But the US has evolved over 200 years whereas Europe has only been uniting since the mid 1940’s. Europe still has many years to decide which way to go, Anyone who tries to predict which way that will be is a fool. Any politician will tell you that public opinion is very fickle.
Peter wrote:
The huge difference between US and Europe is that if you asked 100 random people which country they belong to, in the US 99 would say “US”, while in Europe maybe a 1% would say “Europe”.
At one time in history, lasting several hundred years, the majority of European would say “Rome”. It’s not that long ago the majority would say “Germany”, although forcefully so. Slightly later, another majority would say “Soviet”, also slightly forcefully so 
Still, what about Canada and Mexico ? I have never met a Canadian saying he is from the US I have met several US citizens saying Canada is merely a slightly “odd” American State.
Things are a bit more complicated. I consider myself Norwegian, but also Scandinavian in equal amount, or Nordic (including Iceland, Greenland etc and Finland). European? not so much, even though both Sweden, Denmark and Finland are part of the EU. It’s all about culture and tradition as well as language.
There will never be a truly united Europe IMO. Brexit has firmly put an end to that. Germany is the dominating force in Europe today. France is a number two, but way too nationalistic and inward looking to be a real factor for anything but France. The shape of “Europe” may take many forms in the future IMO.
There was always one thing I admired about Americans in the past is that no matter who they voted for they were always, in the main, passionately supportive of the sitting president.
I’m not quite sure when that changed but IMO it has changed.
I suppose it may have looked like that from our point of view. But it did change latest with GWB, who was not supported by many. The open break occurred when Obama was elected with the forming of the Tea Party and all that. Ever since then in my recollection the rift has deepened. Also a lot of lies, or Fake news as people call them now, took over.
It may well be that the larger part of Americans do not care for federal politics, what I hear from.my friends of both political colours sounds differently however.
Peter does have a valid point however about how news reporting works. It is no longer really news but agendas. Trump would have had a very hard time convincing a very biased press that he actually was different from what they expected. However I guess he was never interested in that either.
I agree it is very unlikely that Biden will get elected. But in either case, the rift won’t close but probably widen.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
I agree it is very unlikely that Biden will get elected
It would be a fatal blow to the polling industry, he is ‘only’ 16% ahead in the polls!
Given DT’s penchant for channelling Mussolini it reminds me of these sage words:
Il mio atteggiamento deriva dal sapere che a battere la testa contro il muro è la testa a rompersi e non il muro
Silvaire wrote:
The US does not revolve around Federal politics, it is a side show. I think you’re projecting a European view where its not really applicable. Regardless of the outcome of a US election afterward people’s attention quickly shifts to their business and their money, what is now the way to protect it or get more, direct political interest rapidly becomes second priority on the radar.
You know, many of us have relatives, friends and colleagues in the US – both people who were born there and expats. They are all very very worried over the current situation and the presidential election in particular.
RobertL18C wrote:
It would be a fatal blow to the polling industry, he is ‘only’ 16% ahead in the polls!
Trump has made quite clear that he will not necessarily accept a win for Biden. There have been a record number of mail votes so far. If it turns out that a victory for Biden depends on mail votes then, unfortunately, I would expect that Trump would not admit defeat.
LeSving wrote:
The US? What irritates me is how much the media is in love with the US election and US politics. Why?
Because they desperately need to attract viewers and ‘people stories’ do it better than anything else, particularly when power and personality are involved. There is currently a lack of that kind of subject matter in Europe.
You guys are completely over top with the idea that President Trump won’t concede if he loses, and it is symptomatic of the bizarre foreign obsession with this US election. None of this is unprecedented – Europeans even hated Reagan (by far my own favorite president in recent decades) as he completed the long process of liberating them. And there was the demand for a recount in Florida, which is of course the history that Trump is recalling in this particular successful attempt to drive his opposition insane. But in the end it works out. I think the biggest change that I see in Europe’s observation of all this is the takeover of PC culture that has made political theatre and vigorous difference of opinion more or less verboten in European politics. The same pressure to accept and be quiet is true to a lesser extent in the US, and that is of course one of the main reasons President Trump was elected.
Pre-marriage I was once involved with a woman who became the ambassador for an EU country to Israel. Before that she was involved with her countries negotiations to join the EU. I had some time to observe 21st century European politics. Despite the issues involved it is mostly boring by my observation, not something that would generate much popular attention.
We are over the top? It appears quite most of your US media are quite openly expecting that to happen. The fact is, that neither Trump nor Pence have cearly stated they would concede when so asked. That is indeed worrisome and also should be of interest to inhabitants of small Californian communities who appear to be above all this. Hopefully this does not mean that you guys also think that voting on a federal level is a waste of time.
Europeans were wary of Reagan at first out of fear that if his game of power would go wrong, it would be Europe who would end up as the battlefield in case the Soviets would attack. I think the attitude towards Reagan here changed massively after the Geneva summit. And I fully agree with you, Ronald Wilson Reagan was by far the best president the US has seen in decades. A true gentleman combined with superb diplomatic and negotiating skills and a very outgoing and winning personality. None of his successors have come close first and foremost in his ability to unify the nation but also in international achievements.
It only takes reading some of his speeches, maybe best the “time for choosing”speech he gave in support of Barry Goldwater to see where he is coming from and what kind of argumentation he used. Or his statements following the Challenger disaster and many more, where you could feel his empathy and truely felt sorrow for the death of those people. This is worlds apart from the rethorical and political style of the current POTUS who is even incapable of showing any sort of empathy to those who lost friends and relatives to Covid 19 by mocking the whole thing, even after he has experienced it himself.
Reagan also was in the unique position that he had allies and adversaries alike who had similar qualities. Both Gorbatchov and Thatcher were statespersons of very high personal quality. This is something which has been lacking sadly in recent years.
You may be right that we foreigners look at American Presidents with a foreign policy set of glasses rather than domestic agendas, which is also kind of logical, as American foreign policy has shaped the world in almost all the times I can think back about. However, my personal view is that for any leader of state it is one of the most critical goals to be a president for all, which means he has to be able to work across the political spectrum and gain support for his policy on a much wider base than just his own voting base. Ronald Reagan was one of those, but unfortunately he was the last real unifyer.
As I mentioned above the US media is completely whacko. I’ll be voting but probably not for your choices, and most definitely not many of theirs
My main interest is less government in my life, against a backdrop of nutty moves in the opposite direction, more so in the state and local level than Federal level.
I’m not really very interested in the personality parade.
My great-uncle’s thought process from the 2001 election:
He voted Bush
