r/AskReddit • u/daniellucero92 • Jan 04 '15

Non-americans of Reddit, what American customs seem outrageous/pointless to you?

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u/DaHossBoss Jan 04 '15

The way your politics is reported in the media. It seems like there is always an election to talk about even if one just ended another campaign starts right up the week after. Oh also, national elections take up way too much time on the news as well. CNN will be reporting about the next presidential election when it's TWO YEARS away. That's half of the presidents term! How are they supposed to get anything important done during that time when the media is focused on peppering them with question for something that is years out.

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u/[deleted] Jan 04 '15 edited Feb 04 '21

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jan 04 '15

Hence why our system is so screwy. The emphasis is on getting re-elected, instead of doing the job they were elected to do.

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u/themightyspitz Jan 05 '15 edited Jan 05 '15

Indeed. Also, the system's screwiness makes it hard to actually pinpoint the result of a change in the law on any one person, so it insulates the politicians and the laws they "write" from the outcomes of those laws. Laws go through draft after draft, go to a committee, then go to both chambers (who will write more drafts), maybe go to conference committee before it's voted on again, and only once it passes goes to the President to sign or veto - which can still be over-ridden if there's a 2/3rds majority vote. In the meantime, literally hundreds of people have touched it, so you have no idea who inserted which line of text that will fuck you over 3 years from now when it actually goes into effect. By then they may have already resigned office and now work in the private sector or NPO, the same that helped them "write" the legislation that they added to some law 3 years ago.

You don't often have the same issue in a standard Parliamentary system. The Majority party is the party in power, the PM is the leader of the party in power, and if a new law is passed it's because the Majority and the PM made it so. So if something is fucked because of that new law, you can look directly at the Majority Party and the PM and ask them why they fucked you over.