The UK or USA - Which country has become the biggest laughing stock and crazy sh**storm in recent years?

The US was so much better when it started futile wars.

I myself am struggling to decide. I live in the UK and some elements involved in our government seem pretty close to evil and willing to cause great harm to many millions for selfish ends.

They’re both shithouse crazy in their own way, but I think the US is in the lead.

Listen, the UK has some serious problems but the US is starting to look like one huge freak show.

If I were a Russian troll on DL, I would laugh my ass off at both of them.

That'd be pretty hypocritical, R5.

The US has clearly has become a caricature of itself! Couldn't find a link but reminds me of the French and Saunders skit about retirement in Florida and the gun goes off and one of them hits the floor.

I think the Russians know they can't be anything other than a gutter nation, so it does give them a little satisfaction to have company there. They aren't in this to be better, they only want everyone else to be as trashy.

The US and UK would have to fall pretty far to be in Russia's league.

Definitely the US. Notice how since Brexit no Prime Minister has been able to steamroll through a deal - the parliamentary system requires compromise. The parties don't vote in lockstep, so a vote of no confidence can remove the PM more easily, whereas a US president is basically impossible to remove. Internationally the US is viewed as being handcuffed to Trump

We're #1! We're #1! We're #1!

And yet millions are trying to come to the US to live. Go figure.

USA is haha funny. UK is tragic funny.

R13....um????

I want to see Trump’s face explode.Into lasagna

The UK is the Florida of Europe

A British friend and I have this argument, but my friend feels we're likely to get rid of Trump--and pushed back against him with the 2000 election, while the British seem incapable of getting rid of the Tories and have fucked themselves over longterm with Brexit. We're both royally fucked with COVID.

So, our disaster is splashier, but we're more likely to pull off a turnaround

Now if Trump stays in office, all bets are off.

R17 has it exactly.

2018 election. not 2000--that was a fucked-up election, makes me worry about the upcoming one.

r4 is a classic example of why Brits are the most irritating people on the planet.

Brits have problems? The fucking Brexit vote was about all the banks LAUNDERING RUSSIAN MONEY. The FinCen docs are just being dispersed now, and the ENTIRE UK has sold out to Putin's new Nazi party, and they have "some problems". The US has held Donald Trump at bay with a whip and a chair and the military has turned on him. He's about to get his ass kicked in an election and then more than likely go to jail. What were the repercussions for the Cambridge Analytica Nazis? Or Murdoch (who owns every media outlet in England)? Or Robert Mercer, who financed CA?

England has gone full fascist and BoJo desperately tries to play both sides of the NATO alliance and they have "some problems"?

Fucking Christ.

At least I can comb my hair...

[R20], up to a point you're correct in your statements. But what trumps (pardon the poor pun) everything is that the UK sells Whole Nut Cadbury and the USA, as far as I can tell, doesn't.

you got me there, r22. They do have decent chocolate.

The only thing that saved the UK from slipping into utter obscurity when its house-of-cards "empire" collapsed at the end of WWII is its decision to make itself (mostly through its overseas territories) into the shady banking capital of the universe. It went from barging around the world stealing the resources of third world people at gunpoint to creating a safe haven for criminal and dictatorship cash.

There'll always be an England!

Fuck the Queen, the whole lot of them are benefit scroungers!

The US, because we always boasted about how great we were—farther to fall (at least in terms of how we saw ourselves).

United Kingdom of America.

The US. They are about to elect a demented old fart that can’t put on his own socks. ( Biden )

The US and the UK have this bizarre way of pattern politics - Thatcher/Reagan, Blair/Clinton, Johnson/Trump.

For the US, I see people waking up and think that we had to go this low to show who the Republicans truly are. We're on the precipice of either turning toward good or evil. Hopefully, for good. To me, the main problems are Republican lies and politics from the past 30 years - and that can be resolved.

From my outsider perspective, the UK's problems are their class system, a dependent population on benefits, too much recent immigration, and a woefully corrupt financial system allowed by the City of London. None of these seem like easy fixes.

The flaw in the EU system of letting people move about from one country to another to live, work, study or retire was a utopian fantasy. And it seems the UK was hit hard - but also particularly by non-EU immigration - a double whammy.

It's not shocking or surprising that many Brits have an issue with all of the immigration and feel like their country is being taken away from them. But now they've chucked everything out in desperation and are finding how rash of a mistake that was.

There's a line to be drawn between being a multi-cultural, global society and providing opportunities and support to more people than you can accommodate - at the expense of your own citizens.

The UK is just as worthy of derision, but the US is the #1 target for hate these days. I won't say it's unearned, but having lived in other countries that are continually portrayed as being perfect (even though they're far from it) I'm annoyed by the constant hate.

[quote] too much recent immigration

Hmmm.

[Quote] the UK's problems are their class system..

In the US, its race.

Oh, it’s race in the UK, too, r32. Europeans are racist against OTHER white people and Brits think you’re an outsider if you grew up half a block away from them.

Many Brits are racists. The Irish in Ireland too. I think it's all because the refugees are all getting better benefits than their own citizens.

[quote] The US, because we always boasted about how great we were—farther to fall

Oh please, do us a favor! The British did nothing but crow about their own magnificence from the late 19th century up til WWII.

In every classroom in England hung a map of the world with huge areas shaded in red to show all the places the English had taken over.

I think the power of the right wing Christians make the US the crazier of the two. They’re about to seat yet another religious lunatic to the Supreme Court here. We’re both laughing stocks though.

The US unfortunately . The British right is nasty and cruel (just like the American conservatives) but they are for the most part not clinically psychotic and completely out of touch with reality in the way their American counterparts are. There is usually *some* semblance of common sense. Our right wing doesn't have that and that's why we're such a mess. What helps the UK a bit is that aside from some sleazy tabloids they don't have a mainstream political press that seems determined to destroy liberals and left wingers completely. UK media will give right wingers a hard time if they go too far while the American media spends 90 percent of their time bitching at Democrats.

The USA has been a laughing stock to the rest of the world from the first Tuesday in November, 2016. Your response to Covid has just been the icing on the cake.

You should be ashamed.

But of course you won’t be, it’s all the “foreigners”” fault, right?

[quote] and completely out of touch with reality....

[quote] they don't have a mainstream political press that seems determined to destroy liberals and left wingers completely.

Talk about out of touch with reality

They may be more or less equally tragic, but the US’ downfall has been much louder and more obnoxious. It’s truly embarrassing (and I am rarely embarrassed) and we can only hope that we find our way out in November. But as incredible as it is to me, there are people out there still insisting he’s doing a good job. I am unable to figure out what it is people like about him or why they feel he will best represent their interests, but there are a lot of delusional people out there.

[quote] The USA has been a laughing stock to the rest of the world from the first Tuesday in November, 2016. Your response to Covid has just been the icing on the cake.

The UK is doing worse on Covid but the US are not as fixated on global politics so we don't hear much about it.

I voted UK.

Bad things things have gotten in the US - and yes, there is a special brand of US craziness unrepeatable elsewhere - I don't think there's a serious danger of the country breaking up. In the UK, I think it's more likely than not over the next ten years, and frankly, it's about time and good riddance too.

USA. By a country mile. I worry for the UK but it’s the USA that affects us all, unfortunately. And the USA today is a clusterfuck of monumental proportions. I can shrug off Boris and what’s happening in the UK but it’s what’s happening in the USA which has me scared shitless. I can’t vote, so all that I can do is sit back and watch in horror.

Please vote him out. I’m

[Quote] what it is people like about him

He is a television star. Second, it's not that they like him but they hate the coastal liberals.

I voted both yesterday, but as of today it's probably the U.s....

I think they are both really fucked up. I hate living in the UK now, it seems like it's getting worse all the time and I literally do not have any positivity or hope for the future now. If I could move to another country I would.

I used to love the US and have been several times, have even lived there for a few months. I cannot imagine stepping foot now on American soil for a great many years though at this point. It's a broken, diseased country and regardless of who wins the election in November will be for a long time to come. If Trump wins again then it's truly lost.

R2 the UK government has demonstrated time and time again that they are evil, incompetent liars who will do everything possible to make life better for themselves while making it worse for everyone else. I cannot comprehend anyone in their right mind supporting them, it is literal insanity to me that they are able to get away with it. It's depressing as hell, the realisation as an adult that most of the time the bad guys win after all.

*Stares em "Ordem e Progreso"*

The UK for sure. And now they’re turning onwards as they realise they can’t blame Brussels or Meghan Markle for their problems.

I’m a dual UK-US, and it’s been very hard for me since 2016. I’d say the US is more fucked up currently. Even if Biden wins, there’s still going to be a malaise permeating the country, and the Dems always seem to squander every opportunity even if they get total control. However, In the long term the US may have a chance to turn it around with voter reform and demographic shift. My long term, fears for the UK are bleaker. Brexit doesn’t just go away after 4 years, and there’s a stronger likelihood for break-up of the UK than ever before. I also blame the left in this country for not reading the pulse. Brexit never should have happened, and Labour could have won general elections several times, but they chose to go down an ideological rabbit hole. If Scotland leaves, it will be a Tory majority for the indefinite future. UK isn’t as crazy on the surface, but the forces are just as or more destructive here for the long term.

R51 - the big difference is that the Dems have to put some of these fuckers in JAIL. Every time a Republican administration burns the country down (Nixon, Reagan, Bush) - it's only time to move forward.

It just makes them more bold - because nothing ever happens to them. Not to anyone that matters - the small guys perhaps.

In my own experience having lived and worked in both and abandoned both for a nicer EU country, I think UK might be worse. As absolutely horrible the US is, it seems possible to pull out of the death spiral as the most talented people are very very talented: in tech, military, finance, science.

At thr low ends, the chavs and the deplorables are about equally matched for awful. Maybe the chavs worse because they get violent on holiday.

A the higher end, everyone I encountered in the UK in leadership positions in business, government, or industry was a absolute moron who couldn't tie their shoes. There is just no American equivalent to the uselessness of a Chris Grayling or Dido Harding, not even Rick Perry.

Good music though. Hope Scotland comes back to the EU - they're a bit better than the rest.

For several years I've had to put up with scathing comments from my fancy British friends. But now with Brexit and Boris, I feel I can look the East End in the eye and laugh laugh laugh.

It would be good all round if the UK broke up.

uk. pm boris can't even explain the restrictions properly...dumb cunt. he can't even comb his hair! useless cunt!

This thread is full of bizarre people with no grip on reality.

The US and UK are still FAR better places to live than 90% of the planet. Trump will be out in November and Boris Johnson might be a bumbling twat but he’s a freaking social liberal who’s own party complains is too centrist.

But yeah, everyone’s a ‘nazi’ these days.

R57 = Magda Goebbels

r55 I think Northern Ireland will leave the UK to join a united Ireland within the next 15 -20 years. I think Brexit will help speed that process up.

The USA wins this one hands down.

I would say the Trump White House just slightly edges out the Johnson regime in terms of complete vileness.

But the Trumps and their cronies are criminals who bumbled into the office.

Johnson and his crew are what passes for the educated political class.

So I'd say the US situation is the more immediately alarming but the UK one the more dismal.

Once we pry the Trump Trash out of DC and hose the place down, some semblance of normality is possible to envision.

Johnson IS normality.

Not sure of Trump's trade wars are the equivalent of Brexit.

Neither one. North Korea and Iran are far crazier. Communist China is more scary than laughed at.

The UK has probably caused an irreparable fracture of the EU. Both their futures are now uncertain. The US looks like it's reached a fork on the road, and it's likely to self-correct if polls are to be believed. Russia and Czar Putin are the big winners because they caused both crises.