4 ms·

>the american electorate is easy to manipulate that is a feature of democracy not unique to America

• enraged_camel 10y ago
  It may not be unique to America (for example, the Brits seem equally easy to manipulate, based on the recent Brexit vote), but the populace being easy to manipulate is definitely not a "feature of democracy." The fact of the matter is that there are many democracies in the world where the level of discourse is much more advanced. There are many reasons for this, but the primary factor seems to be that the average level of education in those countries tends to be higher.
  • maxxxxx 10y ago
    It's a little condescending to blame this on the educational level. I know plenty of very educated people in the US who are fanatics and don't listen to others. I think it has to do with the obsession with winning, competition and binary thinking the US has.
• maxxxxx 10y ago
  It's pretty unique to America. I can't imagine any German to be as fervently for against Merkel or the CDU like Americans are for or against their party. In many countries I can have spirited political discussions over a wide range of topics without people feeling personally offended. That's simply not possible in the US.
  • jedikv 10y ago
    Tribalism is ingrained in the human psyche. If you're not noticing it, that's probably a bad sign.
    • maxxxxx 10y ago
      Like most things in life there is a wide range of levels of tribalism. American politics is on a very high level of tribalism, more than a lot of other countries. To quote you: If you are not noticing that, that's probably a bad sign (for what? Can you explain that?)
      • jedikv 10y ago
        Bad sign that you may be deeply within one side or another which can blind you to the bigger picture. From cursory observation of various political engagements around the world, it's all very similarly tribalistic - whether it be over the top rhetoric that appeal to emotion - or in some cases violent. Heck look at the rise of the far right support in various EU states. Politics is very often personal, so people will take it personally. The only real difference is America takes up all the media oxygen given it's position in the world stage.
• white-flame 10y ago
  I think it's a feature of having a populous and very geographically large country. There's simply too much politics going on for any individual or even bureaucratic control to track and keep sane. Most politics in the mass of issues always swilling around doesn't really affect you, being targeting to specific industries or localities, though they have messy long tail effects as they're constantly over-applied. I recall seeing a snippet of the Prime Minister of the UK being asked about a mail box on some particular street corner in London, in an open forum. He knew exactly what was being discussed. Smaller countries have their politicians more tangibly connected to people, as opposed to local representatives being seated thousands of miles away as is the case in the US. People also forget that the US is set up kind of more like the EU, rather than most other countries. It's a federation of independent states, with deference of law to those states, except for those powers specifically granted to the federal government (at least on paper). This is a yet another abstraction level layered on top of politics that many people in other countries don't conceive. So propaganda easily overwhelms people's natural gleaning of what's going on.