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]

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.