551
Far-right AfD win in Germany is ‘grave moment’ for Europe, politicians warn
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2026
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As much as I want to be on your side, I gotta mostly agree with the other guy here: Europeans have the advantage of a very high population density overall, especially compared to America. I don't know where you're from but taking the Fremch as an example because they live and breathe protesting and revolutions, they could (and have) gather a MASSIVE protest of millions of people from all over the country in the span of just a few hours when they set their minds to it. Meanwhile, in the US, outside the small handful of cities everyone is familiar with (New York, Los Angeles, etc) the vast majority of us are spread out over ~~thousands of miles~~ (1.61 x thousands) of kilometers in pockets too small to really have any effect at all.
After some admitedly-quick research, the EU has about 100 million more people and a little less than half the land that the US has. These two compounding factors alone make it MUCH easier to facilitate any kind of social change on your side of the pond, but that's not even including factors like our complete lack of any REAL public infrastructure, harsher work-life balance by every metric, and (though I could be wrong here) a generally pro-union culture whereas our unions have been demonized to Hell and back (pun intended) for at least the previous 150 years
Yes, i understand the US is big. But let's take a look where most of the American people actually are, shall we?
Idk about you, but i see no problem here. You have a massive population center in the east, and one in the west. With some spread across the eastern half. You have internet, you have instant communication. You don't need the entire country. You only need a critical mass of people shutting down the most important population centres. And yes, there is precedence for that in the history of other countries. Look at Russia. The most densely populated areas happen to be on the European continent. That's the area that was always the most critical when it came to uprisings. Sure, it didn't work out for them, but hey, you're not Russians. So there is a chance.
That, i can agree with. I don't see the size as a problem, it's rather the propaganda that is affecting all sides involved. The Maga cult is obvious. But the opposing sides are also being actively discouraged. Your people have a lot more power in their hands than they seem to know. Pretty much the same story as in every other country.
Mine doesn't list a source (and it has very few pixels if you try to zoom in) so take it with a grain of salt, but they at least appear to be attempting to make it as close to a 1:1 comparison as possible. And I agree, we don't need the whole country to mobilize as one, but let's look at how the US has ~50 individual specks of purple separated by vast areas of white/tan/orange, even in the more well known states like New York, Texas, and California. Meanwhile, Europe is basically ALL purple and orange until you get to mountainous areas like the Scandinavian hinterland.
If I'm living in a small town in southern France and I want to protest, I could hop on the train and be in Paris in like, 6 hours at most. If I lived in a small town in let's say, the (Eastern) Midwest and wanted to do the same in Washington DC, well public transport is already out of the question in the VAST majority of cases (trains here don't visit small towns unless it's for industrial reasons), so I'm gonna have to drive myself. 6 hour drive to DC puts my starting location somewhere around Columbus, Ohio (dead center of Ohio, but arguably not even in the Midwest depending on who you ask, or at least on the outer rim of it). Pretty much anything further west than that (2/3s of the country at least) and I'm looking at a multi-day investment just to GET to the protest, not to mention all the other shit that goes along with it. You could always try protesting at the State capitals, but those will automatically be lesser in size and effectiveness (no one cares if 1 out of 50 states is having problems, that's literally happening all the time) and depending on my state, that might still be an all-day drive.
I like your idea of using the internet to help, but the reality of the situation is that without human bodies physically showing up, there's no real incentive for DC to actually DO anything. There have been millions, possibly billions, of critical things said about Trump's administration online, but that hasn't changed anything for the better.
Lastly, like you said, we both agree that propoganda is one of the biggest obstacles here, but I don't know how much we agree on us 'having more power than we seem to know'. I've seen various estimates and each time the number seems to be increasing, but roughly HALF of all American households will be out of money if they go two or three months without a paycheck. Period. We have no social safety net. If you're deemed 'good enough to work' then you better be working, otherwise you're homeless which, in this country, might as well be a death sentence. Sure, there are a small handful of exceptions to this, but they put up so many roadblocks and hoops to jump through that trying to get on and stay on Welfare is basically a job in and of itself, and they will only provide you with the bare essentials; if you even think about one luxury good, that money disappears instantly.
As much as I hate to admit it, in America, the Capitalists have won for the time being and there's really nothing to be done about it short of a complete overhaul of MOST of how this country operates