This has been one heck of an “oops” election season, hasn’t it? On the one hand I am enjoying the clusterfuck, on the other I fear even more for this country if any of these jokers manages to get themselves elected.
Is it actually possible that Newt might win the nomination? I mean for serious? Because I can’t imagine a better candiidate for Obama to run against.
Natalia: America for Americans! Germany for Germans! Bad comparison. If the American Republicans were a German party, they would have no political influence whatsoever, people who are openly sympathizing with them would become social outcasts, protesters would outnumber members by a large magnitude at their political functions, they would be under constant surveillance by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, and they’d be at the brink of being declared unconstitutional and disbanded.
What about the half of me that has a British passport as well as US? Does that side of me go home? 🙂
The indigenous people of the Americas aren’t heartless, though – I’m sure they’ll give us some time to get out affairs in order before we leave. Oh, wait, that’s not what he meant?
@6 I’m assuming Natalia is comparing him to Nazi political leaders of the early 1900s, not to Germany’s politicians today. HOWEVER, Angela Merkel has called the multikulti policies “a failure”, and more and more anti-Islamic, anti-Moslem rhetoric has been thrown around as of late in much of Europe. Let’s not forget France and Switzerland, banning the burqa and the construction of minarets on mosques respectively. Europe is not as vigilant and understanding as you’d think. And let’s not forget, Arabs are a Semitic people as well…
@10 The idea that members of all cultures should be assimilated into a common culture is commonplace America (the “melting pot”) and as such completely unremarkable and extolled even by left-wing politicians (President Obama praises Hawaii as “as close as you’ll come to a true melting pot of cultures”, for example). If a German right-wing politician expresses similar ideas, this gives rise to sharp criticism, and rightly so, both in Germany and abroad. (To clarify, Angela Merkel didn’t declare tolerance for members of foreign cultures a failure (she supported the idea that Islam is a part of Germany in the same speech). As I understand the situation, she was referring to the controversy whether, for example, parents should be allowed to opt their daughters out of participating in school activities such as swimming classes or overnight class trips for cultural reasons, or whether sex education should be optional, which are things I believe she can legitimately be opposed to, albeit not in the deliberately contentious way she chose to express this opposition.) (Also, compare this article on Feministeabout a German judge’s decision that, because of cultural differences, domestic violence is not a sufficient reason to grant a divorce without the mandatory one-year separation period, which seems to be a clear example of a misguided attempt at multiculturalism.) I’m not claiming that Europe is anywhere close to being perfect of course. The examples you cite are ample proof that it isn’t. What I want to point out is that there is a certain tendency for America to underestimate the severity of its problems when compared to the rest of the world, which lessens the impetus to actually respond to these problems — to get back to the issue at hand, I believe it is dangerous to dismiss events like this as “Republicans being Republicans” when the party can in fact be unfavorably compared to European right-wing extremists.