If you live outside the United States, you may find American politics amusing. Even in an election cycle that’s featured Donald Trump bragging about his” package,” there are certain aspects of elections that Americans just take for granted.
Lengthy primaries, bitter arguments, colossal amounts of money … that’s just how democracy works, right? But some of those everyday oddities are completely amusing to outsiders.
You know who would hover around the center right in Europe? Bernie Sanders , the “socialist” guy. Socialism around here reminds people of a certain vodka-loving country that used to be the world’s leading socialist state – to them “center right” is … very much not like that. If a European-style socialist party ever gained traction in America, Fox News hosts would start melting like they had opened the Ark of the Covenant.
The United States hasn’t had a proper left wing in ages; just two parties that look almost identical to foreigners. They don’t quite realize how conservative they look. Canada has a liberal male model for a prime minister. That’s what makes it so hard to understand Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.
Does the fact that there are successful parties across Europe that would make Trump look moderate mean anything at all? For example Golden Dawn has seats in the Greek parliament, and they openly use Nazi symbolism.They do know the Nazis invaded them, right?
The European Union has struggled for a while, and whenever there’s economic trouble, all these “patriots” and “friends of the common man” come crawling out of the woodwork and try to grab all the political power they can.
This election cycle feels like it started long before most of us were born and will continue until the death of the universe. Between primaries, debates, and candidates kicking off their campaigns, has it been maybe around six months? Seven?
No, it’s been over year. Ted Cruz was the first to announce his campaign, on March 23, 2015, and there’s still seven months to go. No wonder it seems like a long time for a country to turn its elections into a reality show. There should be a law that elections can’t last longer than an NFL season, which already seems like an eternity to most foreigners.
The primaries are eight hours of trailers before the movie. Primaries are like that season of The Walking Dead where all they did was sit around a farm. They couldn’t move forward to the interesting parts, but they needed to do something.
The current system is tiring even to foreigners who like watching this free spectacle from afar with a beer in hand. Almost two straight years of ads, pundits, and crazy relatives ranting about how the candidates they don’t like are going to destroy the country. Politicians spend months viciously attacking each other in the primaries, and then in the general election the losers have to turn around and stump for the winner with a big smile on their face. It feels so fake.
Unless you’re Chris Christie, who looks like he’s supporting Trump because Trump has his children locked in a basement.
Bernie Sanders, the “underdog” candidate, has already raised $139 million! Aren’t there poor people to be fed or something? Then, just when you’ve lost everything and thought things couldn’t get any worse, all of a sudden you’re Hillary Clinton’s new campaign manager with a list of damage control problems you’ll have to do by the end of the day!
Meanwhile, Canadian parties were limited to spending $54 million each in the 2015 election, and most parties didn’t even hit that limit. Clinton has already raised more than was spent in the entire Canadian election, without even reaching the actual election yet.
That’s the way the American system is built. Other countries have strict laws limiting campaign length and the amount of ad space candidates can get. The U.S. has no limitations, so campaigns spend more and more money to make their candidate look good and get their name out there, even if the end product is excessively lengthy garbage.
So is this election the political equivalent of a Kevin Costner movie? We shall see.
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