The Brits know how to do an election night.
We can't do it the same way, because we have a zillion different federal, state, & local offices up for grabs on the same day, plus ballot initiatives & referenda.
But one night with elections to a single legislative house is so pure, it's fun.
UK politics can be grim, but election night there with constituencies being largely ungerrymandered, losers standing next to winners of podiums, and the "election season is 6 weeks, not 2 years" default is incredibly wholesome
also "if/when you lose, there's no lame duck season, the next guy arrives tomorrow at 10am" is a big UK W vs the US system, we should totes get rid of that
Tbf we also have our "ask electors to pick" and "ask congress to count" cosplay, which tbqh we should really move past, because while it's all fun and games as weird cosplay, we've found out to our detriment what happens when folks refuse to dress up and act it out
tomorrow we get my favorite constitutional oddity which is that there's a ~ 1 hour period in which all UK executive authority formally vests in the King
I'm still bullish on the US vs the UK long term, but as an aside, I'll gladly take "we pretend to give this guy total authority but if he tries to use it we'll chop HM Royal Head off again" over "the president is immune from all the crimes, as long as he's abusing his official power during them."
I'm incredibly bullish on America's future. I get it's a bit hard to see these days--the death throes of unpopular authoritarianism is pretty scary and there are real problems in the immediate term--but I definitely think America's best days are still very much ahead.
Because a lot of the problems we are facing is /because/ this is authoritarianism's last chance. They wouldn't need to rig the vote if what they offered was popular
Strongly disagree. IMO the Right sees a window of opportunity to put fascism over the top, and they're going for it -- and believes the downside risk is minimal, as they can lose and fall back to business as usual, where they are structurally comfortable and successful.
But if you're right, the thing they don't understand there is that fascism... has a fairly shitty record. AFAIK the only countries where it lasted longer than a decade were Spain and Portugal, and neither really prospered under fascist regimes.
They lose even if they win.
I'd just rather we tried to avoid the damage they'll incur if they win and then drag the country down for a generation. Their long term prospects may be nil but they can really mess the place up in the near term.
Given American fascism's love of climate change, even a relatively short run in power might actually be long run disastrous regardless of whether they are stomped out after. We can't afford four years of policies intentionally designed to make climate change worse and faster.
I know far less about Francoist Spain than I need to, but in fact checking my skeets here I see that post-Franco Spain has literally made a point of trying to pretend the half century of Francoist rule never even happened. Apparently they call it "the Pact of Forgetting."
