"Despite its satirical nature, some of the things that have featured in Loony manifestos have become law, such as being able to vote at 18, "passports for pets", and all-day pub openings."
For Europeans it is actually quite hard to distinguish the two major US parties based on their policies, they would both be labelled right-of-center in most European countries.
The most visible differences (abortion, stance on war, gay rights) are relatively small, much smaller than the similarities.
To hear 'left wing' and 'right wing' thrown about and the Democrats labeled 'socialist' is really confusing.
Yes. A result of winner-take-all elections is that we have trench-style (as in World War 1 trench warfare) politics: two parties stand very close to each other on the political spectrum with ~45% support each, very little gets done, and the only thing that really happens is that the front where the trenches are moves a few meters to the left or the right. Right now, both trenches are deep into center-right territory as far as the left/right economic spectrum is concerned.
I think there is a difference between the parties, but not so much along left-right lines. These cultural issues (gay rights, abortion, evolution) might seem trivial to Europeans, but that's because there isn't a credible threat of abortion being recriminalized in Sweden, nor of evolution being stricken from the classrooms in France. The Religious Right isn't a majority in the US, but they are powerful. Bush would not have been able to get domestic support for the War on Iraq without the dominionists (those who believe bringing violence to the Middle East will hasten the End Times and Rapture) on board. They're about 10-15% of the voting populace.
The Democratic party is a center-right party that would be labeled conservative by European standards but generally considered reasonable; the Republican party is not much further to the economic right but is far more authoritarian and zealous.
The trend seems to go the other way in Britain - I notice several former Loony's now represent the Conservative party.
Funnily enough, when Thatcher was Prie Minister, she tried to pass a law banning joke candidacies, but failed. Besides challenges from Screaming Lord Sutch and various campaigners for lighter drinking laws, she also faced challenges from the dread-but-obscure Darth Vader lookalike, Lord Buckethead (Gremloids).
I remember when I could vote for "RON" in college.
It meant "Re-Open Nominations", or "I don't want to vote for any of you so let's call this a failed vote and we'll redo it in future. And we'll keep doing that until there are people or policies we positively want, instead of choosing the least worst option".
I miss that in 'real' politics. Imagine if everyone's default vote was 'nobody' and we had 'no government' until someone makes a party which is so good people really want to vote for it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Monster_Raving_Loony_P...