuring times.

I'm not speaking about this forum specifically though.

It's everywhere here. Cable news, talk radio, internet forums, comments on every news article.

Bunch of people spewing hatred 24/7.

I'm just wondering if it's like that elsewhere, or if it's uniquely American.

So you're saying that in countries with a parliamentary form of government, you vote for a party and not for a person? And because of this there's less of the cult of personality on one side (those who worship Obama, or Reagan, etc) and less of the hatred on the other side?

So it's more a function of the American system of government than it is American culture?

Here in Quebec, we have a part of the population that are separatists. These guys want to separate from the rest of Canada. Bunch of retards

The Party called AKP. Who runs Current Turkiye government follows a kind of liberal line more then ever and they have a big majority at Turkiye Great National Assembly.

however biggest opposition party is called chp. who claims them selfs as leftist but those fascist motherfuckers have nothing to do other then abusing secularism and name of Ataturk.

in fact these ass holes are one of the biggest reasons to divide people in poles/sides.

as of my self i neither follow nor support any of those parties, i don't like politics though, but answer to Your question is Yes.

it's not something unique to US, it's not same, but almost similar here too :)

Well I live in Venezuela so yes unfortunately.
When you have a lunatic for a president, that wants to get rid of the other half of the country that does not agree with him that hatred and division tends to happen.Hard.

Thanks for the input guys.

Maybe this is the way it's always been, but it wasn't until this "age of information overload" that we live in, that we've been exposed to it in such massive quantities.

BTW though, the U.S. is the only country where idiots walk around talking about how this is "the best country in the history of the world" and shit like that right?

Naw, we have 24/7 hate fests here in Canada as well.

More people need to spend some quality time with a few ice cold Molsons and just chill out.

Quote Snace Doktor: So you're saying that in countries with a parliamentary form of government, you vote for a party and not for a person? And because of this there's less of the cult of personality on one side (those who worship Obama, or Reagan, etc) and less of the hatred on the other side?

So it's more a function of the American system of government than it is American culture?

End quote

Yes, having lived on both sides of the Atlantic, in several states and multiple European countries I'd say that the European parties are larger than any one party leader. It becomes less person specific, and thus not opening up so much for personal attacks. There are of course exceptions, I'm just trying to speak broadly. Margret Thatcher in England one example which springs to mind, she formed a cult which probably could be equalled to the one around President Ronald Reagan. But the general European party leader never get that status. You're hot as long as you're the party leader, but when out you cool off pretty quickly. It's so different in the US, look at the reception President Clinton received when entering the podium at Obama's inauguration. Clinton still, eight years after leaving office is considered a super star and the applause where just as heavy for him as for President Elect Obama when he entered minutes later. Few Europeans would remember their Prime minister from eight years ago. Most could probably figure out a name by counting backwards, but there would be no crowd waiting, no fancy speech tours like old ex-Presidents usually go on, and no immidiate rememberance of you. No invitations to TV shows, VIP events or similar.

Where I live the politics are so dysfunctional and corrupt that most people are totally apathetic. The people who do care hate the opposition with passion and intensity that would be almost impossible to achieve in the US. Around here resentments that go back 500 years and there are piles of dead bodies on both sides.

Not here, though the people don't feel as helpless and powerless as what they seem to over there. We also don't get the same degrees of raw hatred you guys seem to get.

We are pretty laid back when it comes down to it too, they are all crooks you just kick the old lot out after a few terms and get a new lot of crooks until they themselves get too comfortable.

Non-us people will probably not even know the word :winkwink::)

Just kidding..

In the netherlands we do see a trend like it is currently "been done" in the us.
For years and years, it was pretty much a nice hot discussion between parties, but always the focus was on "Making your own party look the best". Since a year or 2, it is more and more beginning to sound like "Make the other party look like shit".

Discussions have been getting harder, although it still isnt accepted by most of the people, to get commercials aired like the ones you see in the states.

In my country President and prime minister are form same party, fuck they rule :)

We are never going to win the war and survive if we are continually shooting our own wounded rather than heal ourselves.

Yes I come from a tolerant Canada - there is racism, but it is considered like smoking in church when it shows it's face. What does happen as a result is too much empathy vs. making the hard choices.

Strong political feels here are not found as much as a lack of hope for any political party since we've realized over the many years - no matter who's in power - the outcome is all the same. Nothing is going to change until the public actually starts taking their country seriously and each one begins to make a change in their own personal world for the better.

Sweden-

We have 7 parties that the majority vote for and they are in the parlament.

It's nothing close to a spin and as frenetic as in the US elections and campaigns but there are some tensions from the Left left and righ side.

A lot less stamina in leadership (though I believe our current leader have hard-bones) for parties leaders and overall workers of lower range.

The leftis are the noisy loud mouths. They can ocomplain and put other right wing parties down with nothing of their "own" to come and solutions to problems discussed.


In Sweden It's like LA x 10 overall. The right still is still extremely left-side here compared to the US.

If US have hatery than we have more loose ducks.

We believe debating are the sole solutions to get something done. We can watch the parlament and their voted in speakers daily live on ....gov TV channels.

Every week there are come type of debates in certain channels that are Gov controlled.

Even though our country are highly developed in most areas, there are no real stamina to be seen here.

Most people with real goals move out of this country... It's ugly being successful here. People are extremely jelous.

That's on politics and at some -off-topic facts :warning

No. We also have more than 2 actual parties that have any impact.
We don't talk politics really, I *think* tomorrow's some EU-vote, and I haven't talked about it with anyone yet. Politics in the US seem to be much much much more interesting. :1orglaugh
:)

I keep up with Thai, Cambodian, Korean, Malaysian and Indonesian news. None of which report in any manner, so divided, like the USA does.

However, what they may do is sometimes only report one side to a story, the side that favors the government. So I do believe that "free speech" in these countries may not always be as free as they would like it to be.

The problem I have with American media, is that it is totally controlled AND it's full of hate from both sides. But I guess if you look at it from a controlling point of view, it would only make sense to give both sides news they can sink their teeth into.

The media controls the markets, controls the economy, controls spending, controls elections and so on. The power of media is borderline terrifying. When in the wrong hands, as it often is, it is only used for political and financial gains.

Truth be told, would you have ever known there was global financial crisis if the media did not report day and night that there was a problem? People would have continued spending as usual and though we would still be printing money and going deeper into debt, I am almost sure the economy would not be anywhere near as bad as it is today.

Fear, fear, fear and more fear. And THAT is the American way. You do not see such fear mongering in the Asian media, unless of course perhaps you are in China or North Korea.