As an American, how would you describe the last decade of American politics?

An absolute shitshow.

4 years of Trump = chaos, staff churning, name calling, etc.

4 years of Biden = some said he was sharp as a tack (including people on Fluther) but many said he wasn’t. Then the disaster of a debate happened and the country seemed to agree he wasn’t sharp as a tack.

Now Trump again, and everything is upside down. Prices in grocery stores were supposed to drop, now they’re not. Fighting with our friends Canada. Humiliating our friend Zelenskyy. Trade war. Stocks tanking. The Vice President is a Muskrat who has more power than Vance. This is all within less than two months.

As an outsider looking in , I see nothing but corruption and chaos, endless lies and starting a dumb trade war with us (Canada) saying we have treated them the usa very poorly,saying the free trade agreement was the worst deal ever uh TRUMP was the one who signed it and at the time said best deal ever.

I see a Democratic Party funded by oligarchs hell-bent on preventing progressives who would easily crush MAGA from gaining power. First people need to understand that it’s a fact that the DNC would rather Trump be in office than a progressive. Then they need to understand WHY that is the case. If they understand it, all of those weird decisions that don’t really make much sense, start to make a hell of a lot more sense.

A chaotic shit-show.

In 2015, the DNC tried to shoe-in Clinton, but Bernie Sanders appeared and was much more popular with most of the people who paid attention, because he’s actually honest and an advocate for the people over corporations (i.e. “Progressive”), which meant he was a target for both parties and all the powers-that-be, who now dominate the media and political donations.

Because the Citizens United SCOTUS ruling allows corporate donations, and because we have a two-party-dominated first-past-the-post voting system, that meant Sanders needed the support of the DNC to win, which of course he didn’t get because the DNC is in the pocket of status-quo oligarchs.

Despite all the disadvantages, he came remarkably close, because he was significantly more popular than either big-party candidate, and is a great example of why the US needs a better voting system such as Ranked Choice, or Instant-Run-Off, rather than the dirt-stupid first-past-the-post that almost ensures all major elections will be won by one of the two big parties, which are both beholden to big donations.

The 2015 Republican candidates were pretty trash but to most people’s surprise, they were actually beaten by an outsider (Trump) loose-cannon idiot clown car candidate (q.v. Monty Python’s “Silly Party”, except not with his own party yet).

Clinton phoned in the campaigning, expecting to win, but barely lost due not to having fewer votes, but because of our electoral college.

Four years of destructive chaos ensued as Trump spouted non-stop lies, appointed corporate saboteurs to head practically all government departments, and he appointed right-wing loyalist judges as fast as he could, COVID happened, Trump was nuts, and abused his power and should have been ejected from office for colluding with Russians, and abusing US diplomatic power to try to get Zelensky to falsely prosecute Hunter Biden, etc. Trump then lost re-election but tried to say it was stolen, and tried insurrection, and various corrupt schemes to cheat and stay President. A general even warned China that Trump might try to provoke war to stay in office.

Despite all that, as well as leaking lists of spies, and selling Top Secret military documents to foreign powers, various criminal cases including 34 felony convictions, and being found liable for sexual abuse, etc, somehow the DOJ and military intelligence failed to take Trump out of the running for 2024, and somehow the corporate news media (especially Fox News, which is included free with basic cable TV deals, and the lowest common denominator in where apathetic people get their info) managed to convince enough people to consider him a viable candidate again.

Meanwhile, Republicans were very busy getting voter rolls purged of likely non-Republican voters as much as possible. And apparently someone installed software that skewed the votes in the vital “swing states” (the only undecided states, which end up deciding who wins), which was apparently not brought to enough light before the rituals re-placed Trump in charge.

And of course, in the last few months, it’s been abundantly clear that Trump is a crazy Russian asset who is trying to become a dictator or at least to do as much damage as possible on behalf of Russia before someone somehow ejects him from office.

I think as an outsider (Canadian) that the Great American Experiment is almost done.

We will find out if democracy, capitalism, and constitutional rights and freedoms, are positive, negative or neutral.