I'm still hopeful that we can. Democracy didn't end on June 23rd 2016, whatever the Brexit bunch would have us believe
Amen to that. The only answer to the black tide of nationalism is more cooperation, and a federal Europe is one way to achieve that. The alternative is, to paraphrase (I think) T. H. White, in The Once and Future King, is that we each end up sitting on our own individual hillock chucking rocks at each other.
The referendum on leaving the EU seems to me to be entirely the wrong comparison. The better comparison would be the Scottish situation and the approach of the UK government has been fairly consistent with this situation - telling the Scottish government that it won't sanction an independence referendum at the moment. The Scots have quite sensibly not challenged that and certainly haven't held an illegal referendum. If you do want to compare with the EU referendum then to me the differences seem very clear and easy to understand.
I see Trump is having one of his rants, because his arse is twitching like hell now about the Mueller investigation. It's like watching a child try and squirm out of a lie.
With any luck that treachorous sleaze Nigel Farage will get swept up in this. How I'd love to see that man in prison; and as he seems to love America so much, let's see how he loves San Quenton.
It seems Mr Puigdemont and other former Catalan officials have arrived in Brussels. I'm sure it's got nothing to do with possible charges of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds.
My concern on this is that in these days of Twitter and rolling 24 hour news, the American public won't have the patience to deal with this. Some people over there do seem to be expecting Trump to go shortly when it's actually going to be a stunningly long and drawn out process (if it ever does go that high, of course). The important news is not Manafort (yet) but George Papadopoulos. He was arrested in July and is co-operating. And once you start pulling on one thread, the whole thing unravels. They are going to do what they do with mob investigations: "So, X, do you want to go to jail forever or plead to something smaller but tell all?". It'll take time but will get to the facts in the end. Thee's an excellent explanation of Papadopoulos here from a candidate district attorney in Illinois. Double click and it'll open up a thread of tweets. Vin
I think America deserves the politicians it gets. It would be great if Trump was brought down but I would similarly be pleased to see the Democrats suffer just as much as I don't think Hilary Clinton is any less tainted. The should have elected Bernie Sanders.
I'm no great fan of Hilary Clinton, but I have to defend her on the 'tainted' remark, in the sense of grave imperfection. For example Clinton went on to the Graham Norton show the other week and by and large came across as an ordinary person, aware of her own weaknesses and strengths. That by itself is no guarantee of being 'OK', but can you imagine Donald Trump being able to interview comfortably and engagingly in the same situation. Even allowing for the scenario that Norton might ask questions that were preferable for Trump to answer. He would eventually reveal himself, and embarrassingly so, as the narcissist that he is. So Clinton may be tainted, but no less tainted than Trump.? No, that guy is one of the negative and destructive kinds kind of human. Blown up with his own self importance and without a trace of seeing an argument from the other person's point of view. He's unfit to be in his position of President. And yes, they ought to have voted in Sanders. As a politician Clinton is wrapped up in the liberal status quo, whereas Trump was and is for a destructive sea change. At least Sanders, a confessed socialist could have brought real positive change to the unemployed and poor of America. Including a lot of the ones who voted for Trump, that is.
I have a lot of respect for Sanders for his work in the Civil Rights era and for being an independent all these years. But Sanders basically ran as a left wing version of Trump. He spent a long time screaming at the establishment and blaming everyone, with few ideas of his own. His "free college for everyone" was as impractical and stupid as Trump's wall. And also just as cynically and narrowly targeted towards his core group.
Bit harsh to say America deserves Trump, when he won less than 50% of the popular vote. I have just finished reading a long and fairly in depth article in The Observer about the battle for the soul of the US Republican party. Who would have thought that America, the supposed melting pot of cultures, would be in danger of succumbing to nationalism, protectionism and other backwards looking recidivist ideas? It does seem like one of the world's great democracies is in serious trouble.
This thread is becoming Satire. Posters that dream of a federal Europe dreamland and think Hillary Clinton comes across as a normal person that sees her own weaknesses? She was on the One show and Graham Norton and still blames everyone else but herself. And then a Sanders description where you could just replace Sanders with Corbyn in that sentence and it would still fit perfectly.
There's nothing happening in America that hasn't happened there before. This is the country that murdered millions of native Americans, banned all immigration from China between 1882 and 1943 and locked up over 100,000 Japanese-Americans during World War 2.
I think that we should dispense with the idea of America ever being "one of the world's great democracies. it is true that American intervention brought the First War to a quicker conclusion and was instrumental in the defeat of the Nazi's but at the same time it was treating a significant proportion of it's population with distain and it's politics was riddle with mafia corruption. It is ultimately tragic that America became "the voice of the West" especially as it has functioned as a supposed democracy for little under 250 years.
