Which countries are most politically similar to the United States?

[Vice President Christian Man]

This might be on the wrong board, but which countries do you think has a similar political climate to the United States? I think that South Korea is a good parallel for now, although pre-internet the United States was unique in the sense that it lacked a strong Socialist tradition unlike some other countries (Like the UK or France) while also managing to avoid a dictatorship (although Canada did as well).

[Meclazine for Israel]

Would like to say Australia, but the political system here is more like England, for obvious reasons.

Outside politics, the 6 states of Australia share a lot of similarities with central USA.

[CumbrianLefty]

Oz isn't really that much like the UK politically IMO.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

This might be on the wrong board, but which countries do you think has a similar political climate to the United States? I think that South Korea is a good parallel for now, although pre-internet the United States was unique in the sense that it lacked a strong Socialist tradition unlike some other countries (Like the UK or France) while also managing to avoid a dictatorship (although Canada did as well).

South Korean politics have basically nothing in common with American politics -- they are widely misunderstood by the Western press, but the Presidential two-party right versus left system hides the extreme ethnonationalism and North Korean sympathies of the left, while missing the moderation of the "right," even aside from the broadly different society and culture of South Korea (there are no American chaebols, nor have there ever been.)

I agree with Australia as a suggestion. Here are some others:

Brazil -- the Brazilian right's religiosity, support for gun rights, and direct ties to the American right are  counteracted by the much greater socialism of the left, and other specific differences (ie corruption being much greater in Brazil) but there is still obviously a lot in common. Arguably, the Brazilian right has more in common with the American right than the Australian right does.

Canada -- think of this as the left wing equivalent of the Brazil point, in that the Canadian Liberals probably have more in common with the American Democratic Party than any other party in the world, even though Canada's politics as a whole are less similar to those of the US than Australia's are.

[buritobr]

Brazil has many political institutions similar to the US: presidential system, federal republic, House of Representatives in which the states are represented according to the population, Senate in which all states have the same number of senators (and Brazilian and American Senates are more powerful than European Upper Houses), judges of the Supreme Court choosen by the president and approved by the Senate.

Between 1994 and 2014, polarization in Brazil was different. It was PT (~ the left-wing of the Democrats) against a coalition of PSDB (~ the right-wing of the Democrats) and PFL (~ the Republicans).
Nowadays, the polarization PT vs Bolsonaro is very similar to Democrats vs Republicans

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

India is the one country that arguably has a more powerful Supreme Court.

Most countries don't have primaries, but a few others like Argentina have them.

[S019]

How is the answer not Canada? The Tories are one of the closest parties to the GOP, even if it is too extreme these days. (Fidesz isn’t a great comparison given the somewhat tepid economic interventionism) I don’t think I need to go over parallels between the Democrats and the Liberals. Canadian politics has also often been compared to United States politics. Western Canada especially seems to have an affinity for certain types of American-style culture wars (especially those around energy).

[Libertas Vel Mors]

How is the answer not Canada? The Tories are one of the closest parties to the GOP, even if it is too extreme these days. (Fidesz isn’t a great comparison given the somewhat tepid economic interventionism) I don’t think I need to go over parallels between the Democrats and the Liberals. Canadian politics has also often been compared to United States politics. Western Canada especially seems to have an affinity for certain types of American-style culture wars (especially those around energy).

Western Canada is clearly more similar to the US than anywhere else, but the Eastern Tories often have more in common with the British "wets" than any American equivalent, and the Liberals are far more dominant than in American politics, and the Quebecois political scene is totally non-comparable (and Quebec is a big part of Canada: 23% of the population lives in Quebec.)

[Upper Canada Tory]

How is the answer not Canada? The Tories are one of the closest parties to the GOP, even if it is too extreme these days. (Fidesz isn’t a great comparison given the somewhat tepid economic interventionism) I don’t think I need to go over parallels between the Democrats and the Liberals. Canadian politics has also often been compared to United States politics. Western Canada especially seems to have an affinity for certain types of American-style culture wars (especially those around energy).

I guess because those types of culture wars mainly get attention in the Western part of the country, while Eastern Canadian conservatism differs significantly from American politics, and Conservative leaders in Canada typically end up having to balance the ideological views of the two regions.

Similarly, the different regional interests within Canada have resulted in a more historically pragmatic Liberal Party in Canada, which supports energy projects like Keystone XL that US Democrats don't support and also is relatively nonchalant about Quebec passing laws like Bill 21 which US Democrats would openly condemn as xenophobic and a violation of religious freedom.

Simply put, maybe Canadian politics is in many ways similar to American politics, but the different regional interests within Canada create a lot of pragmatic differences between the two parties that it's hard to say with certainty that Canadian politics is the most similar to American politics (I'm not saying it's necessarily an inaccurate claim, but it's not as obviously and unambiguously accurate as it may seem).

[LabourJersey]

I think it has to be Australia.

The two-party, federal system feels closest to the US to me.

English speaking Canada is also pretty similar, but the slightly more communitarian streak plus the Quebec factor makes them less similar IMO compared to Oz.

[kwabbit]

1) Australia
2) Canada
3) UK
4) NZ

I think Anglosphere Canada is most similar, but Quebec is very dissimilar. All of them are more polarized on income and less on education, race, etc. than the United States but in each American trends are basically repeating themselves.

[buritobr]

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.

[OSR stands with Israel]

How is the answer not Canada? The Tories are one of the closest parties to the GOP, even if it is too extreme these days. (Fidesz isn’t a great comparison given the somewhat tepid economic interventionism) I don’t think I need to go over parallels between the Democrats and the Liberals. Canadian politics has also often been compared to United States politics. Western Canada especially seems to have an affinity for certain types of American-style culture wars (especially those around energy).

Western Canada is clearly more similar to the US than anywhere else, but the Eastern Tories often have more in common with the British "wets" than any American equivalent, and the Liberals are far more dominant than in American politics, and the Quebecois political scene is totally non-comparable (and Quebec is a big part of Canada: 23% of the population lives in Quebec.)

I actually have to dispute this. Ever since the 1980s realignments in both nations that broke Democratic/Liberal Party dominance, the liberals have not far been more dominant than the dems have.

Since 1980 the GOP has been in power for 24 years compared to the Dems with 20 so the GOP has been in power 54.5% of the time .

Since 1984 the Tories have been in power for around 19 years compared to the Liberals around 21 so The Tories have been in power 47.5% of the time.


So while the Liberals are slightly more more dominant than the Democrats, its not far more and I wouldnt say any of the major parties in either the US or Canada have been dominant since Reagan's win in 1980 or Mulroney's win in 1984.

[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.

[CumbrianLefty]

How is the answer not Canada? The Tories are one of the closest parties to the GOP, even if it is too extreme these days. (Fidesz isn’t a great comparison given the somewhat tepid economic interventionism) I don’t think I need to go over parallels between the Democrats and the Liberals. Canadian politics has also often been compared to United States politics. Western Canada especially seems to have an affinity for certain types of American-style culture wars (especially those around energy).

Western Canada is clearly more similar to the US than anywhere else, but the Eastern Tories often have more in common with the British "wets" than any American equivalent, and the Liberals are far more dominant than in American politics, and the Quebecois political scene is totally non-comparable (and Quebec is a big part of Canada: 23% of the population lives in Quebec.)

I actually have to dispute this. Ever since the 1980s realignments in both nations that broke Democratic/Liberal Party dominance, the liberals have not far been more dominant than the dems have.

Since 1980 the GOP has been in power for 24 years compared to the Dems with 20 so the GOP has been in power 54.5% of the time .

Since 1984 the Tories have been in power for around 19 years compared to the Liberals around 21 so The Tories have been in power 47.5% of the time.


So while the Liberals are slightly more more dominant than the Democrats, its not far more and I wouldnt say any of the major parties in either the US or Canada have been dominant since Reagan's win in 1980 or Mulroney's win in 1984.

And since 1992/93?

Surely the GOP only winning the popular vote once since 1988 must stand out.

[OSR stands with Israel]

How is the answer not Canada? The Tories are one of the closest parties to the GOP, even if it is too extreme these days. (Fidesz isn’t a great comparison given the somewhat tepid economic interventionism) I don’t think I need to go over parallels between the Democrats and the Liberals. Canadian politics has also often been compared to United States politics. Western Canada especially seems to have an affinity for certain types of American-style culture wars (especially those around energy).

Western Canada is clearly more similar to the US than anywhere else, but the Eastern Tories often have more in common with the British "wets" than any American equivalent, and the Liberals are far more dominant than in American politics, and the Quebecois political scene is totally non-comparable (and Quebec is a big part of Canada: 23% of the population lives in Quebec.)

I actually have to dispute this. Ever since the 1980s realignments in both nations that broke Democratic/Liberal Party dominance, the liberals have not far been more dominant than the dems have.

Since 1980 the GOP has been in power for 24 years compared to the Dems with 20 so the GOP has been in power 54.5% of the time .

Since 1984 the Tories have been in power for around 19 years compared to the Liberals around 21 so The Tories have been in power 47.5% of the time.


So while the Liberals are slightly more more dominant than the Democrats, its not far more and I wouldnt say any of the major parties in either the US or Canada have been dominant since Reagan's win in 1980 or Mulroney's win in 1984.

And since 1992/93?

Surely the GOP only winning the popular vote once since 1988 must stand out.

Tories have been in power for around 10 years while the GOP has been in for 12. Just as the GOP has only one the NPV once since 1992, the Tories have only won one majority government since 1993 as well

[jojoju1998]

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.

https://theweek.com/politics/1005146/the-us-has-more-in-common-with-south-america-than-europe

[LabourJersey]

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.

https://theweek.com/politics/1005146/the-us-has-more-in-common-with-south-america-than-europe

The author of that article was a professor of mine in college, oddly enough.

[CumbrianLefty]

How is the answer not Canada? The Tories are one of the closest parties to the GOP, even if it is too extreme these days. (Fidesz isn’t a great comparison given the somewhat tepid economic interventionism) I don’t think I need to go over parallels between the Democrats and the Liberals. Canadian politics has also often been compared to United States politics. Western Canada especially seems to have an affinity for certain types of American-style culture wars (especially those around energy).

Western Canada is clearly more similar to the US than anywhere else, but the Eastern Tories often have more in common with the British "wets" than any American equivalent, and the Liberals are far more dominant than in American politics, and the Quebecois political scene is totally non-comparable (and Quebec is a big part of Canada: 23% of the population lives in Quebec.)

I actually have to dispute this. Ever since the 1980s realignments in both nations that broke Democratic/Liberal Party dominance, the liberals have not far been more dominant than the dems have.

Since 1980 the GOP has been in power for 24 years compared to the Dems with 20 so the GOP has been in power 54.5% of the time .

Since 1984 the Tories have been in power for around 19 years compared to the Liberals around 21 so The Tories have been in power 47.5% of the time.


So while the Liberals are slightly more more dominant than the Democrats, its not far more and I wouldnt say any of the major parties in either the US or Canada have been dominant since Reagan's win in 1980 or Mulroney's win in 1984.

And since 1992/93?

Surely the GOP only winning the popular vote once since 1988 must stand out.

Tories have been in power for around 10 years while the GOP has been in for 12. Just as the GOP has only one the NPV once since 1992, the Tories have only won one majority government since 1993 as well

Indeed - my point being that following their *initial* period of dominance in the 1980s, their record is somewhat less impressive. And yes, the same is true of the UK Tories despite their being in power for most of that period - only one sizeable majority since 1987 tells a rather different story there.

[Aurelius2]

Hot take: France

[sarunn60]

Canada definitely.

[Upper Canada Tory]

Hot take: France

Out of curiosity, why France?

Their political spectrum actually seems significantly different from the US, with their right wing being less freedom focused and more nationalism focused, with their multiparty system as opposed to the two party system in the US, with the centre having a stronger presence (Macron would be a moderate Democrat in the US but is a centrist in France) and the left being much further left economically and having a history of favouring openly socialist policies.

One other difference about economic policy is that the centre in France (as in, Macron types) is the most economically right wing - both the left and the right tend to be more economically left-leaning than the centre.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Dark horse potential candidate: Colombia.

[buritobr]

Hot take: France

Holland vs Sarkozy in 2012 had a very Democratic vs Republican demographics

[ملكة كرينجيتوك]

Hot take: France

Out of curiosity, why France?

Their political spectrum actually seems significantly different from the US, with their right wing being less freedom focused and more nationalism focused, with their multiparty system as opposed to the two party system in the US, with the centre having a stronger presence (Macron would be a moderate Democrat in the US but is a centrist in France) and the left being much further left economically and having a history of favouring openly socialist policies.

One other difference about economic policy is that the centre in France (as in, Macron types) is the most economically right wing - both the left and the right tend to be more economically left-leaning than the centre.

Trump's realignment of the parties has arguably culminated into an ideological tripolar realignment; I assume the US is further along in this process than the other Anglosphere liberal democracies. (Canada actually has 3 major parties but I'm not knowledgeable enough about Canadian party politics to assess how well the parties represent a distinct 'left', 'center', and 'right').

Maybe; I would argue that America's party system is slowly or rapidly becoming more like the current French tripolar system, but keeping on to the 2 party labels of D and R.

Currently France has a well defined Left, Center, and Right.

America has a very small Left (Squad/Progressives), fairly large Center (dominated by Democrats and a few Republicans like Murkowski, Meijer, Cheney, and Collins), and a robust, but alienating Right.

Our primary system has become very clearly a system defined by these three poles with Democrats fighting between Leftists and Centrists, and Republicans fighting between Centrists and Rightists (more like Establishment vs Trumpists). Primaries were not this ideological even 10 years ago (2008 or 2012 for both parties lacked this ideological divide).

It will be interesting to see how the Republican party handles power - I think the divide between the Center and Right will become more prominent when they take power again especially because it looks like the Right has been co-opted by the Trump celebrity machine.