politics

A new study argues that a lot of public moral and political talk is not just about beliefs or values, but also about status. The authors call this moral grandstanding — meaning the use of moral or political language to make oneself look admirable, important, or superior in front of others. That...

You may not have seen the new yet as for some reason a lot of Western media chose not to report the revolution that has been taking place in Iran over the last two weeks. Even the BBC was silent about it until this morning. There have been protests, demonstrations, then outright attacks on...

On 23rd October hundreds of thousands of Hungarians filled the streets of Budapest in what became one of the largest opposition rallies in recent Hungarian history. The anti-Orbán rally was led by Péter Magyar, the 44-year-old leader of the opposition Tisza Party, who has emerged as Prime...

Watching this speech by the Finnish president at the United Nations shows how a country's leader should talk. It's such a stark contrast with President Trump. The last 5 minutes of the speech are the most interesting if you don't have time to watch all of it. Don't forget to watch YouTube...

I have been following (and even supporting) the YouTube channel EU Made Simple for a while. It's the best channel I know about EU politics and economy. This video is particularly important. Don't forget to watch YouTube videos with an ad blocker or even better a browser with an inbuilt ad...

You may have heard of their digital euro. But what is it exactly? It has nothing to do with cryptocurrency stable coins like the USDT. It's way for the European Union to become an independent from American credit card companies like Visa and MasterCard by making card payments directly from...

Can the EU Replace the US as a Trade Partner? Trump’s new tariffs could cost the EU up to €144 billion in lost trade — but can Europe replace the U.S. as a partner? We break down the impact of the tariffs, explore deals with India, Mercosur, and more, and show why the real solution might be...

This is a great video on the possible future of European integration using a system with different levels of membership based on each country's needs. I heartily agree with the proposal.

One of the main arguments for Brexit was that Britain would be able to negotiate its own trade deals with other countries on its own. Nearly 5 years after Brexit has come into effect the UK has only negotiated trade deals with Japan, Australia and New Zealand, and as this video explains none of...

This is what this video proposes and I like the idea. In fact I have been in favour of such a system since I was a university student. It's a great combination that satisfies both people who want a more federalized EU as well as the people who want to maintain local authority. The Swiss system...

In four days American citizens will decide whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris will be the next US president. The race is so close that it's impossible to call. Even the best political forecasters that got the previous elections right are divided about 50-50 this time. Whoever wins, it's going...

Puerto Rico has be part of the United States since 1898. To put this in perspective, five U.S. states were admitted into the Union after that time - namely Oklahoma (1907), New Mexico (1912), Arizona (1912), Alaska (1959) and Hawaii (1959). In fact, Alaska and Hawaii only became U.S. territories...

With the looming US presidential election, I thought it would be interesting to post about an important trend in US politics, namely that religiously active people are considerably more likely to vote than the the inactive and unaffiliated. This trend was identified by Pew Research in 2019. In...

Euronews: Austria's Freedom Party secures first far-right election win since World War II "Austria's Freedom Party (Freiheitliche Partei Österreich) has secured the first parliamentary election victory for a far-right party in post-World War II Austria. A projection for ORF public television...

The US-based Pew Research Center published a new report named Americans’ Dismal Views of the Nation’s Politics. The nationwide survey found that 65% of Americans say they always or often feel exhausted when thinking about politics. 89% were angry about politics these days, while only 10% were...

I was wondering what Europe would look like if the various separatist movements had their way. I checked the list of active separatist movements in Europe and selected only the regions with reasonable claims of independence based on the percentage of population supporting independence. This is...

I have been meaning to start a thread like this for many years. I thought it might be too provocative, but I see how many Americans themselves are dissatisfied with their own country and the situation seems to be getting constantly worse. To many outside observers it has been clear for quite...

I posted a thread on how Europeans viewed themselves and how much they identified with things such as one's family, gender, age group, nationality, region, level of education, occupation, sexual orientation, ethnicity, political orientation, or religion. If you had to choose three things to...

The salary of politicians is a topic that a lot of people like to broach because most of us feel like their taxes are paying these salaries (and yet many people are dissatisfied with their politicians). But the question few people ever ask is: "Do politicians in my country earn more or less than...

The OECD has just released the new stats of trust in government. The results are edifying. The Swiss have the most confidence in their leaders (84.6%), which is not surprising considering that Switzerland may be the only direct democracy in the world (at least in some cantons). They are followed...