Why are Presidents of the USA treated as villains?

And that still doesn't alter the fact that the average person outside the USA cannot distinguish between Republican and Democrat or see any discernible difference in the way their incumbent Presidents act towards the world in general.

That's like having an anti-creationist agenda. Sure it may biased, but it's hardly unsupported. And neoliberalism is an extremist position to begin with.

But as for them being far-left that's a fair point.

Actually, the Political Compass seems to be pretty-clearly pro-neoliberal (and IIRC the creators are Left Libertarians). Note that moving away from the Free Market is seen as a measure of increased Authoritarianism.

Also, it makes no sense to me that anyone (whether in the United States or elsewhere) could think the two parties are the same in their views (or even worse, in collusion). Take a glimpse over at CPAC or just watch the news- Republicans loathe President Obama and all he stands for and do everything possible to obstruct anything he proposes. While I don't doubt he might be considered conservative by some European standards, he definitely supports leftwing positions and is probably one of the more politically left U.S. Presidents (I certainly think he's farther to the left than Clinton).

edited 9th Mar '14 4:58:36 PM by Hodor

We see that Dems hate Reps and vice versa - that's just party loyalty and we have the same thing here with National vs Labour - but there's still no real distinction between a Republican President saying "we should invade that country" and a Democrat President saying "we should invade that country".

From the outside, the US President, whether Democrat or Republican is just some sabre-rattler going on about how someone oughta deal to those goddamn commies/terrorists/whatever and war is the only option.

I grew up through the Cold War and my enduring image of that time was that the USA and the USSR were equally bad - the Russian Premier and the US President were the villains of my childhood, teens and early adulthood.

Neither seems to have improved any.

Foreign policy views are definitely similar between the parties (although Democrats tend to be somewhat less hawkish), but on economic and especialy social issues, they are very different.

Well who outside the US pays attention to those?

I don't know if they do, but they should.

Really, that depends on the Dem. Plenty of Democrats are actually pretty right-wing in economic issues.

But taken as whole, that's mostly true, though the difference is not as dramatic as some people like to imagine (Obama is certainly not "socialist", for example).

@Wolf the New-Zealnder: Even Jimmy Carter with the giving back of Panama,or the Camp David Accords?

Also Obama is definitely farther to right than Bill Clinton, the economic policies and soical policies of Dubya are the farthest left a president can go these days before the Tea Party goes nuts

Clinton would've with a Democratic majority not thrown out the Single-payer option,he would've bullied the minority rather than insisting on this pithy "bipartisanship" and he wouldn't have extended the Bush tax cuts under any circumstances.

He wouldn't have authorized the drones and would've bolted the hell away from Iraq and Afghanistan.

No,Obama is not only farther to the right than Clinton,but he might even be farther to the right than George HW Bush. Handily so where foreign policy is concerned.

Probably because GW Bush was the farthest right foreign policy conceived so far,and Obama's foreign policy is just G.W. Bush's but smarter.

Unfortunately,anything that isn't batshit insane and disrespectful to anyone else is perceived as "weak" and "Letting the terrorists/commies win".

Certainly not "Socialist" by our reckonning - still quite far right by comparison with our socialist parties. Here, Obama would be a hard-line right-winger.

Carter was surprisingly moderate compared with what I was used to in US Presidents.

edited 9th Mar '14 7:28:58 PM by Wolf1066

I disagree/understand them differently. Clinton was a hardcore neoliberal whereas Obama is actually supportive of the idea that the government has some role in improving the economy. It may be in part because Clinton is a better politician, but I think he had a lot more favorable situation for getting what he wanted done than Obama does- and with that situation/advantage, chose to pursue more right wing policy goals.

Drones didn't really exist as a technology when Clinton was in office, but Clinton did bomb Iraq and favor/participate in intervention in Kosovo (a good decision btw), so...

I think the right wing comparison of Obama and Carter has some weight in the sense that I'd place the two close together on the political spectrum (with the difference that Obama has somewhat more left wing social views. Ditto in relation to Clinton (although in both cases some of that is simply due to social change over time).

What country do you live in?

Edit- I think part of why I think of Clinton as more right wing is due to the perception that he was and is well liked by a lot of those conservative democrats who right now hate Obama because he's a Black Muslim Kenyan Antichrist Socialist.

edited 9th Mar '14 8:32:31 PM by Hodor

I live in New Zealand, as it says in my Location data.

Oh, sorry, didn't notice that. Thanks.

I wonder how much of a President's reputation involves the company they keep. We have U.S. Presidents to thank for Henry Kissinger, Oliver North, and Donald Rumsfield.

@Tobias Drake The big problem with "everyone voting for a third party" is that the big corporations control communications and information.

Only the biggest two parties have a big enough propaganda machine to get the uneducated and uninformed majority (which they both strive to keep that way) to vote for them.

By the way, do "big corporations" include state-owned broadcasters like The BBC, or foreign news sites? And don't a lot of Republicans now believe that the Old Media Are Evil and are examples of Strawman News Media, and so now use the Internet to get news?

edited 10th Mar '14 3:17:18 AM by Greenmantle

Unfortunately a lot of people still watch Fox News, and foreign news websites are by definition un-American.

@Green: No, the GOP are more likely to say New Media Are Evil and cling to Fox News

The Internet is definitely more for the Democrats,...that was a key part in Obama's victory both times.

Which is the fault of the people, not the corporations. Nobody's making them watch Fox News.

Sure, Fox News is easy. You don't have to work to find information that way. But that's just what I've been saying: the system persists because the majority either knowingly supports it, or doesn't care enough to put in the effort needed to oppose it. It's not because evil corporations have ruined America, it's because Americans are allowing it to remain as it is.

The idea that it's all the corporations and the politicians who have ruined America and the citizens are all powerless victims oppressed by the evils of King Whoever Is President Right Now is one I've heard consistently for the last four presidential terms, and I only say last four because I didn't really pay much attention to politics before Bush came to power - I turned 14 the year Bush was elected - but feel reasonably confident that the trend probably existed then too. And it never ceases to bother me when we'll scream and rant and moan about how all of our leaders are corrupt and should be fired, and then when the time comes to renew their paychecks, we vote them right back in to keep doing the job we hate them doing.

It's easy to complain. We like doing that. But come election day, we'll put the same assholes right back into office. So you tell me: when we whine about corruption then vote in its favor, whose side are we really on?

edited 10th Mar '14 4:21:21 PM by TobiasDrake

I don't even watch news at this point. Google news and These threads are my main things.

I like bbc America though. Top gear, wooo! :P

Do they show UK!Top Gear or US!Top Gear? Curious.

The good one :P

UK top gear. Us is on history channel. Sucked at first, not so bad now.

@Tobias: We all that's because the incumbents as corrupt as they may be also have the Catch22 of experience and when properly motivated the best competence at getting something done.

And considering the 1920,1968 and 1980 presidential elections, the 1994 and 2010 elections,often the price of buying into that notion that incumbent is corrupt leads to voting in someone worse. (I know 1968 and 1920 had term-limited Presidents,but let's face it Harding and Nixon won solely on them not being the previous Democratic president. And in the case of Harding he was completely inferior to Cox, even down to who was the running mate. I mean really Coolidge over FDR?)