Which countries are most politically similar to the United States?

[CumbrianLefty]

Oz isn't really that much like the UK politically IMO.

[CumbrianLefty]

How is the answer not Canada? The Tories are one of the closest parties to the GOP, even if it is too extreme these days. (Fidesz isn’t a great comparison given the somewhat tepid economic interventionism) I don’t think I need to go over parallels between the Democrats and the Liberals. Canadian politics has also often been compared to United States politics. Western Canada especially seems to have an affinity for certain types of American-style culture wars (especially those around energy).

Western Canada is clearly more similar to the US than anywhere else, but the Eastern Tories often have more in common with the British "wets" than any American equivalent, and the Liberals are far more dominant than in American politics, and the Quebecois political scene is totally non-comparable (and Quebec is a big part of Canada: 23% of the population lives in Quebec.)

I actually have to dispute this. Ever since the 1980s realignments in both nations that broke Democratic/Liberal Party dominance, the liberals have not far been more dominant than the dems have.

Since 1980 the GOP has been in power for 24 years compared to the Dems with 20 so the GOP has been in power 54.5% of the time .

Since 1984 the Tories have been in power for around 19 years compared to the Liberals around 21 so The Tories have been in power 47.5% of the time.


So while the Liberals are slightly more more dominant than the Democrats, its not far more and I wouldnt say any of the major parties in either the US or Canada have been dominant since Reagan's win in 1980 or Mulroney's win in 1984.

And since 1992/93?

Surely the GOP only winning the popular vote once since 1988 must stand out.

[CumbrianLefty]

How is the answer not Canada? The Tories are one of the closest parties to the GOP, even if it is too extreme these days. (Fidesz isn’t a great comparison given the somewhat tepid economic interventionism) I don’t think I need to go over parallels between the Democrats and the Liberals. Canadian politics has also often been compared to United States politics. Western Canada especially seems to have an affinity for certain types of American-style culture wars (especially those around energy).

Western Canada is clearly more similar to the US than anywhere else, but the Eastern Tories often have more in common with the British "wets" than any American equivalent, and the Liberals are far more dominant than in American politics, and the Quebecois political scene is totally non-comparable (and Quebec is a big part of Canada: 23% of the population lives in Quebec.)

I actually have to dispute this. Ever since the 1980s realignments in both nations that broke Democratic/Liberal Party dominance, the liberals have not far been more dominant than the dems have.

Since 1980 the GOP has been in power for 24 years compared to the Dems with 20 so the GOP has been in power 54.5% of the time .

Since 1984 the Tories have been in power for around 19 years compared to the Liberals around 21 so The Tories have been in power 47.5% of the time.


So while the Liberals are slightly more more dominant than the Democrats, its not far more and I wouldnt say any of the major parties in either the US or Canada have been dominant since Reagan's win in 1980 or Mulroney's win in 1984.

And since 1992/93?

Surely the GOP only winning the popular vote once since 1988 must stand out.

Tories have been in power for around 10 years while the GOP has been in for 12. Just as the GOP has only one the NPV once since 1992, the Tories have only won one majority government since 1993 as well

Indeed - my point being that following their *initial* period of dominance in the 1980s, their record is somewhat less impressive. And yes, the same is true of the UK Tories despite their being in power for most of that period - only one sizeable majority since 1987 tells a rather different story there.

[CumbrianLefty]

Hot take: France

Out of curiosity, why France?

Their political spectrum actually seems significantly different from the US, with their right wing being less freedom focused and more nationalism focused, with their multiparty system as opposed to the two party system in the US, with the centre having a stronger presence (Macron would be a moderate Democrat in the US but is a centrist in France) and the left being much further left economically and having a history of favouring openly socialist policies.

One other difference about economic policy is that the centre in France (as in, Macron types) is the most economically right wing - both the left and the right tend to be more economically left-leaning than the centre.

Trump's realignment of the parties has arguably culminated into an ideological tripolar realignment; I assume the US is further along in this process than the other Anglosphere liberal democracies. (Canada actually has 3 major parties but I'm not knowledgeable enough about Canadian party politics to assess how well the parties represent a distinct 'left', 'center', and 'right').

Maybe; I would argue that America's party system is slowly or rapidly becoming more like the current French tripolar system, but keeping on to the 2 party labels of D and R.

Currently France has a well defined Left, Center, and Right.

America has a very small Left (Squad/Progressives), fairly large Center (dominated by Democrats and a few Republicans like Murkowski, Meijer, Cheney, and Collins), and a robust, but alienating Right.

Our primary system has become very clearly a system defined by these three poles with Democrats fighting between Leftists and Centrists, and Republicans fighting between Centrists and Rightists (more like Establishment vs Trumpists). Primaries were not this ideological even 10 years ago (2008 or 2012 for both parties lacked this ideological divide).

It will be interesting to see how the Republican party handles power - I think the divide between the Center and Right will become more prominent when they take power again especially because it looks like the Right has been co-opted by the Trump celebrity machine.

Its a generalisation admittedly, but Tories are mainly right, Liberals centre and NDP left. This is pretty common knowledge and doesn't really require any specialist expertise.

[CumbrianLefty]

So who is their Obama and GWB?

[CumbrianLefty]

Brazil, Russia, Australia.

I know that Trump would *like* to make the US more like Russia, but....