A question for Biden’s fans

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RhodesianSon said:
Most Americans really don’t care what foreigners think of us or our president.
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0Scarlett_nidiyilii said:
This is going to sound mean, but we don’t really care.
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If what you say is correct, then Americans must be the only people in the world who do not care how their country and its leaders are perceived internationally. I cannot think of another nation that does not want to be admired and does not want the people who represent them on the world stage to be respected.

I think Anthony Eden is a good illustration of this. The reason why he is still regarded as having been possibly our worst prime minster in our country’s entire history is because it is believed that he diminished Britain’s prestige internationally. His predecessor, Churchill, was still revered around the world. When Eden succeeded, Britain was still just about a global superpower. The joint British, French, and Israeli military action against Egypt was entirely justified and was in fact an extraordinary success. What Eden had failed understand were the political and diplomatic aspects of the conflict, and this is what led to Britain’s humiliation in the aftermath of the conflict. Conversely, two events early in the premiership of Margaret Thatcher, the Iranian embassy siege and the Falklands War, played an important role in restoring Britain’s status internationally.

I suppose what you are saying is that it is part of the American way of life not to care about the perceptions of outsiders. To some extent, it almost seems that you are saying that Americans actually enjoy causing offence to foreigners or being perceived poorly abroad. This is simply very alien to me as an Englishman and a New Zealander. One of the reasons why I think badly of Boris Johnson is that he is an embarrassment to his country. For example, he wrote an intentionally offensive poem about the president of Turkey suggesting that the president enjoyed masturbation and bestiality. On a visit to a Buddhist temple in Burma, Johnson began to recite a poem by Rudyard Kipling which is considered offensive both to the Burmese people and to the Buddhist religion.

There was a time when it seemed that America actually enjoyed receiving the admiration of the world. Your original question was what a second term for Trump would make us feel about the US, its citizens, and their values. For many of us, it would make us wonder what sort of people could vote for a man so clearly unfit to hold the nation’s highest office and to represent his country to the world.
 
scousekiwi said:
On a visit to a Buddhist temple in Burma, Johnson began to recite a poem by Rudyard Kipling which is considered offensive both to the Burmese people and to the Buddhist religion.
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He was obviously just trying to bring some good old fashioned imperialism back to the former colony as a favor.
 
scousekiwi said:
. I cannot think of another nation that does not want to be admired
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What good is the “admiration” of fellow sinners?

Okay.

In your defense, people outside the US are fed a carefully cherry picked narrative about our politics.
It’s not your fault.
Nobody blames you.

But I, for one, refuse to controlled by the promise of smiles or the threat of frowns.
 
RhodesianSon said:
He was obviously just trying to bring some good old fashioned imperialism back to the former colony as a favor.
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I suspect not. I suspect that it merely reflects the fact that he is a fairly bright and very well educated person who is gifted with an exceptional ability for memorisation. On walking into a Buddhist temple in Burma, that poem probably immediately came to mind, and, knowing that he could recite from memory, he began to do so. It’s probably more a nostalgia for his prep school days than anything else. I am sure that he didn’t intend to offend anybody, but that is the thing about Boris: half of him wants to be Churchill and the other half wants to be a clown.
0Scarlett_nidiyilii said:
people outside the US are fed a carefully cherry picked narrative about our politics.
It’s not your fault.
Nobody blames you.
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I think I get my news about the US from a variety of trustworthy sources.
 
Yeah, I was being facetious. All my English kin like Boris, so I base my opinion on the man from what they tell me.
 
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umamibella said:
Jacinta Arden is not that popular here.
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You do surprise me. I’ve been back in the UK for a long time now. I go back to New Zealand quite often, but it’s been a long time since I was in Australia. All the Australians I meet here in the UK seem to genuinely admire Jacinda Ardern. I don’t think they’re just being polite. They says things like, “You have the coolest prime minister”, or, “Your prime minister is awesome”. And I’m talking about young Australians mostly - students, young academics, young people who come to work in high-tech industries - though also older Australians who have been here for longer. Perhaps I am meeting the wrong young Australians, but I have never met one who seemed likely to be a Trump fan.
0Scarlett_nidiyilii said:
Yes, I know you think you do.
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Well, I tend to get most of my news from the BBC, Sky News, and LBC, all of which have their own reporters in the US and thus give first-hand accounts of the situation on the ground. British broadcast media are heavily regulated to avoid bias in their reporting. I also read The Guardian/Observer, which has an admitted left-wing bias, and the Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday, which has an admitted right-wing bias. Unfortunately, many American news sources cannot be accessed from Europe, but I do sometimes read articles from the New York Times. I live in Cambridge, which is full of Americans, so I often get things sent my way from various US-based sources, often local news from somebody’s home town.
 
I’m not a fan of either I myself have no party affiliations I’m a swing voter - I am not a party sheep. Comes from being in a union I vote for whats on the table.Who is going to react the worst Dems or Reps we will see it can go both ways.SNL was pretty funny.

All the political parties in my country approve of abortion so its not a voting issue so my hands are tied.
 
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@Tis_Bearself

I’m not sure that Israelis necessarily love Trump so much as they love some of his policies. That video of Trump making a phone call to Netanyahu a week or two ago was pretty embarrassing. I think Netanyahu made it clear that he didn’t think it was appropriate to allow himself to be used for Trump’s party political and electoral advantage.

I completely take the point that Americans typically hold very different policy positions compared with people in most of Europe. But the issue with Trump isn’t really his policies. There are a few that I guess stand out for us over here - building the wall, the Muslim ban, moving the embassy to Jerusalem, rolling back Obamacare. But, for the most part, I don’t think Europeans concern themselves with the policies of American presidents any more than I imagine Americans concern themselves with the third runway at Heathrow, the high speed rail link between London and Birmingham, or whether children should receive free school meals during the holidays. I would note that a key issue in the US election is Obamacare, which half the country apparently regards as evidence of socialism, whereas in the UK even Thatcher and her successors continue to prop up a disastrous healthcare system which is basically run as a state-owned monopoly.

Thus, the real issue with Trump is not his policies but his personality. In fact, even where his policies are the issue, it’s to some extent because the policies are an extension of his personality. What people dislike about Trump is that he is crass, he is boorish, he is a bully, he bears grudges, he is arrogant, he talks about women in ways that are coarse and offensive, and while he may well not be personally racist, he is certainly happy to benefit from the support of people who are. For many people, the way he mocked Serge F. Kovaleski was itself sufficient to put him beyond the pale.

People outside the US liked John McCain:
I have to tell you, I have to tell you, he [Barack Obama] is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared as president of the United States.

No, ma’am, no, ma’am, he’s er, he’s er, he’s a decent family man, citizen …
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McCain was a gentleman. He fought his campaign against Obama with decency and dignity. He would have been a president of whom Americans could have been proud. The civility between Obama and McCain was something that people really admired.
 
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He lost, but he lost with honour. If you are originally from one of the British colonies, I am sure you must be familiar with the tradition of “three cheers for the losing team”.
 
RhodesianSon said:
And he lost.
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Winning isn’t everything. I don’t mean that in a trite, “‘making a kid feel better after losing at softball” way. I mean, in a democratic system that hinges on peaceful transitions of power and elections widely seen as legitimate, it’s more important to maintain long term stability and democratic norms than it is to win individual elections.
 
I agree. But when you lose enough times it’s time to rethink tactics. That’s another part of Trumps appeal to a lot of republicans. He doesn’t tip toe through the tulips like most Republican nominees did before.
 
And to be clear, that’s a criticism that I could apply to both democrats and republicans. I’d say the same thing to democrats pondering court lacking: better to deal with one more conservative justice than escalate the judicial wars and threaten the integrity and legitimacy of the court itself.
 
I was born right before Rhodesia ceased to exist, was rushed over to South Africa to stay with family after my mother and sister were killed in a raid on our family’s farm, then a few years later my father and I moved to America. So while I was born in a former colony, my culture and world view is almost completely American.
 
Thanks. My father married a nice woman in America a few years after we got settled and she was very kind to me. My mother would have been glad someone accepted me like their own. So even though I lost my first one, I did still get to have a mom.
 
That sounds pretty horrendous. I’m sorry that you went through an experience like that. I’m pleased if you were able to make a better life in America.
 
RhodesianSon said:
That’s actually a plus to us. Most Americans really don’t care what foreigners think of us or our president.
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Well, not all of us. I actually do care, as do others who want us to be respected on the world stage.
 
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