A lot of the attitudes of the Russian government definitely worry me. It’s worrying to think how they might behave in the next few years. If the chance of a Russian “victory” in Ukraine starts looking slimmer, maybe they’ll lash out. Obviously I hope they don’t though.

Definitely a good point about the popular vote, I noticed that in the past that he never got a majority of the popular vote.

And yes I think the Electoral College is too flawed. I’d like to see it abolished, personally. I don’t see why voters in less populated states should get more say than voters in more populated states.

Hopefully the US and Europe can be on good terms again in the future, but who knows. I guess it depends a lot on how the 2028 election turns out.

Ah yes, the evil EU, maliciously expanding itself by accepting new members who democratically want to join the EU

Source for image:

I think some Europeans (certainly in my country of the UK) are still quite naive about Trump. Maybe they think “sure, Trump can be a bad person to some countries, but he’d never be a bad person to MY country”

One day, whoever is in the White House will choose to act immorally towards a particular European country (whether it’s Ukraine, or the UK, or Poland, or Finland, or whoever) and that European country, on its own, won’t be able to do much about it

TLDR: If Europe unites, it protects Europe from potentially hostile big powers, such as the US, China, Russia. A big entity like the EU has more leverage to say “no” than any individual EU country does.

It’s true that we in the UK have right-wing voters, but look at France and Germany for example. AfD is doing pretty well in Germany. Marine Le Pen might win the 2027 French presidential election.

The current UK government is centre-left, not right-wing. I think it’s entirely possible that a centre-left coalition could win the next UK general election. The current polls show that a Labour and Liberal Democrat coalition could form the next government if an election were held soon.

Anyway, the UK rejoining the EU is surely not going to happen any time soon. I do think it would be good if the UK and EU forged stronger ties though, and perhaps one day the UK could fully rejoin the EU.

Arguably a united Europe would be less of a pawn for the US compared to individual European countries. Even Germany, the largest economy in the EU, has nowhere near the power that the US does. But the EU together can have a similar level of power to the US. Which means the EU together has more leverage to say “no” when the US wants Europe to do something.

I agree with you that trade and security are both good reasons for the UK to get closer to the EU.

At the moment I think some leave voters just don’t want to admit that they might have made a bad choice. And they have a steady stream of “influencers” from YouTube and Facebook telling them that Europe is evil.

Rejoining the common market without EU membership means we have to follow all the rules while having zero say on the creation of those rules. EU membership means we get many seats in the European Parliament; either the 2nd or 3rd highest number of seats (after Germany and perhaps France, due to population sizes). That means the UK would have a big say in the rules which would apply to us.

Ah. I am sorry to hear it.

I see. Well if Merz is unpopular then I hope Germany finds an alternative to AfD (AfAfD, I suppose…) to rally around, in time for the next election.

I see, thanks for explaining. Maybe his mistake is similar to that of our previous prime minister, Keir Starmer: thinking that emulating right-wing populism will take votes from them. It didn’t work for Starmer and maybe Merz will find the same thing.

I actually think Starmer was a decent man who was trying to do good things in many areas. I think Burnham (our new prime minister - yes it’s hard to keep up with them all) is also good though.

As a Brit, Merz seems sensible when I’ve seen him talk, mostly on the subjects of Ukraine and defence. I know basically nothing about his domestic policies though.

I hope the next German election produces some sort of coalition which prevents an AfD chancellor. Surely Merz is a better chancellor than any AfD chancellor would be.

Excellent billboard.

True, but the Tories could potentially be deputies to Reform. And Reform would perhaps keep the Tories’ economic policies because both are parties run by rich people.

Ah yes, I remember now, it was Ukraine who forced Putin to invade Crimea in 2014.

/s

I think it’s possible the next government could be a Reform/Tory coalition. I don’t want that to happen, but I think it’s possible.

I think we’ve been lucky to see Labour rise in the polls. This makes a progressive general election win more likely. Possibly a Labour/LibDem/SNP coalition. Possibly with Greens. The polls are in flux, it seems.

I wouldn’t rule out a Reform/Tory government though. Hope for the best but expect the worst.

Yes, of course. But the right-wing grifters on YouTube told me that brown people are bad, so I guess we should stop taking asylum seekers, even if doing so is bad for the UK.

Probably not needed but I’ll put it anyway: /s

If you want to go down the rabbit hole of old British game shows, there’s a TV channel called Challenge. It’s on Freeview and Sky etc.

I went through a phase of watching that channel a bit too much. Things like Family Fortunes, old episodes of Who Wants to be a Millionaire, and some shows presented by Bruce Forsyth.

Maybe there is more manipulation in US elections than I’m aware of, I don’t know. Anyway, I do think it would be good if the US and Europe could be strong friends, but I don’t think that should happen while politicians such as the MAGA cabal are in control of America. I remember when Trump complained about apparent “foreign interference” of Brits in the 2024 US presidential election, only for Trump’s vice president to then actively campaign for a European political candidate, Viktor Orban.

Yes probably many Americans want to be friends with Europe so it’s a shame that the Americans who don’t like Europe are currently running America