this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2024

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There's European countries who can have several different prime ministers in the span of three months (lemmy.world)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (2 children)

And then there's Belgium, which apparently holds the world record for longest time without a government. At least introduce time limits for negotiations, guys…

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

One positive on the Dutch coalition talks. We can always say that our southern neighbours take even longer...

On a more serious note, the last three coalition talks in the Netherlands took over 200 days, with one taking 299 days. Sure, not even close to over 500 days in Belgium, but how the hell does this happen?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

If american democracy was good, other countries would be using it.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It's not the time that's the issue. It's the eye-watering sums of money you cunts donate to let a politician run a campaign.

What the fuck does someone need $450m for?! Use that to provide support for the homeless, feed the poor, and protect children that need a stable home. You could do so much with that money.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

if it was up to the average american, we wouldn't have that shit. unfortunately our society is puppeted by the rich to a very unhealthy degree at the moment. i hope that changes soon and maybe give us the opportunity to revolution some of them away.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Let the Americans have their fun. They love plot twists, a bit of pageantry and pizazz. While they certainly don’t NEED a year-long election cycle, most Americans actively seem to enjoy it.

It creates opportunities to vigorously debate the opposition, run some nice smear campaigns, do a bit of backstabbing, schmooze the big donors, kiss a few babies and add in the odd assassination attempt. You just can’t fit all that drama in a one month cycle like we Europeans like to do.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

I wish it was only a year. Lately it’s been about a 4 year cycle for the presidential race

[+] [email protected] -17 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Some European countries have lower populations than a single US city.

Some European countries are small enough that you can drive the entire length in a single day.

Must be nice to have prime ministers who represent fewer people than the mayor of LA

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

Don’t be so American aka uneducated. They still have to have a full government and local governments. Just because they’re smaller than Texas doesn’t mean two guys can run the whole society. You guys really deserve Trump.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

It's anecdotal but I was told that Americans (and Europeans) obsess on the happenings and circus at the federal level but much of it doesn't really affect the average Americans on the state level. Not sure how but my guess it's because states have their own laws and cultures which offsets some of the federal level shenanigans.

[+] [email protected] -22 points 5 months ago (2 children)

The United states has federal, state and local governments. And often county governments as well in the more populated states.

Just because i don't know if Serbia is a representative or parliamentary democracy doesn't make me uneducated. It means your backwater country is completely unimportant to the global community

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

Just because i don't know if Serbia is a representative or parliamentary democracy

Hell, I don't even know if you say or repeat words!

Parlamentary democracy is one kind of representative democracy AKA republic.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Having three levels of government is standard. It's not a special American thing. Most countries have this outside of the really small ones. Even Serbia does, to a limited extent.

Excluding the de-facto independent province of Kosovo, The country has one autonomous province with its own government, namely Vojvodina in the North. Central Serbia however is not a province and doesn't have its own government.

The country is further divided into 117 municipalities and 28 cities, all of which have a local government. Six of the largest cities are additionally divided into city municipalities, which also have a local government. This means that depending on where you live in the country, you'll be subject to somewhere between two and four levels of government.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Every European country is small enough that you can drive through it in a day.

Do you mean the electoral collage still travels by house to Washington? What is your point?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

Do you mean the electoral collage still travels by house to Washington?

Maybe they travel by tra... They don't have train, do they?

[+] [email protected] -12 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The point is, it's easier to organize a national election when you don't have to do it across 50 federated entities and 5 time zones

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

it's easier to organize a national election when you don't have to do it across 50 federated entities and 5 time zones

The US national elections are much, much easier to organize than national elections in EU countries. EU countries have to hold elections for tens of millions of people. In the US national elections only 538 people get to vote.

There are 50 states that have to hold elections to select representatives for the electoral college, but these are organized by each the state individually, not the federal government. You don’t have one big national election, you have 50 small ones.

Most US states have only a small number of inhabitants. Even the largest US state, California, only has 38M inhabitants. Less than half of Germany (83M), and significantly less than France (68M), Italy (58M) and Spain (48M). 40 of those 50 states have fewer than 10M inhabitants.

France (68M inhabitants) called elections on June 9, with the first round on June 30 and the second on July 7. They were over less than a month after being called. If France can do this with 68 million inhabitants then surely California can do it with only 36 million (let alone all those other smaller states).

[–] [email protected] -4 points 5 months ago (2 children)

It's the synchronization of 50 individual states that's the trick. Countries with many states have slower bureaucracies. They don't all have the same budget to organize elections. Sure, Florida Texas new York and California could probably do it fast. But Alaska or Wyoming?

Colorado runs their elections in person in some of their smaller districts. The entire voting population meets at the school auditorium and debate and discuss until they can assign their electors to a candidate. It's a tradition that's as old as the state.

Every state has unique needs and budgets to provide voting to their citizens. Some states make it easier for citizens to vote. Some make it harder. When planning a national election you must be considerate of the states that make it harder to vote.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

We have EP elections, they represent more people than the US, elections have to be synchronized not just between states, but between sovereign countries (imagine dealing with France, Germany and Hungary at the same time), and they often go without a hitch with only a few months of campaigning.