How come 99% of political discussions are about the US?

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1. Americans compose almost half of the user traffic on WP

2. All members are English Speakers

3. What America does has a significant effect on other countries

Edited to correct American participation on WP

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 18 Dec 2018, 1:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I was just gonna point out that Techgeneration (who is an American I believe) did start a thread about Macron, and the yellow shirters. So even Americans take some interest in French politics.

But yes, the English speaking world dominates participation on Wrongplanet. The US has "just under half of the traffic" according Alex himself. Britain has about one fifth of the US's population, so my guess is that about ten percent of WP folks are from the UK. The rest of the planet would make up the remaining forty percent of WP.

other countries policies don't affect the rest of the world in quite the same way american policies do. that's why we have people from all walks of life talking about them here, we all have a stake in the outcome in some way or other.


for those same reasons, i always cringe when i see someone complaining about non-americans commenting on US policy or politics discussions...

Maybe America has better disability welfare, so that affords American members more spare time.

Oops.

I think most original posts about politics outside the US, get overlooked even by those outside the US, in favor of discussing Trump.

Trump is a phenomena!

The world revolves around the United States in a cultural sense. Because of multiple factors, such as economic development, population, language, and historical events, the United States is the world's only so-called superpower. I think the one event to set in stone this position was the post-WWII economic boom. With Europe in ruins, America had very little competition economically at that point, and a higher population than other less affected Western countries. I really believe the 50s were the turning point that led to America's apparently insurmountable power.

Actually...

Since he is just one person he would be a "phenomenon".

Phenomena is plural.

He is a phenomenon. There has been one, maybe two, other heads of state like him. One was Berlusconi of Italy: a right of center media mogul who got into politics and became a flamboyant and corrupt scandal ridden prime minister.

The other is Hugo Chavez. Though left wing he was populist like Trump, and also became a reality TV star (but after becoming head of state, not before). and infamously ran his country into the ground. But neither Venezula nor Italy are as vast a power as the USA. So Trump is a much bigger bull in the china shop. So everyone on the planet is ducking for cover.

I think it's a shame that it doesn't happen more, especially when and if any country can look at what's happening here in the US, or in the UK or continental Europe, and say 'Oh yeah - we went through that x number of years ago and this is how that went'. It is particularly interesting when you see stories from around the world that either counter what you've heard, counter expectations, or at least put what you've heard in much clearer context.

Well ...here is a tutorial for you. Berlusconi 101



And here is another primer. Hugo Chavez 101

Coz they have their forums in their languages and they talk about their politics in their languages ..?