The thing that concerns me the most about current-day American politics is that reality hasn’t quite been as consistent since 2016. It’s like the clocks haven’t quite been ticking at the same time and the sky hasn’t quite been the same colour. It concerns be the fact that a small but vocal minority of Americans believe that we are in a period of deep economic recession, that Zelenskyy is a corrupt salesman and fraud, and that illegal immigrants are literally going around en mass and killing people. In fact, America experienced a speedy recovery post-Covid and has mostly been able to tame inflation down since 2022, no Joe Biden did not start the Russo-Ukraine war, and the average illegal immigrant has a 50% lower crime rate than a U.S. citizen.
However none of this matters to this vocal minority as they will continue to live with their heads in the sand as long as it supports their ignorant world view. What worries me is that there are a large amount of genuine people who believe that the government is so corrupt, mainstream science and academia are so corrupt, the justice system is so corrupt, mainstream media is so corrupt, the electoral system is so corrupt, and even the former VP Mike Pence is so corrupt, that the only man that can revive the corpse of dying America is the benevolent and saintly billionaire Donald Trump.
Especially in this election it worries me two of the growing gaps in voter patterns is gender, and education, whereas these were relatively stable in previous elections. This small minority continues to divide society into two categories: ‘real Americans’, and ‘the libs’, in which no economic, educational, or political policy could possibly matter more than the sensation of ‘owning the libs’ for one more election. Where elections should be about policy and character for the job, they have instead become a black and white moral crusade for the humiliation of another group.
Why do I care about any of this shit?
Because I’m worried this mentality is coming to Australia, and that we’ll start to these stupid loyalty tests, policies based of false pretences, and a growing voter demographic divide in our own country. In spite of American influence, we are a country that has been able to achieve a relative sense of social trust and good-faith civic engagement, as evident by our high levels of vaccine turnout in 2021. However if this stupidity crosses the pacific then our politics could become ever more toxic and our quality of life could suffer because of it.
More specifically, I’m talking about this. The ACT Young Liberals just proposed a bunch of new ‘loyalty test’ laws, including tax cuts for people with Australian flags, putting Christianity into the constitution, creating an ‘oath of allegiance’ for school students, and setting immigration to zero for the next five years. This sounds very MAGA to me. I’m proud to say that we are a country where politicians accept the results of elections, people will get vaccinated when they are asked, and will treat fellow Australians with respect regardless of ethnicity. However all of that could fall by the wayside if this crap comes across our shore. That’s what worries me.
Also Trump’s tariffs and Putin/anti-NATO sympathies don’t seem good for the world order and Australia’s export revenue. Maybe that’s just me.
Anyhow typing this was funner that studying sor2 so good chat.
