what are they doing over there? American politics from a European perspective

My grandmother first came to the United States as a young German girl in 1964 as a Girl Scout camp leader. My grandmother still tells me this every time I tell her I’m a visiting student at Duke University. It was one of the greatest adventures of her life, and the United States represented everything she wanted to be. They defeated the Nazis and liberated Germany, and just four years after the end of the war, they were supplying the capital (and my hometown) with the Berlin Airlift during the Berlin Blockade.

As I prepared for Duke University, I realized how much my perception of the United States, and my expectations, had changed since my grandmother’s visit. Instead of the strong optimism she experienced, I felt somewhere between extremely excited and genuinely anxious. The America I was about to encounter seemed more divided and more uncertain. The Trump administration and its changes and abandonment of many multilateral treaties have weakened confidence in the United States as a reliable partner, and ultimately the January 6 attack shows how vulnerable one of the world’s oldest democracies is. showed the world what it is. So one of my goals when I came here was to understand what had changed, what was very different, in the U.S. political system compared to the changes in Germany.

I was struck by how deeply the two-party system influences political discourse in an increasingly polarized America. Apart from being obvious points of criticism with many obvious flaws, many have pointed out that it is possible to win the popular vote but not the election (most recently in 2000 and 2016). I would argue that it has an impact on everyday debate. .

When I came to Duke University, I was struck by how American voters so often seemed uninterested in discussing the election, even though the election was less than two months away. Ta. I learned that if you’re not politically active, it’s not that important to discuss specific political issues because most voters always vote for one party and the direct impact is relatively small. Political disillusionment, or lack of trust in political institutions, goes far beyond voter turnout.

It was in stark contrast to the relaxed, everyday political discussions I had in Berlin (which, to be fair, is a well-educated, liberal city). You can talk about relationships, homework, and the global climate crisis all at once. I would argue that since Germany has around seven major political parties, the debate can become more policy-focused. Parties need to persuade voters not just to vote for other parties, but to vote for them. Germany has very similar problems of populism and government incompetence, but the arguments are different.

When we talk about discourse, we have to talk about polarization. In addition to the apathy I mentioned earlier, I have also met people who are simply afraid of the reaction to their political opinions. When sections of the population become so polarized that they stop talking to each other, they pose a greater threat to democracy than actual anti-democratic candidates. Interestingly, perceived polarization, or how people think about each other, is often higher than actual polarization, or actual behavior or beliefs. This gives me personal hope that reversing this process is easier than many people think. Changing people’s opinions about others is easier than changing their core beliefs and habits.

Another observation I made is that many people’s primary focus is on local politics, then state government, then perhaps the federal government, and finally global news. This partly leads to a lack of knowledge about fundamental global issues. While the Western Hemisphere generally has blind spots when it comes to issues affecting the Global South, this only regional and federal focus means that many Europeans do not pay close attention to U.S. news and politics. This is in sharp contrast to what they are paying.

On issues such as Russia’s war with Ukraine, this difference has a geographic and geopolitical component. U.S. government officials and some voters believe that China has a higher national security profile than Russia, in part because U.S.-centered education and media tend to focus on issues that directly affect U.S. economic and security interests. seen as a major threat to This can be seen in recent presidential debates. Recent research shows that Americans care deeply about these issues, and there’s no better place to learn about them than at Duke.