> But that doesn't mean that the USA needs to have a fact-free Republican party, it could easily change if it really wanted to, at the expense of not being in power for a couple of decades.
If Democrats held power for a couple of decades, the country would be unrecognizable. Take, for example, the issue of religion. Americans are the most religious developed country by far—comparable to Iran. This drives Democrats crazy, and through the period during which they controlled the Supreme Court based on FDR’s appointments, they turned America into one of the most secular countries in the world in terms of the law. European countries far less religious than the US have far more public accommodation for things like religious instruction in schools. Imagine going into Poland or Hungary and declaring that Christianity has to be removed from schools, like in France. It doesn’t matter what you think of these policies. What do you think the societal reaction would be to that?
Or take abortion. Most of Europe’s abortion laws (in most countries, prohibiting abortions after 10-14 weeks absent some exigent circumstance) would be unconstitutional in the US under Roe. (Even Sweden’s 18 week limit would be unconstitutional.) Imagine, again, going into Poland and telling them that they have to have the same abortion laws as the Netherlands. (Even France is too conservative for this hypothetical.) Again, forget what you think of the policy. How would that play out as a matter of social and political dynamics?
> It's the difference between John McCain and Donald Trump, the one a principled politician who believed lots of things that I would not subscribe to but who was fundamentally a decent human being. Trump is not a decent human being, never was and never will be and his legacy has the power to utterly divide and destroy the United States.
I agree that McCain was a decent person and Trump is a very bad person. But apart from that, McCain wasn’t selling what Americans actually wanted. The Republican base is socially conservative, economically moderate, and wants the party to push back in cultural change. (Again, let’s keep in mind that America is conservative like Poland, not liberal like France.) McCain didn’t fight for any of those things. Trump, for all of his faults, was willing to do that. It’s unfortunate that he’s such a bad, undisciplined person, but there is a reason he got the second highest vote total of any President in history.
> Coalition governments are a lot safer in that that respect because they take away the insane power of the small fraction that decides who is king in the USA. There also is a real problem with the president having as much power as they do.
I agree Presidential systems are bad and encourage cults of personality.
> I see the USA - as one of the oldest democracies - as deeply flawed, with a thin critical path to fixing itself. If it doesn't then one day maybe sooner, maybe later, it will fall apart in either two or maybe even three countries (2x coastal, mid). That will cause a lot of grief so better to avoid that fate, which will require some major overhauling of the constitution and some power removed from the states. Time will tell, for all my friends alive in the USA right now I sincerely hope that this can be postponed long enough that the country can first heal from the last attempt at splitting it.
People say they don’t want the US to split, but nobody actually wants to do anything to prevent that. To circle back to my example, imagine your country is half Poland and half France and each side ends up governing about half the time. How would that turn out? Democrats don’t moderate themselves (on social and religious issues—the party self moderates on economic issues to keep its coalition together) because they’re convinced that they’re just one or two elections away from “demographic destiny.” And even if that’s true, France governing Poland by a permanent 53-47 margin isn’t going to lead to a happy unified country.