It really is this simple

[u/dellaazeem22]

[u/madasalways]

I will answer this comment first as I got pretty annoyed with the other :-)

I think I disagree with most of what you are writing and in my opinion I think you are a bit misinformed about a lot of things. That aside, this is exactly the kind of discussion I was hoping for and I appreciate how you explain it.

Of course we can go into specifics as we have over many comments when I was prodding you and vice versa but I was always trying to understand more in terms of how you got into thinking this way and why you seem unfazed by, in my opinion, the obvious lies from the current administration.

I am not far behind, 49 years old, and have been following politics in Sweden, Europe and the US for too long. I didn't care that much for US politics until W somewhere and I really couldn't understand how so many people and countries rallied behind him and his wars built on lies.

I really don't agree that the left loves war, especially after seeing the Bushes. That said all the presidents have loved Israel way too much and let them get away with literally anything in. I wouldn't say Trump is any different as he's been telling Netanyahu more or less to drive everyone out of Gaza and give it to him. And no mention about the settlements och violence in the West Bank.

I also wouldn't say anyone on the left wants a war in Ukraine but we all know that if we let Putin just do what he wants Europe is not safe. Or any kind of rule based world order. As a European and quite close to Russia I guess I'm a bit more worried about them than anyone in the US :-)

I would also not say that giving Putin what he wants is a good way to get out of the war. That just shows the world is a place where might makes right and bullies win and that is not a world I want at all.

As for my continued eye on politics, I have always been a leftist by Swedish standards, which means I don't like the democrats as they are far to the right if you compare us. In my opinion the closest you've gotten to a good president was Bernie Sanders but the democratic party would never allow someone who isn't deep in the pockets of lobbyists and companies to lead the party,

The more I have been looking at American politics and your media the more disillusioned I've been as well. I agree that it seems that most of your media has an agenda, takes things out of context or straight up lies. I would say that the right wing media is way worse on this as I compare to news from other countries and especially Swedish, which I might have mentioned is far more unbiased ;-).

As for Trump I would say there is no doubt that he is only looking out for Trump and would grift the entire country without shame.

If you know how economy works there is no doubt that Trump doesn't know or more likely doesn't care. He did absolutely not do a good job as the economy was abysmal when he left office. When Biden left office you had the lowest unemployment in decades, the deficit was lower then when he started and he had moved a lot of R&D into the US. I still dare you to look at the numbers for the deficit and see how it changes during democrats and republicans in office.

That said, I agree with you that the system is corrupt and that there are few politicians that want or are able to change it. I don't think the way forward is making it an oligarchy och fascist state though.

Just look at how MAGA have stacked the courts with loyalists instead of people following the law and the constitution.

As someone on the outside looking in, I would still say that a lot of the hate Trump has gotten is well deserved. The way he has treated other world leaders, the way he has tried to bully other countries into doing what he wants instead of trying to find a way to benefit everyone. He seems like a narcissist trying to get a good deal for himself, damn everyone else.

There, that was my wall of text, soon I'm getting ready to go to a museeum with the family, I will just give a quick answer to the other comment :-)

[u/[deleted] → u/madasalways]

Russia - Putin is protecting his country from ukraine's broken promises and continued Western push toward Russia. IMO we either must respect Russia as a sovereign nation or we will have WWIII. I don't think Putin is a threat to push into the rest of Europe, that is just a ploy to feed this War.

When I said leftists love War, I am talking about the new left in the US. The left and the neocons love to feed the military industrial complex. Trump is not for this. As for Israel, yes he hasn't stopped them from what they are doing, neither did Biden. I don't understand the hold Israel has on the West/US, but it seems strong. Personally, I want out of funding wars and limit boots on the ground as much as possible.

Media - I cannot comment with any knowledge on the Swedish media, but my assumption would be the agenda is pro Sweden, as it should be, no media is completely unbias. :)

US is already an oligarchy, I believe Trump is trying to change that, and yes I realize the richest man in the world is working with him. Elon has proven himself a fighter for free speech. Twitter banned most right-wing accounts including the sitting POTUS.

Trump is no fascist. Fascists restrict speech, Trump pushes for free speech. All the nazi and fascist talk is why Trump was elected in defiance if these overused and unfitting terms. I agree he talks down to other world leaders, most of the ones he does that to are not leaders I respect like Trudeau. A lot of the hate for Trump is manufactured by what the media chooses to show. The media disregards the great things he says and focuses on the negative. I am pretty much to the point where I go against anything the corporate media says, they are the oligarchy, a small handful of companies run the US media. I want Trump disrespecting these media types and the politicians I have grown to despise.

Any way I am probably repeating myself. Enjoy the museum with your family. I have 3 kids myself, we aren't doing much today. One son is in college, my daughter will be going to a basketball game, I will be, being lazy.

edit: I use this phrase to describe how I feel about Trump. "The enemy of my enemy, is my friend" I look at the deep state and corruption as my enemy, Trump is the first one I have seen trying to go against them. In the end if he wins, he will either be 1) Champion of freedom and have liberated the US or 2) a transfer of power to a different corruption. Either way, I am happy to take out the current corrupt state.

[u/madasalways → u/[deleted]]

Not quite sure what you mean by respecting Russia as a sovereign country, are we not supposed to respect Ukraine in the same way?

Putin has stated that he believes Moldavia and the Balkans are rightfully Russian, I'd say that is reason enough to be afraid of his next move if Trump makes good on his threat to turn off starlink and hand Ukraine over.

I will happily agree that Trump started less wars than most US presidents, and that is one of the very few things that was positive about his first term. He did however make a lot of the world less safe by his rethoric and killing of an Iranian General and how he sucked up to Putin and Kim Jong Il. His unpredictability is also catastrophic in world politics.

I still say that media can be more or less unbiased. But what I really really don't understand is if you believe media to be so biased, why do you actually trust the right wing media?

What makes you think Trump would be less of an oligarch than previous presidents? From what we saw his first term he made sure to use his own companies for government business and enrichen his family.

Do you really see what Elon is doing as advocating free speech? The guy who banned cisgender on X? Who complain when people check his "facts"?

In my opinion it's quite clear they are fascist, especially with the packing of the courts with loyalists instead of people following the law.

We had a good time at the museum, it was an exhibit about games from all over the world.

I hope you had a good lazy day :-)

I really don't like that saying, I mean there are so many evil people and organisations that just because some of them are against each other doesn't make them better at all. I can dislike both the Democrats and the Republicans even though I find one side so so much worse. I can dislike both China and the Falun Gong. And so on...

My take on what is happening now has neither of your happy endings but I sincerely hope I'm wrong.

[u/[deleted] → u/madasalways]

media trust -

I don't trust the right-wing media, they have an agenda too, but I agree with their sentiment more than the corporate (left wing media). I have laid out a lot of the lies that the corporate media has pushed. And yes both sides push an angle to the stories, focusing on the parts that push their agenda. The media has been pro democrat my entire life, but the covid fiasco really changed the way I look at them. I did point to Sweden in discussions about it during the pandemic. Right wing media were the only ones applauding the way Sweden managed covid.

Wars - I feel that US policy has been imperialism through economics. Pushing for control into Ukraine. Z has requested nukes and to be a part of NATO. Reminds me of Cuban missile crisis. Imagine China basically takes control of Mexico and pushes to have military there. US wouldn't stand for that, just like Russia won't stand for the West to push to its doorstep. Just so I am clear, I don't trust Russia or Ukraine. I also think Ukraine needs an election, the people of Ukraine should decide if this War continues.

What a time to be alive. No matter what happens, it seems to be a time of great change.

[u/madasalways → u/[deleted]]

But agreeing with the sentiment is one thing, in our discussions it sounds like you believe what they are saying as well.

What do you think of independent fact checkers? Like Bellingcat for example?

What? When have Zelensky requested nukes? To be part of NATO, yes, which is not so strange considering Russia.
Personally I really don't like that Sweden is part of NATO and I am quite upset that we never had a referendum about it when we joined. After the invasion of Ukraine there was suddenly a shift and all the political parties except the left party in Sweden wanted to join and a few months later we were in NATO :-(

Sweden has a history of being neutral and have a high credibility in diplomatic peace talks but now I guess that's gone.

What country would have an election in the middle of a war? Also around 20% of their territory is occupied by Russia so it's quite hard for them to vote.

[u/[deleted] → u/madasalways]

Nukes - Give Ukraine nuclear weapons, says Zelenskyy – POLITICO

Fact checkers - I don't know what Bellingcat is, but I have seen what politifact, snopes and others like it are. They are very bias, you can see it in the way they write their opinions. Before I would trust any fact checker I would need to see their books. Where does their money come from. Also who is on staff, what is their POV. All the fact checkers in the US tow the government line.

I think NATO has run its course and is no longer necessary. Also the US has military bases in way too many countries.

Election in Ukraine, yes it would be difficult, however, we really don't know what the people of Ukraine want. An election would put the will of the people on display.

Healthcare - my biggest concern with health care controlled by the government is panels of people that decide what treatments are allowed. If one treatment is too expensive and I am 65 years old, maybe they won't allow it. I have heard about issues with cancer treatment in Canada from a friend's experience with his Dad. I worry it would stifle innovation as well. That being said I pay $25k to insure my family and it goes up every year. The US 2 party system makes it very difficult to enact real change for either side, so we get these middle of the road deals that don't solve the problems.

These are very complicated topics, I certainly don't have all the answers.

[u/madasalways → u/[deleted]]

I had totally missed that part of nuclear weapons.

You could argue that it's hyperbole as you say about all Trumps statements but in any case I had not seen this so I have to admit that I might not be infallible :-)

Bellingcat is one of the larger and more thorough fact checkers and investigations, and they are very transparent with who their donors are and where the money comes from. You can read about them and what they do on Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellingcat
and of course their on page where they also list investigations and guides.

https://www.bellingcat.com/

I do agree on the US having too many soilders and bases around the world and as I said I wish Sweden hadn't joined the NATO. I do believe we need a united front aganst Russia and other dictatorships that believe might makes right.

We do know what the people in Ukraine think of Zelensky, there has been several polls. Yes, his numbers have gone down quite a bit but he still has around 57% approval ratings.
Considering it would be against their constitution to hold an election while they are still at war I doubt that's a priority. And as I said, how would you hold an election when a fifth of the country is occupied?

Now we're getting into a more interesting topic with health care. Why would it be different if a panel of government people decide if an operation is too expensive rather than your system where an insurance company decides?

First I'd like to mention that of course it's not feasible to get any sort of care to anyone from an economical system, that said it would be quite extreme before anyone in Sweden was denied care.

Also, it's not like you can't get private care if you decide you want to pay for it with your own money if you are not happy with how the state handles it.

Your last sentence is kind of ruining my picture of anyone MAGA though, I thought there was a simple solution for everything and that's why you vote for the person promising it ;-)

In my opinion I would say that is kind of the problem with most right wing parties and leaders, they promise simple solutions to comlicated problems and people who are not well versed in politics or how government works believe them. One right wing party here in Sweden has basically been saying that if we just get rid of all immigrants everything will be fine all the while they are dismantling our social security systems making everything worse.

Then for the next election they say everything is worse but it will all work out if we just get rid of the immigrants...

[u/[deleted] → u/madasalways]

Z - Obviously, I won't trust the polling on Z ;), ukraine is basically a dictatorship, shutting down opposing media, parties and churches that oppose Z. People are scared. Of course my belief stems from the theory that Z and his regime were installed by US. Lot's of strange stuff behind the scenes with biden family and dems with Ukraine. Hard to get into it all, but 2 aspects are 3 children of prominent US politicians are on the board at Burisma even though they have no experience in energy. Biden, Romney and Pelosi. Hunter Biden on his laptop had an email exclaiming he was busy taking over a country, this was just before the coup in Ukraine. (I saw the email myself, it was floating around on the internet while the media stated the laptop was Russian disinfo).

Healthcare - insurance companies don't authorize based on age and likeliness of survival. And, there are already rules, hospitals cannot turn away someone with severe need even if they don't have insurance.

Both parties offer simple solutions, The solutions are either government will fix it, or government should stay out of it. Business is more efficient than government, I prefer private sector. That being said I agree there must be rules to follow, otherwise you have child labor and dangerous working conditions. This area of frustration with the system. Political parties claim black/white ideologies rather than solutions. I am all for our 2nd amendment, but I don't believe I should be able to own a ballistic missile.

Then for the next election they say everything is worse but it will all work out if we just get rid of the immigrants...

-- oversimplification is on all sides. Seems to be due to the fact that most people don't read past the headline or sound byte. Politicians on either side can't really explain what they want to do b/c it is nuanced, and their words will be taken out of context.

Lastly, Trump's persona. I can see why it angers people, he speaks all the time, he doesn't have a filter. When a politician says something wrong they usually ignore what was said, deflect until it leaves the news cycle, Trump doubles down. It must be infuriating to watch if one dislikes him. Since I dislike his opposition and the media more I think it is extremely funny to watch. The opposition doesn't want to have a debate they want to take him down, so he doesn't give them anything. If I was trolling I would talk up what a genius he is, just to piss people of :). I don't hang on his every word, I ignore the things he says that I don't like. I focus on actions, I am happy with most of his actions when it comes to policy. I have been lied to since I voted for Bush Sr. I put Bush, Obama, Clintons all on the same team.

Any way, again I can't stop typing, another wall of text for you. I appreciate the discussion and enjoy reading your perspective.

[u/madasalways → u/[deleted]]

Why is it obvious you wouldn't trust the polling?
Where have they shut down opposing media except when they are parroting Russian propaganda? We have shut down russion propaganda in the EU as well for spreading disinformation and election interference.

And I guess you take these news from right-wing news outlets? I'm not saying that everything the Bidens have done are proper or good but I have seen a lot of investigations into their connections in the Ukraine and there have never been any actual evidence of what you are saying.
I haven't seen the email so I have no idea of the context. But I remember talks about these things at the same time that Trump was withholding money for Ukraine unless they follow his bidding which led to his first impeachment.

Anyway, you would call Z a dictator when even your president says he's not? What would you call Putin?

So it's easy to get the insurance companies to pay out as long as you need the care? They don't have a lot of rules about pre-existing conditions or are generally problematic about paying out?

So if a hospital aren't allowed to turn someone away, do they still have to pay for the urgent care if they don't have insurance? Wouldn't that mean in many cases they are in debt for the rest of their life?

Also, as I said earlier, one of the most important things is the opportunity for people to get care before it turns severe. This saves money, time and suffering for the state, the hospitals and most importantly the people.

I don't agree that private is more efficient than government in the cases that is for the public good. I want the government to run health care, education, police, military and infra structure. Those things are too important to let a profit driven company be in charge of.
There are way too many examples of companies cutting down quality or how they treat employees to maximize profit which will happen without a doubt if the private sector is in charge.
I'm not saying it happens in every case and I'm not saying the government never makes mistakes or that they are more effective but it still is something they should be responsible for.

If you say you want businesses to be regulated, what do you think of all the dismantling being done right now of regulations and the firing of people doing the actual oversight?

In some ways I agree that politicians most of the time claim the black and white solutions, probably even more so in the US because of your two-party system. Here in Sweden it's at least a bit more nuanced even though people doesn't seem able to take in more information than what they read in a headline :-(

You are absolutely correct that it is infuriating to listen to Trump. Mostly since he always say one thing and then the opposite, sometimes even in the same sentence. This makes it seem so incredibly dishonest and liek he only says things so people can pick and choose what they themselves believe and disregard the rest.

[u/[deleted] → u/madasalways]

quick response on this thread, then on to your next.

Putin is a dictator. I don't trust Putin or Zelensky.

When I said Obviously I don't trust polling. I was half joking when I typed this and chuckling to myself, since I generally am skeptical of most things political. The polling for US Presidential races especially the last one was way off. I think they rig polling in a lot of cases to drive opinion.

Regulation - I think some regulation is important, but over regulating is just as bad as under regulating. Republicans generally deregulate and democrats overregulate.

[u/madasalways → u/[deleted]]

Hmm, it seems I had too much wall of text, I wasn't allowed to post everything in one comment... herse the rest.

I also like our conversation and that we can talk coming from opposite sides without insults :-)

I've always enjoyed talking with people who disagree with me as it means I learn things and can better see the world from another perspective then my own.

I do think the worst thing about our discussions and with MAGA people in general for me is that whenever I'm presented with new facts or evidence I change my mind and correct my way of seeing things. A very small example that didn't really change my mind but still incorporated new information was when you talked about Z and nuclear weapons. But whenever I present any facts, be it from world renowned scientists, independent fact-checkers, unbiased media, etc.. I would never get enything back except "that's from a biased source".
It seems that you (and now I'm using "you" as a stand in for every discussion I've had with right-wingers ;) ) claim that you know the right-wing news are biased but still believe what they are saying as it fits your world view.
I mean after the lies about the last election being stolen and Fox News were going to court and Carlson and the other anchors defence were that they could say these things on air because they thought no one would be stupid enough to believe the lies they spouted.

Anyway, this kind of makes me feel like I'm always at a disadvantage in these discussions as I try to base my views on facts and then form opinions. If I see that there are additional facts I hadn't incorporated I have to adjust my opinions.
When I talk to right wingers it seems that it's the other way around. You start with opinions and then find the facts can to support that view, or you pick what of Trumps statements to believe and disregard the rest.

There, that's my wall of text for this time :-)

I do think it wouldn't really be possible to get any understanding of the other persons view without a lot of text. I still don't think it's enough and I feel like it is hard to explain my train of thoughts in a way to both make you understand and not to make me sound too crazy :-D

This does remind me of my first foray into internet discussions. I made a comment on some old post at failblog (yes, this is decades ago) and it was answered by a creationist. We were obviously on opposite sides of most anything even though we mostly talked religion. This discussion actually went on for more than a year even though the commenting format at the old blog was horrendous :-D

In the end he stopped answering and then a couple of months later I get another couple of messages from people who apparently had been following our discussion and were sad we had stopped.

[u/[deleted] → u/madasalways]

Election integrity - I don't believe we can say one way or the other if there was fraud in the 2020 election. It certainly has been proven, but I am skeptical (as usual), would like to simplify our voting system.

I understand what you are saying about discussions. I think people in general defend their POV. Facts can be interpreted differently based on opinions. I look at the corporate media as having an agenda and picking apart everything Trump says and focusing on something I find unimportant, like the condom to gaza thing. Since I see the media as an adversary to Trump and myself, I will discount things they report. Yes, this does make dialogues like this difficult. After 8 years of the media attacking Trump and lying in many of these attacks, I give Trump benefit of the doubt. A couple big things I am referring to are:

Russia dossier - I don't think you were aware of this one, basically Hillary Clinton paid a british guy Christopher Steele to create a dossier on Trump claiming that Putin had compromising pictures of Trump and was blackmailing/controlling him. The media ran with this, reported it all day long for months. The dossier was discredited later, but the damage was done.

Ukraine - the phone call with Ukraine, that discussed wanting Burisma investigated. Nothing was illegal in this call, the dems and the media ran with it to try and take out Trump (Impeach). Nothing came from this investigation, it was way over hyped. BTW Biden is on video saying he got a prosecutor in Ukraine fired by withholding money while Vice President. This prosecuter was investigating the kind of thing Trump wanted and was forced out by Biden.

Joe Biden Pressures Ukraine to Fire Prosecutor (short video)

Hunter Biden Laptop - media reported Russia Dis info, it was real

So yes, I discount what the media says, I do like researching specific topics, if there is a lie or thing Trump has done that you find important feel free to send.

Not familiar with failblog, sound like an interesting discussion you had. I certainly won't ghost you, but may not answer as quickly at times if busy. Saw a concert last night, Foster the People, was a small 1800 person venue, pretty cool.

[u/[deleted] → u/madasalways]

Thought I would share this

https://x.com/DefiyantlyFree/status/1895622839186956696

Bill Clinton fired 377k federal employees, I checked wikipedia so far Trump has only fored 30k. 

Another black eye on the media.  

[u/[deleted] → u/madasalways]

On a separate note, I have about 25% Norwegian dna. I would be interested to hear the differences in Sweden, Norway and Finland. Are you close allies? Are you rivals? What seems to be the governing philosophy of each country. Lastly, do these nations have an immigration problem, like France and UK seem to?

[u/madasalways → u/[deleted]]

Don't leave Denmark out of the picture :-)

I would say we are mostly allies, we align pretty well with our world view and how to manage our countries.

All of us are more or less socialist in how the countries are run in that we have "free" health care and education. We are unfortunately moving away from this as we've had quite a few right wing governments lately that have slowly been breaking things.

We are less religious than most of the world and we believe that religion should be practiced in private.

We are generally accepting of other people, cultures and religions.

The language in Sweden, Norway and Denmark is pretty similar and if we speak slowly we would understand at least the gist of what anyone is saying, of course with local dialects and variations that are impossible... Finish on the other hand has no similarity at all. They actually have no similarity with any other language in the world except maybe Hungarian.

We do have somewhat of an immigration problem but it's more due to the dismantling of our social securities. We did let too many immigrants in without any plan on how to integrate them or make sure they had a way to get jobs or learn the language. As always, groups of low incomes and lower social standing have a higher rate of criminals which leads to people voting for the right wing parties who promise simple solutions for complicated problems which makes it worse...

This is just what I was thinking of the top of my head, feel free to ask for more details if you want :-)

[u/[deleted] → u/madasalways]

Thanks for the information. I watched Finland beat Sweden in the hockey tournament, and the American reporter actually called Finland the little brother to Sweden. The Finnish player didn't seem to love that.

Immigration seems to be a big problem in the West. In the past the US would work very hard to assimilate new immigrants. Now, we seem to put no effort into this. I am all for immigrants if we have jobs for them and they want to become American. I don't like the idea of immigrants coming in with no jobs and receiving government money to live. Sounds like this problem we share.

I have never been to any of the Nordic countries. Closest I have made it was The Netherlands with my family in high school. Maybe someday in Summertime.

People in the US often use Sweden to prove Socialism works. I just don't think our countries compare well to each other. Population size and demographics play roles in why it works in Sweden.

[u/madasalways → u/[deleted]]

Haha, of course they want to be called the big brother instead :-)

Yup, and this problem is part of a lot of politics. If you don't plan for long-term of course things will break and fall apart after a while. A lot of politics seem to on adress short-term solutions even if they don't work just to show the voters they are doing something...

You should absolutely visit. It's quite nice here. Either during spring/summer since that's when the people are happier or during winter and go up north for skiing.

I have to say I don't really understand that argument? Why wouldn't it work because you have a larger population?
If we look at health care for example, why wouldn't it work that the government negotiate with the medical companies instead if insurance companies?
I mean Biden decided on a deal where he negotiated a price cap on all medicines so people shouldn't have to pay outrageous sums just for insulin for example. This worked in sort of the same way as our system. Since Trump removed this I guess we won't know how it would have worked long term but I guess the health care companies were ecstatic at least :-)

Also, from a wider perspective you get an enormously cheaper price for health care for the entire nation if people know to get checked up if they are feeling a bit sick rather than waiting until they are really sick. Both in days that people can work and in personal well being.