Looks like the British "Wilders"

yes Marguerite, nowadays each european country seems to have at least one "charismatic leader" who opposes democracy, let's just be glad..

...that someone as rich as Ecclestone, or also Mosley, whose father was the leader of the british fascists, don't tdo active politics

What influence could their money have if they would?

nowadays unfortunately a large part of the success in electoral campaigns depends on how much money you can spend...that's largely how...

Berlusconi in Italy first got into politics and built up his "fanbase"

I think in the Netherlands it counts less. For VVD it depend of which student association you were a member, like the Corps, an good old

boys network. They divide lots of high position amongst eachother.

for the positions of power within the political system, especially within parties, that is definitely the case in the Netherlands...

I still find it amazing how Berlusconi keeps his position, no matter what he does.

...it's also very important in Austria, while in Germany after WWII they have kind of cleaned up their system and clientelism is less...

...important

yes, Berlusconi is a phenomenon of his own by now...even if he controls more than 50% of all media share in italy, it is unbelievable

he can have dozens of callgirls around his pool of his villa on Sardinia, which, after all, he built illegally and still people don't...

...react, in fact parts of the population seem to believe him that it's all just a big misunderstanding and a conspiracy of "the left"

Yes, times are changing. We have a prime-minister who lies, but still is not fired.

yep, the tendencies are clear, europe as a whole is forgetting its lessons from the 20's and 30's and is falling for right-wing populism...

...once again...more and more people ignore the lies and are just seeking for someone to promise them a better future at all costs

the u.s. republican party is hoping we'll fall for right-wing populism.

fortunately it's mostly those evangelicals falling for it, and a large part of the young population (while reps are usually older)...

...is not sooooo into deleting all sorts of fun from their lives

even the evangelicals are starting to turn away from the republicans because they feel betrayed by the rep.s' inattention.

what I find funny about the US system is that most people can't imagine a system with several more parties than the 2 big ones

...in most other countries the evangelicals would have founded and organized their own party, which would be great in the US, because this..

...would decimate the republicans

we have an institution called the electoral college which makes more than 2 parties almost impossible.

although, with a little more bad luck and bad decision-making, we may be at one of those points where one of the parties falls and another--

party comes together in its place.

I thought the electoral college is only responsible for pres and vice-pres election? I don't see it as something bound to those 2 parties

but in the end, strictly speaking (polisci-strictly), the US are a defective democracy anyway

it only functions as a democracy when there is a super-majority these days.

the electoral college freezes the status quo.

think about it this way julian--although it's hard to relate it to a parliamentary system--what if you had an institution embedded in your--

system that disallowed any party with fewer than 33% of the vote from being counted for the purpose of forming a government?

so that only the members of the top 2 parties were even considered for making a government. how long would it take before the system--

would solidify around only those top 2 parties?

that would be, to me, indeed, deeply undemocratic...

it has a very practical and therefore rational reason, as it stabilizes the system, but the choice for democracy isn't a rational one

as i say, it's hard to compare directly to a parliamentary system but i think that's a fair analogy.

remember too that the founders of the u.s. constitution were men of the enlightenment who had read their plato. the hotheads who--

true, it's an institution playing the role of a veto-player

were instrumental to the revolution were mostly excluded from the deliberations that led to the founding document.

the washingtons and adams believed that rational property-owners needed to be in control.

the house of representatives was the main bone they threw to the advocates of democracy.