Which countries are most politically similar to the United States?

[Red Velvet]

The polarization of all western countries are become americanized. Class polarization is disappearing. The parties of the left are becoming the parties of the minorities, immigrants and very educated native whites, while the parties of the right are becoming the parties of the not so educated native white population.

That’s why I disagree about US and Brazil being similar. You have the Brazilian Right attempting to mimic (while still not having any intellectual structure to really do it) the American Right even harder than ever as it’s something they’ve always done but that’s it. Way too forced and artificial to be a real thing.

Best way to think US itself is like any regular Developed Country politics but with Latin American high levels of inequality that developed countries normally don’t have, which makes their politics not quite like other developed countries either. In GINI metrics of inequality for instance, US doesn’t compare to Europe or even Canada at all, but to LatAm.

And is exactly why uneducated money-hungry elites and aspiring members in LatAm have US as a western reference instead of say, Europe (the fave of cultural intelectual white elites), as it’s an example of a model where they would have free pass to f*** everyone down below as they wish while that being unquestioned as their “freedom”.

Freedom of white supremacism and to keep the proletariat under eternal slavery, more like. There is difference from LatAm that in US even those poorer segments are duped into believing they have something because “it’s richest country on Earth” and the purchasing power is good enough even if it’s nothing compared to the one from higher classes.

Inequality in US in under a continuous growing trend since FDR new dealism was replaced by Reagan neoliberalism as a national consensus though, so the elites there will eventually change their mindset for the sake of their own survival or the country will reach a boiling point for social upheaval that hopefully makes it collapse like the Communist accelerationists want.

Like, the US has some levels of poverty and social/infrastructure deterioration that are unexplainable looking at just their GDP per capita - which is absurdly high, in the top 10 of the world, behind only super rich small places like Luxembourg, Switzerland or Norway - that’s the group where US should be but if you actually see how the US actually looks like, it often has many places with levels of poverty that are absurd, with people living in the streets and drug neighborhoods with high-violence levels that is more better explained when you get that it has LatAm levels of inequality and elites with a similar mindset that prefer living as Kings in a poorer country than like Nobles in a richer country.

Notice that many US urban centers have violence levels comparable or even higher than urban centers in Latin America, on par with Mexico, which has the most violent cities.

[Red Velvet]

So who is their Obama and GWB?

Lula 1.0 was a combination of FDR and Obama

But the parallels in recent years was stark. Dilma was impeached in August 2016 after conservative backlash. Watch this documentary on Netflix. The rightwing movement to impeach her took a lot of inspiration from the American conservative movement.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6016744/

“Edge of Democracy” is a great Academy Award nominated movie about Brazilian politics between 2013-2018 specifically.

It captures what it was like following Brazil politics between the June 2013 protests (eruption of anti-politics and anti-establishment sentiment) and Bolsonaro’s election, which was the culmination of that revolt.

A movie about other periods would feel very different as they each had their own vibe. 2013-2018 is very specific in depicting the beginning of polarization and its peak in 2018 with Bolsonarism winning.

As good as the documentary is, it doesn’t fully capture all the details that broadly characterize Brazilian politics.

[Red Velvet]

No European country can truly be the "most similar" to the US because none of them have the legacy of being a frontier and a settled nation in the way that the Americas and Australia were.

To previous posters' point, Brazil is a much better answer here than any of the European countries mentioned.

USA history of segregation puts it closer to Europe than to LatAm culturally on maaaany respects though.

Best way to interpret USA is somewhere in-between Northern Europe and LatAm, with mixed characteristics of both. Not fully like any of the two.

Of the options in LatAm, Brazil maybe is more common comparison because of size and also because of the influence of slavery from Africa in the make-up of the country, in most Hispanic countries a lot of the exploitation happened more strongly with local Indigenous.

But the way USA and Brazil culturally interacted with and developed under these similar influences could honestly not be more different from one another. USA will be culturally much closer to places like UK and Canada before Brazil and that has a direct effect onto politics.

I felt culturally closer to home much more in Portugal; Argentina or even Spain than I did while in USA, for instance.

Always better to think of USA as a buffer zone between LatAm (Americas in general tbh) and Northern Europe. It’s their own thing with significant combined elements of both these regions.

Kinda like Southern Europe is also somewhere located somewhere in-between Northern Europe and Latin America, but regarding different elements.

Answer to the main question is obviously Canada and Australia and even those have their own particularities.

This map isn’t about politics/culture only, it includes other elements such as geography and wealth (infrastructure) that will naturally push it closer to other rich countries, but it provides some decent notion to the top 5 main countries that are comparable to US since they have to be somewhat score high on all categories:



Whereas Brazil is obviously most similar to every Latin American country AND also Southern Europe before being close to the USA:

[Red Velvet]

According to the same website, these are the closest comparisons to Brazil on each separate category:

Most Similar Demographics: Dominican Republic (Latin America)
Most Similar Culture: Portugal (Europe)
Most Similar Government: Argentina (Latin America)
Most Similar Infrastructure: Colombia (Latin America)
Most Similar Geography: Venezuela (Latin America)

And these are the closest comparisons to USA on the same categories:

Most Similar Demographics: Canada (Anglo America)
Most Similar Culture: Australia (Oceania, also a former Anglo Colony)
Most Similar Government: Canada (Anglo America)
Most Similar Infrastructure: Canada (Anglo America)
Most Similar Geography: Mexico (Latin America)

[Red Velvet]

Most Similar Demographics: Luxembourg
Most Similar Culture: Luxembourg
Most Similar Government: Spain
Most Similar Infrastructure: France
Most Similar Geography: Netherlands

I feel like for the most part it is just the further located a country is the less similarity it'll have basically, so it's kinda pointless, especially since overall a lot of factors here basically are related to distance (culture, language, etc).

Yeah, but like, it’s normal for neighbors to tend to be more similar to each other than to places that are very distant.

There are exceptions because of colonization - ex: Anglos influence in both USA/Canada and Australia/New Zealand, making those be quite similar to each other because British went to live in both. But it’s generally normal for you to be more similar to places that are closer to you or that you have some historical influence/relation with.

The Belgium comparisons seem about right to me, though I am not familiar with its politics to understand why the government closest association is with Spain.

Personally, I agree with almost all Brazilian comparisons. Ideologically in politics, I do feel like Argentinians are the closest to Brazilians as we’ve gone through somewhat similar things most of the time, so the Government comparison is spot on.

In infrastructure, Brazil is very regionally diversified tbh, the Southern region can be closer to Uruguay and Argentina but the Northern part lacks a lot because of Amazon and drier climate, more on par with poorer segments of LatAm, so I do believe Colombia is the perfect middle-ground standard LatAm country to be compared with.

The Dominican Republic in demographics isn’t too exact but it’s really the closest comparison as they received significant African influence as well, mixed with the Indigenous and European.  Other possible adequate comparisons besides DR imo would be Cuba and low-key Colombia too.

Geography there isn’t any other country to compare but we’re not an Andean country and Uruguay and Paraguay are too one-note on that regard, so Venezuela probably is the neighbor with closest geography, also being part of the Amazon.

Culturally is where I get hesitant, as I personally feel we are more culturally closer to Hispanic LatAm neighbors than we are to Portugal in behavioral terms, however, I understand that culture isn’t related to just that and also includes things like architecture, food, history that I can see why they would put Portugal as closest comparison as we don’t have any Luso neighbor in LatAm itself.

This is how the website describes different countries and I find it quite interesting:

USA: Canada, if it was more like Mexico
Canada: USA, if it was more like Sweden
Brazil: Colombia, if it was more like Portugal
Mexico: Colombia, if it was more like USA
Argentina: Uruguay, if it was more like Mexico
Uruguay: Argentina, if it was more like The Netherlands
Chile: Argentina, if it was more like Colombia
Venezuela: Colombia, if it was more like Cuba
Colombia: Ecuador, if it was more like Venezuela
Cuba: DR, if it was more like Belarus
DR: Panama, if it was more like Haiti
Haiti: DR, if it was more like Burundi

Notice how every country on the Americas tends to be defined as a mix of two different American countries. Exceptions are only Brazil (because we’re the only Luso-American country in the continent) and Canada + Uruguay (Highly developed countries that are both more liberal than their neighbors and have a very specific geography that distinguishes them too). Oh and it happens with Cuba and Haiti too for obvious but different reasons.

I think you CAN argue that USA is the most Latin American Anglo country, but it’s still very much an Anglo country yeah. A Mexicanized Canada is kind of perfect description actually, because it feels like this buffer mixed zone in some elements yeah.

Same thing happens within European countries, their closest comparisons are amongst two of themselves, exception being only Spain and Portugal due to their cultural similarities towards LatAm former colonies. And Switzerland and Russia, which are compared to Canada on so e level that I don’t understand.

UK: Ireland, if it was more like Denmark
Germany: Austria, if it was more like The Netherlands
Austria: Germany, if it was more like Slovakia
Netherlands: Belgium, if it was more like the UK
Belgium: Netherlands, if it was more like France
France: Belgium, if it was more like Portugal
Switzerland: Austria, if it was more like Canada
Sweden: Norway, if it was more like Finland
Italy: Spain, if it was more like Croatia
Spain: Portugal, if it was more like Chile
Portugal: Spain, if it was more like Brazil
Poland: Czechia, if it was more like Romania
Ukraine: Belarus, if it were more like Bulgaria
Russia: Belarus, if it was more like Canada
Belarus: Ukraine, if it was more like Russia (lol)

Even for places that are between different regions, the comparison they make feels apt, being a mix of those two regions:

Turkey: Azerbaijan, if it was more like Italy

And just for the sake of curiosity…

Israel: Tunisia, if it was more like Germany
Australia: New Zealand, if it was more like South Africa
South Africa: Botswana, if it was more like The Netherlands
Angola: Mozambique, if it was more like Congo
Nigeria: Ghana, if it was more like Niger
Japan: Taiwan, if it was more like the UK
South Korea: Japan, if it was more like North Korea
China: Taiwan, if it was more like North Korea
Taiwan: China, if it was more like Japan
India: Nepal, if it was more like Sri Lanka
Iran: Iraq, if it was more like Tajikistan
Morocco: Algeria, if was more like Turkey

[Red Velvet]

https://i0.wp.com/objectivelists.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/belgium-similarity-3-01.jpg?resize=1140%2C570&ssl=1

This is how the website describes different countries and I find it quite interesting:

-snip-

I think you CAN argue that USA is the most Latin American Anglo country, but it’s still very much an Anglo country yeah. A Mexicanized Canada is kind of perfect description actually, because it feels like this buffer mixed zone in some elements yeah.

Same thing happens within European countries, their closest comparisons are amongst two of themselves, exception being only Spain and Portugal due to their cultural similarities towards LatAm former colonies. And Switzerland and Russia, which are compared to Canada on so e level that I don’t understand.

-snip-

Even for places that are between different regions, the comparison they make feels apt, being a mix of those two regions:

Turkey: Azerbaijan, if it was more like Italy

And just for the sake of curiosity…

Israel: Tunisia, if it was more like Germany
Australia: New Zealand, if it was more like South Africa
South Africa: Botswana, if it was more like The Netherlands
Angola: Mozambique, if it was more like Congo
Nigeria: Ghana, if it was more like Niger
Japan: Taiwan, if it was more like the UK
South Korea: Japan, if it was more like North Korea
China: Taiwan, if it was more like North Korea
Taiwan: China, if it was more like Japan
India: Nepal, if it was more like Sri Lanka
Iran: Iraq, if it was more like Tajikistan
Morocco: Algeria, if was more like Turkey

The last section makes intuitive sense to me. Each country is more similar to the first one than the second one.

Israel: Arabic speaking Middle Eastern country that is WEIRD and superficially Westernized
Australia: Commonwealth Southern Hemisphere Euro settler state with South Africa’s climate and topography
Nigeria: coastal, relatively non-fragile West African state that’s also very big and internally diverse
Japan: coastal, Confucianist East Asian country that’s also an island nation
South Korea: coastal, Confucianist, non-Chinese East Asian country that shares a common culture and language with Best Korea
China: demographically and culturally Chinese society under authoritarian, nominally Communist rule
Taiwan: demographically and culturally Chinese society that is maritime, highly developed, and a former Japanese colony
India: continental, majority Hindu, partly Indo-Aryan speaking country that also scores highly on certain human development metrics, also has a Dravidian speaking minority, and is clearly within the tropics?
Iran: coastal, subtropical, oil-rich desert country that speaks an Indo-European language and is relatively mountainous
Morocco: Arabized Muslim North African country that’s further away from the Arabic heartland and more subject to European (post)colonial influence

It’s the case with American and European countries too. Notice that the 1st stronger option is always someone from the same region, with the 2nd is mostly about having elements that you sprinkle onto the 1st to make that country.

We were talking about USA being mostly comparable with other settler Anglo countries (ex: Australia; Canada) but it also has some Latin American elements of inequality or even violence that distinguish it from other Anglo countries too.

That’s why “USA = Canada if it was more like Mexico” a very good description too. It does feel like a transition zone between Canada and Mexico indeed.

Canada is also a more liberal USA, with better quality of life, which makes “Canada = USA if it was more like Sweden” very good comparison too as it has similarities to those Scandinavian countries in its politics, also feeling like something in-between those two countries.