Entering the US was already a large hassle, but with Trump's travel bans, rumors of phone, laptop, and social media checks, we have decided to postpone our travel plans until the political/security climate improves.
Semi-related: we were in the market for a new car. One of the factors we decided to go for a European car this time (we had a Ford Focus before) is that we'd like to support Trump America as little as possible.
Before you say that this is overreacting, hear me out: the US belongs to US citizens. If you want this president, fine. But some of his policies, such as denying climate change and undermining journalism is going te have a large influence on the rest of us.
Also, surprise! European nations often sell their municipal bonds (to fund local projects) to American companies. Using Ford specifically as an example, I know someone who works for a local municipality in Finland and travels to Detroit every so often to sell their muni bonds to the US auto companies.
TL;DR the global flow of capital is absurdly interconnected. Trying to "hurt" a nation by not buying their goods can just as easily hurt your own country.
Car manufacturing is also a rather tough business to be in today - definitely not the money hiding type, but rather the "we build a factory in <insert industrial town with unemployment here> if you give some sort of tax break for a couple of years".
That is demonstrably and absolutely false.
As for Canadians in Trump era: 'Refusals of Canadians at American land crossings dropped 8.5 per cent between October and the end of February compared with the same five-month period a year earlier, according to U.S. government statistics. The total number of Canadian travellers denied entry also dropped: 6,875 out of 12,991,027 were refused entry, a refusal rate of 0.05 per cent. Between October 2015 and February 2016, 7,619 out of 13,173,100 Canadian travellers were denied entry to the U.S., a refusal rate of 0.06 per cent.'
http://www.macleans.ca/news/number-of-canadians-turned-away-...
Most of this stuff is a reaction to that, and it still lingers.
Those are the rules for democracy, so he is the legitimately elected president.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/10/13587462/...
The remaining 43% voted for 'I'll take whoever wins'. So, ~72% of the eligible voters can be held accountable for him becoming president.
Those are the rules for democracy, so he is the legitimately elected president.
Definitely, it is legitimate, even if we don't like the outcome ;).
Or they lived in some of those insane regions where only a single voting office served thousands of people and couldn't affording standing outside for 8+ hours, or they couldn't get a tuesday off (sane countries allot a whole weekend for voting), or they couldn't afford to get sufficient id to satisfy their state's demands. (Yes, i know, mail-in voting is a thing, but i'm sure there are good reasons to keep people from using that as well.)
There's plenty of reasons otherwise eligible voters didn't vote beyond "didn't care" and many of them are "they were prevented from doing so by institutional problems".
Really, that's how it is in US? Any semi-decent country is responsible for creating comfortable conditions for anyone to vote.
Here in Poland there were 28k voting offices for 30 million of potential voters, so there's on average little more than 1k voters per office. It is almost impossible to be waiting in line for more than 5-10 minutes, even in the most crowded offices.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/opinion/long-lines-at-min...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_suppression_in_the_Unite...
Elections are mostly regulated at the state and county level, which causes a lot of disparities in registration law and polling place funding. Invariably every election during the non-stop coverage, you'll see the pictures of the long lines wrapped around blocks in cities throughout the country, but especially in Republican controlled swing states. I think it's an utter failure of our society that we can't hold elections with fair and accessible voting methods.
'Democracy in America', by Alexis de Tocqueville is still about as valid today as when it was written. In that he describes this scene where townspeople literally shoot at a farmer to keep him away from the polls. Not all that different than the gun toting individuals who show up to polling places today to 'protect' the vote.
Feel free to replace with "No true Scotsman".
And honestly, having big states control who becomes president just because of their population, given how independent states should function, is a cornerstone of the electoral college.
Something closer to that might be enough. However, I don't think that the electoral college could be changed because the parties responsible for changing it would be decreasing their electorates influence in the government which might be unpopular with said electorate.
That's great and might seem scary to some, but nothing close to that has ever happened.
This used to be true, but as more government control has been ceded to the federal government I don't believe this to be the case. The President is not all powerful either, this should be a fully democratic election. Also, the electoral college was broken when states started alotting their votes in a winner take all manner.
Maybe this is the problem then? If you have less federal government control, and more state-level control then it wouldn't be as big of a deal if Trump is elected if you're a Californian. Likewise with a democratic candidate.
And the current setup actually works pretty well. You should get diminishing returns on popular vote in a republic. Otherwise you have some areas that dominate others instead of a balance. In other words, you don't punish people/states that are not highly populated. It may not have worked out for us this time around, but it's more fair. If you want a different system, then abolish the Republic and the States.
What is it with non-US citizens in this thread? Honestly, none of you seem to have a good understanding of US politics and are being very insulting.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Inters...
This created a problem, as the get out the vote efforts from groups like unions and others were tepid as a result, and the GOP isn't stupid and courted these voters pretty heavily. The other thing is that the Democrats over-relied on minority voters as a key base, which didn't work out for a variety of reasons.
I think strategically they missed the fact the ethnic voting requires an ethnic candidate. They also missed that certain key platform positions alienate ethnic factions of their voting base. In the old days, the Irish-Catholic political machines didn't run aging teetotaler baptists as candidates for a good reason!
Basically, Mrs. Clinton ran a campaign that was divided, disorganized and poorly administered, which crippled her ability to make appropriate decisions. Trump's opportunism, marketing savvy, and tight team made his campaign agile and tightly focused on the objective. When the campaign had internal divisions, he purged the dissenters and moved on.
They made a choice to let Trump win, just to tell Hillary (and the Democratic Party) that they didn't like her!
https://www.forbes.com/sites/omribenshahar/2016/11/17/the-no...
Fixing that would be great (most sensible solutions would probably also fix our massive gerrymandering problem at the same time) but is unlikely to happen any time soon.
It's guaranteed not to happen as long as you vote for the big two parties, making sure it doesn't is one of the things that gets bipartisan support.
While I agree a win for a third party likely end with the new party entrenching itself like one of the current two, that seems like the best way to get a new party devoted to fixing this to emerge.
Not voting is a form of expression as valid as any other.
You really don't have to accept a very bad candidate and by doing so you signal future candidates the availability of "free" votes.
Now, I admit that voting NULL is a stronger message, but is it really an option?
Absolutely according to the rules in force in the USA. Other countries have different rules, and I don't think that there is some set of unique 'best rules' for this.
UK tomorrow many of us are voting for the mayors of 'combined authorities'. The voting paper has two columns for each candidate and you get to state a first preference and a second preference - they call it the supplimentary voting system
https://www.wmcaelects.co.uk/frequently-asked-questions/
It will be 'interesting' to see how this one works in an election that noone especially wanted and that traditionally has a very low turnout - but at least we are trying different approaches.
Mr Street said it was the start of a "new, urban Conservative agenda".
Overall, 26% of eligible voters chose a candidate with most people staying away from the polling stations on Thursday." [1]
So, the man has a majority of less than 2% in an election where just a tad over one quarter of those eligible actually voted. He is in charge of a unitary authority where most of the constituent authorities have Labour administrations.
What kind of mandate do you think this chap has?
Those are the rules for American democracy, which has many flaws, an inherent two party system being one of the major ones.
The who-voted-for-whom discussion in one of adjacent subthreads just sounds like airing dirty laundry in front of everybody - nobody cares, it just makes you look bad.
The gerrymandered system with even more party control is not the system that has been in place for anywhere near that amount of that time.
The parties in place dont have that kind of history either.
Our voting laws are different, even non-white men can vote now! (though they are disenfranchised as much as possible.)
Basically, the system is constantly in flux, ad yes, we get to complain about it all we want and change it (again.)
There are maybe two states that have large electoral college districts that could be impacted by it, but they are irrelevant in the larger picture.
But changing it requires changing the Constitution, which requires a supermajority of state legislatures—and the electoral college shifts power from citizens and the federal government to states.
This hack lowers the barrier, but not by enough, at least yet.
I have always wondered how hard it would be to switch to direct voting rather as opposed to the system with an electoral college. Is it impossible because the current system is codified in the constitution, or does it 'only' require an amendment. If so, was there ever a serious attempt to change this system?
The constitution simply says that each state gets to appoint its electors as it sees fit.
Wit that in mind, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact [0] commits states that adopt it to appointing their electors in line with the national popular vote: e.g., in the 2016 election, had it been in force, every state that had adopted it would have chosen electors for Hillary, regardless of how the vote in that state fell.
So far, it has been adopted in principle by 10 states and the District of Columbia. However, it doesn't come into force until adopted by enough states to achieve an absolute majority in the electoral college; currently, it's 105 votes shy.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta...
The system was designed to avoid the concentration of power you desire.
And saying the US system "was designed to avoid the concentration of power" sounds like a sad joke from an European perspective (First-past-post-system, extreme presidential powers etc.)
They were submitted as (sometimes secret) change requests by every president post WW2 and accelerated by presidents in the last ~20 years. Unfortunately, the code review team didn't remove the changes and tacked on their own during the process.
They started way sooner than that, the first major one was the Louisiana Purchase. Basically non-Washington presidents have been trying to expand their power.
When the constitution was first signed if votes had been distributed by population the Southern states would have essentially never had a voice, which was a non-starter for them. Considering that these states were also the economic power houses of the US, not including them was also a non-starter. The electoral college coupled with the 3/5ths compromise was the eventual solution to this problem.
1.) The constitution can be changed 2.) The thing the changes the constitution is an amendment.
You're prescribing a lot of "this is how the US political system should work" without really (it seems) understanding it.
In the end, the idea that low population area have more impact-per-voter comes from the need to keep people united and making sure that high population areas don't completely out vote the needs of the other areas. The obvious alternative is independence, so instead of one united states you would have several smaller countries based on common needs.
I like NZ's MMP (Mixed Member Proportional) system, but there are others that work too. Anything that results in fewer, bigger districts electing multiple representatives should break the power of gerrymandering. And Proportional representation makes 3rd parties viable, which gives you more than a single forced political axis, and just might lift the level political discourse above the current 'My team, right or wrong'
Speculation nonetheless though.
And vice versa on both counts for red states.
If you were happy to visit Obama's US, you will hardly find any difference in Trump's US.
I think there can also be a big shift in who is given a visa, without there being much visibility. Time will tell. That's not part of the entry procedure but is part of border policy more generally.
I can't really imagine someone in US butting any of brands you mentioned, Seat is pretty bad deal even in Europe
Admittedly, we haven't looked much at Korean models. That's mostly because my wife (I don't have a driver's license) had no experience and consequently no opinion about them.
At any rate, we ended up buying a Skoda ;). And I see Porsches here nearly every day :p.
Everyone has a right to vote with their euros of course, but I am curious if a single traveler has avoided France because of their policies in French Guyana, the Magreb or Sub-Saharan Africa or avoided China, Turkey or most Middle East countries because of human rights records? How about avoiding Italy or Greece because of widespread corruption or the U.K. because of the Brexit vote.
Avoiding travel because of political disagreements would mean that people would only visit places that are exactly like they want. It's geopolitical inbreeding.
Just a point of fact: Trump isn't denying climate change, he's skeptical of the impact from human activity.
Climate Change is mostly about politics, just like the War on Poverty and War on Drugs. Yes it's real, just like people have real problems with poverty and drugs, but people starve and suffer in 2017 because of greed, which leads to politics, not because of resources. Climate Change will likely worsen the resource situation, but it's not actually the real problem with humanity. We need to get over our little egos and figure out how to get off this earth and keep exploring.
Strange, for someone who received Nobel Peace Prize. To be fair, he received it just for being black, nothing else (it was just after he won his first term, he hadn't even had time to accomplish anything of significance).
What an exciting new world we live in, in which, before we do any kind of business or trade with a company which has a presence in a foreign country, we must consider all of the policies of that country's current, democratically elected leader--and if we don't agree with them, we refuse to do any business with that company, thereby attempting to punish the citizens of that country for exercising their right to democratic self-rule. How dare they have a different opinion. We'll buy local instead. That'll teach 'em to disagree with us.
What a sad state of affairs our world will be in if we all stop doing business with those who don't agree with us on everything. We might as well organize ourselves into separate entities and only do business within them. That would be...something like nations, without trade, no? But then here we are trying to force these other nations to do what we want, thereby erasing the distinctions between them.
And that's the real goal here, isn't it? The world becomes smaller every day.
Would you also object if I didn't want to purchase clothes that are manufactured in a way I find morally deplorable? Hey it's not the workers fault right?
It's very interesting that you would compare it to voting, because that means we're talking about citizens of one country "voting" for the leader of another country--which would mean interfering with another country's elections. Are you sure you want to stick with that analogy? :)
This is in contrast with the traditional definition of "voting with your wallet," which refers to refusing to do business with companies you don't like.
> How is this a bad thing?
In a nutshell, it's bad because it further contributes to polarization and division. This becomes a self-reinforcing cycle, leading to ever more "us vs. them" thinking. Eventually it's what leads to wars. Isn't it fairly basic political theory that nations which are economically interdependent are less likely to go to war with each other? If we can't do business with anyone who has different political opinions than we do, that's a recipe for...well, war.
> Would you also object if I didn't want to purchase clothes that are manufactured in a way I find morally deplorable? Hey it's not the workers fault right?
You're comparing apples to oranges. This is not a question of a company mistreating its workers.
By the same token, I could ask you why you would punish the innocent workers who didn't vote for the candidate you dislike. By refusing to do business with them, you are hurting them, and it's not their fault the candidate got elected. Even from a purely pragmatic standpoint, this is likely to drive them away, toward your political opponents, who can tell them, "See how nasty the other side is? They won't even trade with us anymore because they disagree with how we run our own country!"
That attitude is essentially a large part of why Trump got elected: the Democrats' constant condescension toward a large swath of the population alienated them. If you mistreat people, they aren't going to thank you for it, they're going to hate you for it.
Or, colloquially, you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
Sadly, as a foreigner, what I purchase is the most effective way to be heard. Besides, how successful is a business that blames potential customers for not buying their products? "We're gonna bomb them until they buy our cars dammit!"
I also disagree with you about why Trump was elected. I hear this condescension argument all the time but I think it's total BS. I suspect it's more about jobless (white) men and is a much harder (and real) problem to solve than simply being polite.
Corporate power is indeed an issue, but I feel like you are changing the subject here.
> Sadly, as a foreigner, what I purchase is the most effective way to be heard.
I don't think your theory is logically coherent here. If you desire to punish the corporations which you say have captured the U.S., then which candidate was elected President is irrelevant. More than that, although Trump is an entrepreneur and far wealthier than Clinton, he is also far more independent than Clinton, far less in the pocket of the mega corporations. On this concern you should favor Trump over Clinton.
> Besides, how successful is a business that blames potential customers for not buying their products? "We're gonna bomb them until they buy our cars dammit!"
Sorry, I don't understand your point here.
> I also disagree with you about why Trump was elected. I hear this condescension argument all the time but I think it's total BS. I suspect it's more about jobless (white) men and is a much harder (and real) problem to solve than simply being polite.
Well, you're entitled to your opinion, but as a non-foreigner, I think you are completely wrong. In fact, your "jobless (white) men" line is merely repeating the leftist media's racist, sexist propaganda. Note that it is, by definition, racist and sexist. It's inherently condescending, but here you are protesting that condescension had nothing to do with it.
It's disappointing that you seem to be uncritically accepting this belief. It doesn't even cohere with the data: Trump received many votes from non-whites, non-males, and the employed. The votes were split primarily along geographic lines! But don't let that stop you from blaming angry old white men for all the problems in the world. Obviously, if it weren't for them, everything would be great...
That is the kind of attitude that drives people apart, creates hostility, and eventually leads to war. In what world is that a good idea?
Can you imagine Americans refusing to buy BMWs because they don't like Angela Merkel?
And this is the fucking US here, it's not a backwater country the size of a town. When the US sneezes the rest of the world catches a cold.
People are right to pressure others as long as it's done on legal terms.
http://www.shannonairport.ie/gns/passengers/prepare/us-precl...
[1]: https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/united-s...
In any case they're currently working out an agreement with Canada such that US agents on Canadian soil can still detain you in the same way they can in the US:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/pre-clearance-border-canada-...
I'm sure they'll try to force the same agreement on other "trading partners."
Result for me: I will not travel to U.S. except for work. And when I do I will _only_ carry work devices and accounts. My employer can and will defend itself quit well.
These were regular European citizens. Let's just say conferences will be help in Europe or Canada in the future...
I've come to dislike flying for the humiliating and demeaning security theater I have to go through for it. No way I would risk going through that in the U.S., where it's presumably worse and where I'm not a citizen.
I can barely convince myself to go to family weddings if I have to pass through Schiphol for them. At least with Schiphol I don't have the risk of being detained (or marked a terrorist for having encrypted data/voicing anti-authoritarian opinions/having contact with Muslims, "no rights applicable"), and if I were anyway I could defend myself well as I'm a somewhat savvy citizen.
I already go through great lengths to fly via small German airports, where the security measurers aren't dehumanizing. Perhaps I'll visit the U.S. by boat sometime.
i don't see why people have problem with this, what would be point randomly search old (white) retired woman, what risk she present? pretty much same goes for Eastern Asians, etc.
if you have biggest odds finding terrorist between dark skinned Muslims, then you will search them the most, nothing random or racist about that, it's like saying i won't take umbrella outside when there is 90% chance of rain because there is 10%chance it will be sunny
http://time.com/3934980/right-wing-extremists-white-terroris...
https://www.newamerica.org/in-depth/terrorism-in-america/wha...
How would it look if we factored in the relative population?
> B-but you are more likely to be killed by white trucker driver falling asleep than a jihadist truck hijacker.
Misleading much?
In reality the KKK has killed more people than all jihadists combined. That is one group.
(bottom of the page)
So not quite 2x.
> Only in the past two years have there been more jihadist deaths. > In reality the KKK has killed more people than all jihadists combined. That is one group.
I am not familiar with the history of the KKK, but are they still a threat?
If you consider the recent incidents: Paris (how many times!?), Stockholm, St. Petersburg and Nice, do you really believe Right Wing groups poses a greater threat?
It is almost non existent.
While it's certainly unfair for a large innocent group, it still avoids extensive checks for the rest.
These stories describe sexual assault graphically (to various degrees).
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110906/11065015824/tsa-a...
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/06/woman-sues-borde...
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/immigration/201...
https://www.texastribune.org/2016/07/21/cbp-awards-us-citize...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cnns-angela-rye-was-subj...
Remember, he (or rather his GF) claimed the Houston TSA were routinely performing prison type cavity searches, i.e., strip, squat (and cough).
I've been to Europe twice this past year and I don't think it's any different.
In Italy there was military everywhere in Rome and Florence. At every monument and Big site there were military with guns looking at everyone. Sometimes stopping people.
I've never been patted down and searched as bad as I was in Frankfurt. Security and questioning was on par with US customs.
Don't even get me started on Serbia.
[1] http://www.firstpost.com/india/aadhaar-mandatory-citizens-do...
now compare it with my wife in EU - 5 year residence permit for free, of course including work permit and also because she is taking care of our child she got free healthcare insurance
No, it isn't. I am European, travelled twice to the US last year. Each time multi-hour wait for the USCBP check. From take-off in Brussels to landing in NYC took less time than getting from JFK to Manhattan.
If I can avoid it, I will not be travelling to the US any time soon.
Waiting times entering the UK (even with passport machines) can easily be as long.
By comparison, in the opposite direction, in Brussels it took about 1.5-2 hours to get home (about the same distance, public transportation, my companion, a US citizen, had to go through customs). The US has many great things; welcoming foreigners at their airports (at least at JFK) and public transportation are not among them.
FTFY