How important is the US election for the rest of the world?

fbaezer said

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Don't ya all non-Americans find it nerve-wracking that, in such an important election for the rest of the world, Americans often focus on things like the private lives of the candidates?

"Character test", they call it, trying to hide their strange brand of self-righteous moralism.
Character schmaracter. Issues is what matters.

sofia said

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Character matters...
Anybody can promise 'better times' or 10 million jobs, or a better approach to a war... Have they shown they have that ability? Have they ever done anything that shows they are capableof fulfilling such promises? Have they repeatedly lied or waffled on their promises?

This is character.

fbaezer talks of 'private life' (Do the candidates engage in anal sex with their wife? Did he/she smoke a reefer or snort a pound of cocaine while at Yale? etc) And yes, the concentration on this stuff is so intellectually primitive and adolescent (and pathetically moralizing) that it makes so many of us outside the US, and many inside, suffer no small measure of annoyance, disgust, and belly laughs.

But otherwise, as in keeping promises or in truthfulness, yes, character matters a great deal. But the problem is that such issues are completely nullified by campaigns which themselves have no such character attributes. We cannot trust campaigns to be truthful. We cannot, in fact, trust many politicians to be truthful. So, when one of them speaks about issues of character, one might just as well be staring up a donkey's ass and expecting gold to be extruded.

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fbaezer wrote:

Don't ya all non-Americans find it nerve-wracking that, in such an important election for the rest of the world, Americans often focus on things like the private lives of the candidates?

"Character test", they call it, trying to hide their strange brand of self-righteous moralism.
Character schmaracter. Issues is what matters.

Yes, I do find it nerve racking.

But - remarkably like life.

I mean - we all have ideas about what other countries ought to be doing. It is just that the US is writ large. And they have a tendency to invade countries and such when they don't like the results of THEIR elections - sigh.

I still say we should get a damned vote.

Fbaezer - I hear you when you talk about sleeping next to the giant.

But - it could be worse. Our government hopped right into bed with them.

And - guess what?

They didn't respect us in the morning.....and I have a hazy memory we didn't demand they use protection....

I mean, I do recall, from my position on the far right of the waist, (if one considers Canberra the head) calling out pathetically "Tell them if it's not on, it's not on!!! PLEASE!!!"

But - the head wouldn't listen.

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Blatham is right. Are we to believe campaigners?

With Kennedy, it was "the making of a President".
With Reagan, it was "the selling of a President".
With Clinton, it was "the merchandising of a President".

How sellable is the product? That's the question that matters nowadays. And "character" is part of the package.

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How important is the US election for the rest of the world?

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