US domestic politics has become detached from everyday realities. The presidential election feels like a struggle between two giants who are blind to reality, Puutio writes.
Alexander Puutio docent of economics and business sciences
The battle between Democrats and Republicans culminates in November’s presidential election, which resembles a team sport rather than politics. This year, this Super Bowl of politics has been especially sad to watch, and it’s not just the candidates.
I moved to the United States in 2016. After that, the policies of both parties seem to have escalated to the extreme, while the independent thought activity of the parties’ supporters seems to have weakened.
Ready-made opinions for the masses of supporters of the right, mostly living in the countryside, are offered by Fox News and a recently independent journalist Tucker Carlson with partners. Crime figures in big cities, Biden’s border crisis and Trump’s witch hunt are talking around the clock. From this bubble, the Democrats are soy milk drinking elitist snowflakes who care more about peace in Gaza than the safety of their own people.
At the same time, the New York Times, CNN and MSNBC echo the thinking on behalf of many Democrats. Inequality, settling historical debts and restoring the international role of the United States are particularly important topics. On this side of the thought bubble, Trump supporters are seen as uneducated racists who care more about their guns than their communities.
Somewhere between these two extremes stand millions of people who are fed up with the current state of affairs, for whom the departure of the main parties resembles an ugly family feud, from which it is good to stay away.
Sometimes it feels like neither party is even trying to represent their voters.
I think the saddest thing about the situation is that it is caused by political division serious thought distortions.
First, let’s raise the Republican leaders’ objections to banning abortions. Already 24 years ago, 79 percent of Americans would have allowed abortion either in all, or in certain, circumstances. In the same year, 61 percent was stricter gun regulation in favor of. The Republican leadership doesn’t seem to care much about the views of the majority of the people.
There is no shortage of unpopular ideas on the Democrats’ side either. 79 percent of Americans was on the side of requiring an ID card in connection with voting, while the Democratic leadership supports looser demands, appealing to minorities. A few years ago, the same leaders wanted to stop funding the police, even though 65 percent of the people are against reducing the funding of the police or transferring it to other uses.
Sometimes it feels like neither party is even trying to represent their voters.
Whoever won in November, the loser will be the nation. The winner of the election will likely promote laws and decisions that the majority of Americans oppose.
Perhaps party leaders think that external threats drive voters to the polls more effectively than careful arguments. Painting the other party as an enemy can bring votes, but at the same time, citizens’ perception of each other is shaped into a grim picture of reality. Ideological warfare between Republicans and Democrats threatens to eventually blind the entire nation.
From here, it is also interesting to follow the bench athletes of the old continent, for whom US politics seems to be an extension of their own table discussion. A typical American can’t put Helsinki on a map, but many Finns feel they know what’s wrong with the United States.
Even though there is a lot to fix in the United States, I only recently realized how the United States is being followed in Finland from biased points of view. The Republican apparatus, which has turned inward and left science behind, understandably does not have much sympathy when Europe needs the contribution of the United States to solving common problems. Despite this, in my opinion, Finns should not become uncritical repeaters of the views of the Democrats.
Trump’s rise to power in 2016, or a possible election victory at the end of this year, is not a distortion of democracy or a mystery any more than Pekka Haaviston, by Alexander Stubb or Li Andersson’s voice catches. Each of them appeals to their supporters in ways that the other candidates cannot.
Fortunately, in Finland, distortions of thought are at least prevented by strong inter-party cooperation and the traditions of rooting out the problems of one’s own party as well. Something like that would be needed here as well.
Alexander Puutio
The author works on his ideas about a better society as a father of two children, as a professional in business management consulting, and as a mixed worker in university teaching from the United States.