[thepossum]

benellis58, on 2025-May-02, 14:35, said:

Trump and GIB deserve each other: both are hopelessly incompetent.

Come on the greatest first 100 days of an administration in US history - loud cheers
I'm impressed anyway

[thepossum]

Australian democracy does not appear to have been Trumped. Certainly influenced though

[pilowsky]

The outcome of the Australian election was certainly influenced by voters here not wanting to risk becoming the 52nd or 53rd state of the USA - assuming there's a bit of a logjam with Canada and Greenland getting there first.
Our penguins are safe for another 3 years

[benellis58]

Luckily, Canadian voters and Australian voters are infinitely more intelligent than many American ones. Consequently, Donnie Dumbo is currently ruining only the USA, not Canada and Australia. The morons who voted for Agent Orange deserve whatever they get, but I am truly sorry for all the innocent, intelligent Americans who were wise enough not to vote for that idiot T-Rump.

[pilowsky]

The Australian electoral system strongly favours centrist parties.
The current Australian Labor Party is radically progressive compared to the average Democrat in the USA.
Here, Bernie Saunders would be considered a moderate-left candidate within the ALP.
We also have an independent Electoral Commission that ensures fair boundary distributions.
On top of that we have compulsory voting and exhaustive preferential voting.
"Informal votes" - votes not properly completed - account for only 5% of votes.

In the USA OTOH, 33% of eligible voters don't cast a vote, voting isn't compulsory and electoral distributions are determined by politicians.

[WasWinM]

Congratulations to Australia for thoroughly rejecting its Trump Lite candidate. If only we ….

[Zelandakh]

pilowsky, on 2025-May-03, 22:13, said:

The current Australian Labor Party is radically progressive compared to the average Democrat in the USA.

Even as a teen in the 80s, it was common in Europe to describe the US political system as "a choice between right and further right" and that was before there was a genuine Authoritarian running the White House. I don't think too many Americans understand just how truly warped their politics is, particularly given how such a large portion of the electorate actually take seriously claims that centre-right politicians are Communists.

[johnu]

Zelandakh, on 2025-May-05, 13:49, said:

I don't think too many Americans understand just how truly warped their politics is, particularly given how such a large portion of the electorate actually take seriously claims that centre-right politicians are Communists.

Actually, this has less to do with actual politics than you may think. Convicted Felon Trump and his ultra right fringe cult members call anybody who disagrees with them communists, or socialists as kind of a general insult. Since Trump loves the uneducated, of course his cult members have no idea what the politics of communism and socialism actually are.

It's especially egregious when they rail against the "socialist" programs of the Democrats, when MAGA are most dependent on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.