World Opinion on the result of 2004 election

revelator · Oct 31, 2004

It seems that while many people in the world, are opposed to President Bush and his policies, most people have been able to keep their feeling towards the American admin and the American people separate. This could be because most non-Americans believe that Americans just didn't know what they were getting when they voted Bush in the first time.

However, if Americans are to vote Bush again, people in the world may be more likely to hold the American people responsible for Bush being in office. What I'm getting at is, does anyone believe that a Bush re-election will lead to more anti-Americanism among moderate citizens of the world.

To this day, I can still say that I've never met an American I didn't like (granted I've never personally met any American who claims to support Bush, or to have voted for him the first time around). I doubt that will change whatever the outcome of this election, but I'm sure that if Bush wins I'll find myself somewhat disappointed by my southerly neighbors.

One thing I'd really like to know is, what do Americans see in Bush that the rest of the world doesn't? Do Americans like his cowboy attitude? His simplistic reasoning ability?

Any responses are greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Polly · Oct 31, 2004

As it is I am already very upset that half of voters think they will be voting for GWB. I will be mad for a while if he wins, which I think is likely given the latest polls, and then feel sorry for both the Amercians and us for a continuation of his stupid senseless policies. I have been thinking about what the Amercians see in him as well and can only say they must be too caught up with the security issue to lose their common sense and allow themselves to be blinded about the economic issues. My perception of Americans will definitely depend on who they will be voting for or have voted for. To be quite honest I think I will turn my nose up at anyone going for him, for a while that is.

Dooga Blackrazor · Oct 31, 2004

I think it could almost be stated as fact that anti-americanism will increase if GWB is rel-elected. As a Canadian I'm disappointed in those who vote for Bush. While Kerry isn't a political mastermind, he is much better than Bush. Whether I think people are people are generally semi-intelligent is going to be greatly affected by the result of the American election.

selfAdjoint · Oct 31, 2004

A lot of US citizens do not choose to closely follow political issues. The Republican party is better at conveying memes to this group than the Democratic party is. So many of them believe falsehoods, such as that Bush is "strong" on terrorism and Kerry is "weak" on terrorism. Hunters, an important bloc in many states, have been led to believe that Kerry is "anti-gun", although he made a strong statement against the Brady bill and for broad interpretation of the Second Amendment in the first debate, and has been at pains to be shown hunting at least twice during the campaign.

Political claques can argue endlessly, but it is the ability to reach the unpolitical that sways elections, I think in all countries.

PerennialII · Oct 31, 2004

Yeah (this coming from Europe) ... many here assumed Kerry would win by a clear margin, and now when its as tight as it is ... makes people puzzled and think whether the US people actually think as GWB does. It will have a marketable effect.

pelastration · Oct 31, 2004

revelator said:

It seems that while many people in the world, are opposed to President Bush and his policies, most people have been able to keep their feeling towards the American admin and the American people separate. This could be because most non-Americans believe that Americans just didn't know what they were getting when they voted Bush in the first time.

However, if Americans are to vote Bush again, people in the world may be more likely to hold the American people responsible for Bush being in office. What I'm getting at is, does anyone believe that a Bush re-election will lead to more anti-Americanism among moderate citizens of the world.

For Europe:
The EU Poll of Nov. 2003 said:
"The Eurobarometer poll, which sparked outrage from Israel, showed that 59 percent of Europeans see Israel as a threat to world peace -- ahead of Iran, North Korea and the US, who were in joint second place on 53 percent.

If Bush wins that % will raise. Indeed we see Bush already 3 years as a crazy and corrupt cow-boy, but if re-(s)elected most Europeans will generalize that image to all Americans. To us he's the guy which will or might start WWIII.
Remember he was the first US president who started a war, against the facts on the field. He made from US Soldiers "agressors". That's an image difficult to change.
But I am sure most Americans don't care what the outside think about them.

Bilal · Oct 31, 2004

For Middle East :

We do not see big difference between Bush and Kerry! Both of them want to kill as many people as possible for the security of Israel!

Kerry wants to leave Iraq, but he wants to attack Syria and may be Saudi Arabia!

Both of them rejected to let the Palestinian to decide their future or to make any pressure on Israel to withdraw from West bank and Gaza! Unfortunately, the only topic they agree is ‘’unlimited support of Israel’’ and destruction of ME nations (400 Millions) to secure the life of 5 millions Jews living in Israel and Palestine!

In general, people want Kerry to win because they hate Bush, but our governments (dictators) supporting Bush!

The only choice of moderate people in ME who believe in democracy is to be closer to Europe. We know that European have limited power to stop the American aggressive wars in ME, but we sure that USA alone can not fight forever, because this will weaken their economy and let other superpowers (e.g. EU and China) to rise.

studentx · Oct 31, 2004

I don't think Europeans fear WWIII, seeing how they love to spread hatred for Bush. If Bush wins elections and Europeans don't grow over it, itd make me wonder if what they really want isn't a giant war.

pelastration · Oct 31, 2004

studentx said:

I don't think Europeans fear WWIII, seeing how they love to spread hatred for Bush. If Bush wins elections and Europeans don't grow over it, itd make me wonder if what they really want isn't a giant war.

I can't see any logic in your post.

Can't you look independently and observe what fake and scamming is happening in US? Or are you just blind or ... ?

I suggest you take distance and analyze the facts.
Look who lied.
Look who steals.
Look who poisons.
Look who builds WMD.
Look who denies human rights and cut civil rights.
Look who doesn't needs facts, but knows.

And if you can't see it ... Studentx, kneel and pray ... in full awe for the messenger of the vengeance God.
And accept he's going to get you too (and your money).

arildno · Oct 31, 2004

From the quiet fishpond of Norway:
Here "everyone" (including myself) is "against" Bush, but we never get information on who this Kerry guy really is .
Brainwashing works two ways; in Europe, we're almost indoctrinated into believing Republicans to be bad and Democrats to be good.

kat · Oct 31, 2004

arildno said:

.
Brainwashing works two ways; in Europe, we're almost indoctrinated into believing Republicans to be bad and Democrats to be good.

Lol, I'm glad you said it so I don't have to!

plover · Oct 31, 2004

arildno said:

Brainwashing works two ways; in Europe, we're almost indoctrinated into believing Republicans to be bad and Democrats to be good.

Has this been true for a long time or just this election? And is the message that Republicans are bad in general, or mostly that Bush is bad?

tumor · Oct 31, 2004

arildno said:

Brainwashing works two ways; in Europe, we're almost indoctrinated into believing Republicans to be bad and Democrats to be good.

Norway sent troops to Iraq, so brainwashing works there.
France, Germany and few other nations did not, what's the conclusion?

Gokul43201 · Oct 31, 2004

The conclusion is that the Norwegian Government chose to act upon information independent of or despite their preconception of Republicans.

Nothing more can be concluded and any attempt to derive relativity based on "1+1=2" is clearly overreaching.

studentx · Oct 31, 2004

pelastration said:

I can't see any logic in your post.

Can't you look independently and observe what fake and scamming is happening in US? Or are you just blind or ... ?

I suggest you take distance and analyze the facts.
Look who lied.
Look who steals.
Look who poisons.
Look who builds WMD.
Look who denies human rights and cut civil rights.
Look who doesn't needs facts, but knows.

And if you can't see it ... Studentx, kneel and pray ... in full awe for the messenger of the vengeance God.
And accept he's going to get you too (and your money).

I try look at it objectively. I haven't been convinced that Bush purposely lied, that he steals oil and that building tactical nukes is a bad thing. I don't know anything about poisoning, and i kinda agree about the human right thing/guantanamo. Overall he still comes out positive in my book. I don't blame the mess in Iraq on Bush, and i don't blame the anti-US attitude on him either.

pelastration · Oct 31, 2004

Gokul43201 said:

The conclusion is that the Norwegian Government chose to act upon information independent of or despite their preconception of Republicans.

I think it is more correct to say: the Norwegian Government acted upon (intentionally) false information provided by the Bush Administration.
Also the Polish PM complained about this.

physicsuser · Oct 31, 2004

http://www.prisonplanet.tv/articles/august2004/082804dictatorspreview.htm
wow that's scary

franznietzsche · Oct 31, 2004

pelastration said:

Remember he was the first US president who started a war, against the facts on the field. He made from US Soldiers "agressors". That's an image difficult to change.
But I am sure most Americans don't care what the outside think about them.

Thats just not true. I'm all for hating Bush, but still you people need to at leasst learn your history and get your facts straight, something Bush-haters seem pathologically incapable of doing.

He's not the first US president to start a war.

The War of 1812 with Great Britain.

Please examine the Indian Wars of the late 19th century.

The Spanish-American War which turned the US into a world imperial power for the first time.

You people need to start getting your facts straight and stop looking like idiots. Its really discrediting to your argument. You talk about Bush supporters believing falsehoods, but here you are spouting just as many plain falsehoods that simply are not true.

Another example: In another thread Tsunami accuses the Bush admin of trying to stop voters from sueing to enforce their rights. Not completely true. The justice department's memorandums simply state that they can't sue to enforce the recent voter legislation act (name escapes my memory), but does not apply to older voter legislation (14th amendent rights, so on and so forth). That said i still don't like what the admin is doing there. but when you accuse them of something, try getting it right, before making a fool of yourself.

franznietzsche · Oct 31, 2004

arildno said:

From the quiet fishpond of Norway:
Here "everyone" (including myself) is "against" Bush, but we never get information on who this Kerry guy really is .
Brainwashing works two ways; in Europe, we're almost indoctrinated into believing Republicans to be bad and Democrats to be good.

Biggest load of crap. You should have come to california and seen what complete democratic party rule did to us. The democrats controlled everything in this state, every statewide office, and both houses of the legislature. Its the 5th largest economy in the world here, vs NATIONs (that means a bigger economy than almost all european nations, middle eastern nations, etc.) (13%of US GDP). Its that big. The results of democratic rule:

$34.6 Billion Deficit (out $1.4 Trillion GDP, that is 2.4%, US deficit is 3.7% of total GDP)

School spending cuts

Prison budget increased (largely a raise for prison guards who contributed large amounts to the governor's campaign, so no it wasn't because they needed the moeny to handle more prisoners)

Governor Davis did not announce the deficit until after his reelection (mis lead voters)

Increased unemployment.

We didn't ahve to worry about outsourcing the governor just let foreign nationals come here and take the jobs for under minimum wage, without companies having to leave.

He tried to give Driver's Liscence's to said illegal immigrants (that was the one that really finished him off)

Less than a year after being reelected he was thrown out of office in a recall election and replaced by none other than: Arnold Schwarzenegger (Republican).

Thrown after less than a year, had a 75% DIS-approval rating.

Democrats are no better.

arildno · Nov 1, 2004

"Biggest load of crap."
Which simply proves my point:
We Europeans all too easily assign labels of "good" and "bad" on American parties we don't bother to get solid information on.

franznietzsche · Nov 1, 2004

Fair enough.

Gokul43201 · Nov 1, 2004

I don't want to turn this into a fight about what went wrong in California, but franz, you are clearly exonerating the Energy Companies that screwed the people and Dick Cheney, who exonerated the energy companies. If you don't feel the littlest bit of disgust for them, you are clearly voicing a partisan opinion.

Gray Davis is scum...but I'm not convinced he deserved eviction. C'mon...Mr. Bush, if judged similarly would be impeached. But Bush is not the President of California, and too many people in the south think he's the divinely appointed executor of God's commands.

MiGUi · Nov 1, 2004

From Spain...

Our current president is a completely incompetent whose campaign was full of antiamerican content.

I think that the occidental world has to keep hand to hand, and it is a very infantile position try to do exactly the opposed to this. Nowadays, Spain can't progress if USA closes its relationship. Because a big part of our economy is based on export and import.

Here, has been a growing anti american feeling due to that kind of politics we have here. I know that what happens in USA repels (is well spelt?) in all of the world, and the same in another country. That is the famous globalization.

If Bush wins, he will punish Zapatero (our prime minister) for his antiUSA politics, and if Kerry wins Zapatero thinks that he will be more important, and he will convert Spain in a more important country. This kind of stupid things, are only an example of how a president can be ridiculous.

Appart from that, I think that Bush wanted to end daddy's job in Iraq, and I agree with his antiterrorist politics, but not with the method. I know that Bush has been a bad president, the economy didn't grow so much but I also know that the 9/11 has also the guilty of this recession.

I think that Kerry is doing exactly the same that ZP here in Spain. Only the time will confirm or deny.

PerennialII · Nov 1, 2004

Has this been true for a long time or just this election? And is the message that Republicans are bad in general, or mostly that Bush is bad?

IMHO its a long time thing. The conservatives of Europe, in most countries (counting off places like Italy etc.) are closer to democrats of the US ... the democrats of most European countries are quite liberal by US standards. For a general European taste, we simply don't have anything to affiliate what comes to republicans ... no common ground.

revelator · Nov 2, 2004

Heh same in Canada. The conservatives here would likely be considered liberal in the US. By that token, I guess our liberals would seem pretty communist by American standards.

plover · Nov 3, 2004

PerennialII, revelator:
That's pretty much what I thought. I just didn't want to make assumptions.

vanesch · Nov 3, 2004

arildno said:

Brainwashing works two ways; in Europe, we're almost indoctrinated into believing Republicans to be bad and Democrats to be good.

Democrats come close to the respectable center right-wing parties in (continental) Europe. Republicans are to the right of this, which less humanist values (christianism, abortion, gay stuff, military...) and come close to some aspects of extreme-right wing parties on the borderline of legality in Europe. There is no left-wing in the US as compared to moderate left-wing parties in Europe (called socialist and green parties). It is unthinkable for a left winger in Europe to even give the slightest hint that he might be related to a religious movement ; that would exclude him from being a left-winger. If in the US you don't prone to be a christian of some sort, you don't even enter the competition.
So you can't say there is brainwashing ; it is just that the transposition of the american political landscape in Europe is de facto favorable to Democrats which occupy the only equivalent respectable place in the european landscape.

gerben · Nov 3, 2004

vanesch said:

Republicans are to the right of this, which less humanist values (christianism, abortion, gay stuff, military...) ...

I think that what many europeans do not (at least i do not) like in GWB is that (in Vanesch' terms) christianism and also that seemingly enormous lack of any self critic. Indeed no humanistic values, but simply oldfashioned religious fanatism, very very simple solutions, if you are against us you are bad and you ought to be shot, you must love your country no matter what, your country is the highest... simply revolting

vanesch · Nov 3, 2004

gerben said:

I think that what many europeans do not (at least i do not) like in GWB is that (in Vanesch' terms) christianism and also that seemingly enormous lack of any self critic. Indeed no humanistic values, but simply oldfashioned religious fanatism, very very simple solutions, if you are against us you are bad and you ought to be shot, you must love your country no matter what, your country is the highest... simply revolting

Indeed. Don't get me wrong about the religious stuff: it doesn't mean that you have to be an atheist to be "politically correct" in Europe. Only, you keep that for yourself and you do not let your policy be dictated by a specific religious conviction. At most you adhere to some values, which, in a broad sense, can (or cannot) be related to certain religious views, but should be defendable without any reference to a religion. It is indeed, from a European view, rather revolting to hear a political leader talk publicly about religion, even from political parties that have a christian inspiration, such as the German Christen-democrats. For instance, most christen-democrats are moderately pro-abortion. They might encapsulate it more in terms of "medical or social justification" instead of just a free choice, but it is rather unthinkable that a christen-democrat policital leader would say that he's against abortion because he read the bible! The only people who do such things in Europe are the extreme right wing (neo nazi) partis.

vanesch · Nov 3, 2004

MiGUi said:

If Bush wins, he will punish Zapatero (our prime minister) for his antiUSA politics, and if Kerry wins Zapatero thinks that he will be more important, and he will convert Spain in a more important country. This kind of stupid things, are only an example of how a president can be ridiculous.

I'm sorry, but it was more Aznar's position which was a bit ridiculous, because it was not based on a political view, and it was certainly not based on his public opinion. The only thing Aznar (which was, indeed, on economic grounds a "good" PM) wanted to do was to please the US. He hoped that he would 1) win international importance doing so and 2) get some juicy stuff back from the US. This was lowly bootlicking, nothing else. That's not being a great statesman.
Moreover, the price to pay was a complete explosion of a European politics.

arildno · Nov 3, 2004

vanesch said:

Democrats come close to the respectable center right-wing parties in (continental) Europe. Republicans are to the right of this, which less humanist values (christianism, abortion, gay stuff, military...) and come close to some aspects of extreme-right wing parties on the borderline of legality in Europe. There is no left-wing in the US as compared to moderate left-wing parties in Europe (called socialist and green parties). It is unthinkable for a left winger in Europe to even give the slightest hint that he might be related to a religious movement ; that would exclude him from being a left-winger. If in the US you don't prone to be a christian of some sort, you don't even enter the competition.
So you can't say there is brainwashing ; it is just that the transposition of the american political landscape in Europe is de facto favorable to Democrats which occupy the only equivalent respectable place in the european landscape.

While I am deeply critical to the unsavoury prominence of religion in American politics, all too easy labellings of American parties is not a good thing.

I think Europeans more readily look after confirmations of their own negative views of Repuclicans, for example, rather than make the effort of objective analysis of American politics.

graphic7 · Nov 3, 2004

Well, this election goes to show that if you're a "good Christian man," your destiny is the Oval Office.

vanesch · Nov 3, 2004

arildno said:

I think Europeans more readily look after confirmations of their own negative views of Repuclicans, for example, rather than make the effort of objective analysis of American politics.

How ? What objective analysis am I missing ?

arildno · Nov 3, 2004

Pick up ANY Norwegian/Scandinavian newspaper (which after all, defines MY primary frame of reference).
Objective analysis is lacking, all-too easy Bush-bashing is omnipresent.

Perhaps French media is somewhat better; from my knowledge of British&German newspapers, I would be pleasantly surprised if it were so.

kat · Nov 3, 2004

graphic7 said:

Well, this election goes to show that if you're a "good Christian man," your destiny is the Oval Office.

Or maybe it means if you're a bad catholic you lose...

World Opinion on the result of 2004 election

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