With "king" as a marker, Americans use an outdated concept to test authoritarianism. Some of the best functioning democracies (like the Scandinavian countries) have royalty. A better, unambiguous marker would be just "dictator".
European liberal democrat (as in "liberal democracy") 🇪🇺
145 followers 189 following 425 posts
view profile on Bluesky
With "king" as a marker, Americans use an outdated concept to test authoritarianism. Some of the best functioning democracies (like the Scandinavian countries) have royalty. A better, unambiguous marker would be just "dictator".
European democracies used to envy America's "strong" president, but are now kissing both hands when they realize their parliaments can, with a simple majority vote, at any time, make any would-be authoritarian government (including its head) fall like a rock, even after the first day of its tenure.
That's more like it!
The Five Pillars of liberal democracy are 1 | Free & Fair Elections, 2 | Separation Of Powers, 3 | Rule Of Law, 4 | The Civil Liberties, and 5 | Non-discrimination against non-antropogenic personal attributes
After the US will have found its democratic bearings again, a united Congress will vote the TEGSARA (the Trump Era Grift Sanctioning And Recovery Act).
Actually, the number of employees stands approximately to the number of CEOs like the average CEO remuneration package stands to the average employee salary.
ONLY in autocracies would you see giant posters of the incumbent head of government on official buildings. That means, America now officially is an autocracy.
The only thing the Nazis were allowed to negotiate about was whether Wehrmacht generals got to keep their batons or not
BORDER WARS can be peacefully ended through a peace agreement. INVASION WARS can only be peacefully ended by the invader pulling out. Putin (and by extension, Trump) therefore desperately wants the world to believe this is ... a border war.
Perhaps the US should introduce a national citizenship registry with annex national digital ID cards. No more fraud possible, and no longer voter registration (with a driver's license !?) necessary. Works in the Rest Of The West. But I got a feeling the GOP won't like it. Too easy to vote 😆
"The War Criminal And The Convict". Sounds like a bad Disney movie.
"The War Criminal And The Convict". Sounds like a bad Disney movie.
Take public transport, or a bicycle. No safety belts, and no car jackings.
Pretty soon, nobody will know for sure with what percentage the US economy has grown, or shrunk.
Peace summit? To Putin (and probably Trump too), it's a piece-of-Ukraine summit
The term "cognitive decline" assumes there is a normal cognitive level to decline from. That assumption is not valid for president Trump.
US big tech social media escape any EU tariffs because their imported services are officially "free", whereas their real value is the advertising income EU user eyeballs generate. That value should form the basis for EU tariffs.
The irony is, the current Ukrainian independent corruption watchdog is always gonna be more effective than the American corruption watchdog, for the simple reason that the latter has been euthanized.
Yeah, he also talks about "the amount of liberals" instead of "the number of liberals".
Trump was so "economically sophisticated" that he needed to pay someone to take his Wharton entry exam.
Music washing, stopped there and then.
Border wars are ended through peace agreements, invasion wars are ended by the invader redrawing or being kicked out. Putin wants the world to believe it's a border war.
"Miraculously". Given that God's intervention is ALWAYS miraculous, this qualification can only have been used by Johnson in its alternative meaning, i.e. "unexpectedly, surprisingly", which indeed makes sense.
There's no term to describe the tendency of a major part of Americans to vote politicians into office who have agendas counter to their interests. American-Dream-for-thee (wealthy people)-but- not-for-me? Political altruism? Political masochism? Stockholm Syndrome?
The ICC has just issued arrest warrants for Taliban leaders, for persecuting women and girls. Looks like Netanyahu is in good company.
Apart from the unspeakable, Trump violates the rule that in liberal democracies the only people that get to wave from balconies to national celebration day crowds are constitutional royalty (i.e. people without political power). Unless of course the US is no longer a liberal democracy.
Whatever it takes, even if that requires introducing an EU "inner tier", that will decide on ALL issues with QMV (so no more veto).
Melania:"Watch it, honey. I wasn't even born in the US".
Please don't say "democratic socialist", but "social democrat". That's what it's called in Europe, because politicians are expected to be democrats first, and only then pursue their ideological goals. In the same vein you have Christian Democrats and Liberal Democrats.
They got better.
Like, Europe won't need it.
In these worrying times, anyone opposing MagaTrumpia and supporting Ukraine is to be considered "liberal". Yes, perhaps "civil" would be a better marker.
Your comment, David, demonstrates that even if you are one of the sharpest liberal minds around, but happen to be Jewish, all that goes out of the window whenever the "home country" (even if run by war criminals) is at stake, to the point of shamelessly weaponizing the accusation of "antisemitisme".
Proof the EU has a duumvirate.
In most European countries, regional voting district boundaries are set in stone (like, in their constitution). That's why Europeans are unfamiliar with the concept of "Gerrymandering". And rightly so; it's down right electoral tampering!
Israel is going to pay Trump with ... votes.
Somehow, Trump seems oblivious to the fact that Russia, a staunch ally of Iran's, for some decades now FACTUALLY has a nuclear bomb. Even worse, contrary to any aspersions cast against the Iranians, Russia FACTUALLY does have a perfectly functioning ballistic missile to carry that bomb.
One of the more uplifting prospects of GAI (General Artificial Intelligence) is that it will pretty soon do away with $100 million CEOs. But then there will be a new multi-million battle, about which competitor gets to have the best GAI CEO.
Trump has now reached the stage where he refers to himself in the third person.
Sometimes the flagellation of the Constitution just becomes unbearable, making even constitutional experts flee to the anonymous equity of the Universe.
Ironically, a birthday parade for a REAL king is happening on the same date, in London: Trooping The Color. Let's all watch this one instead, on BBC
Canada definitely has an Angus beef with Trump.
If you plan to reintroduce child labor in your own country, it would indeed be silly (even for Trump) to fight it abroad.
The only owner of that army is the Constitution, and right now, she's p*ssed.
... or for making convicted criminals escape punishment.
It won't be long now before the Trump administration will start developing the "interpretation" that the Second Amendment only applies to "patriots".
Hegseth fails (or worse, refuses) to understand that in liberal democracies the qualification "criminal" to designate an individual can only be used by government officials when a criminal court has indeed convicted that individual. Ironically, this IS the case for Donald J. Trump.
Zolang de militaire steun maar niet afbrokkelt.
China is not socialist, it's communist (officially).
This picture could have been taken around Moscow, prior to the May 9 Parade
Trump's right. The world's no longer laughing, it's belly-laughing.
That's all it took to mute your account
Next year's officer graduation assignment: "Make a coherent summary of the Commander In Chief's 2025 graduation speech" ... No 2026 officer graduations.
Trump makes us all want to be psychologists or psychiatrists, to try and make sense of it all.
That absolutely insane truth appears to be that Trump first became an actual billionaire (not a purported one) during and through his presidenc(y)(ies).
"Thou shall not kill". At least now, capital punishment and lethal police force are illegal. Or doesn't God have the final word after all, even in Texas?
The EU apparently has a free market, survival-of-the-fittest (read, of the best product), capitalist view on international trade, whereas the view of Trump is rather reminiscent of socialist and even communist protection policies. Oh irony.
One of the last things GAI will be able to understand is why people want to be wealthy beyond a level that provides for a comfortable life without having to work.
This is hard for Europeans to get their heads around. You see, in most European democracies, parliamentarians have immunity against prosecution, exactly to protect against what is happening here to Rep. McIver.
If you define "good for the country" as "good for the majority of Americans" that'll be just another intended untruth (aka, lie).
We're all curious whether that link will still work when the US invades Greenland.
When judging the degree of development of a country, don't look at how its wealthy people live. Wealthy people live good in just about any country. No, look at how its poor people live.
You're right. Trump would have said "Me and Melania".
Strictly speaking, anti-antisemitism is woke. That's one of the more interesting Trumpist cognitive dissonances, claiming to be anti-antisemitist while at the same time anti-woke.
$26 is even too much for the EU. There it is about $12
Stop being an illiberal democracy, or leave the EU (and it subsidies). You can't have your cake and eat it.
What gifts falls under the Emoluments Clause? Simple: any gift to the US president that wouldn't have been made to him or her if he or she hadn't been US President.
Blackwell in his long, well-thought over summation of genocide examples doesn't mention ... Gaza. That makes this interview the pot calling the kettle black.
(New) Nuclear really remains the only realistic way to European energy independence. But if we are going to build these nextgen reactors, we might just as well build them deep underground or in mountains, to make them missile-proof.
In democracies top civil servants are selected for integrity and competence. In dictatorships top civil servants are selected for loyalty and ruthlessness.
Liberals believed the war aim was to topple a vicious dictator. Irrespective of whether they were right or not, there was never any doubt about their motives. These were - as always - righteous.
Where did he say that?
It's inevitable that eventually Murphy's Law will catch up with Trump.
It's called "arsonist-firefighter" syndrome.
De geschiedenis kan best sarcastisch zijn.
Very well. But this time around, the full commitment, meaning no opt outs, Schengen, and ... the euro.
There are hard-core zionists, fundamentalist Christians, inveterate racists, neo-nazis, and outrageous conspiracy theorists all in the same Trump cabinet. It would appear that the only two admission criteria are loyalty and being extreme at something awful.
In general, Europeans associate being wealthy with being morally bad, until proven otherwise, whereas Americans associate being wealthy with being morally good, until proven otherwise. That's why in the US money can quite literally buy you an election to office. In Europe, not so much.
It would seem that under Trump even the institution of the Presidential Library has been repurposed, as an instrument for delayed bribing.
Indeed. Looks like the (super) wealthy over the decades have used these tax cuts to do some serious saving instead of some serious spending.
Does communism mean authoritarianism? Does capitalism mean democracy? Where do Europe or the US currently figure in this scheme? The theory of the "Political-Economic Wedge" may shed some light ...
There's no import tariffs on white supremacists.
Die €300 miljard bij Euroclear kunnen alvast dienen om het Oekraïense luik te financieren.
Here we go again.
Apparently, there are no import tariffs on white supremacists.
You could argue that that plane is a gift, for which Qatar expects nothing in return. But you then should immediately ask yourself: "Would Qatar have given Trump that plane if he hadn't been US president?"
Je bedoelt waarschijnlijk "defensielogica".
To burp
To whine
To whisper.
Next time, somebody pull them off/down.
A broken clock is right twice per day.
Indeed, the "Gulf of Mexico"!
Makes sens. He has already tried it by flying Syrian refugees to Moscow and then giving rhem a bicycle to ride to a Polish or Baltic border.
Worse. He's demanding praise for his arsonist skills.
Bribery in plane sight, that is.
Miller here skillfully executes a DARVO, a signature KGB move.
Populists don't use statistics to sway voters, they use cases. Because no matter how outrageous your statistical claim is, you will always find an actually true case to "prove" it.
Putin weet dat tijdens "onderhandelen" Ukraine steeds onder druk van haar Westerse partners staat om militair terughoudend te zijn, terwijl Putin helemaal niet die druk heeft. Dus een gelegenheid om militair winst te maken. Gelukkig zijn die Westerse partners ondertussen slimmer geworden.
Trump is bound to hate Pope Leo XIV; another American who is at the same diplomatic level as him, but with 20 times more followers.