Caspian report on youtube
Peter Zeihan lectures

The whites f***ed up the middle east badly and still are f***ing them badly.

Israel fighting Palestine for land that was never theirs.

China buying out land in africa

Africa is f***ed up due to white colonists and trying fix those issues but it's too far back

essentially we have a prime minister and a parliament

when you vote you vote for the party and the associated leader of that party. you dont know who would be deputy prime minister

your other vote is for your local representative who is associated with a party

parliament is made up of the elected local rep for each area and the other seats in parliament are allocated based on percentage of party vote

we use MMP which is mixed majority. we have about 6-7 stable parties rather than two like the US. in order to form government a party needs 50%. this is rare so usually one of the big two parties will form a coalition with 1-2 other parties who share interests and if together they're over 50% they make up the government

our big two parties are labor and national. national is like someone like Biden. generally on the left wing side but very status quo. Labor are more like Sanders very socially focused and left - stuff like higher taxes on wealth, increased welfare etc. Green and Maori sit further left of Labor - big reform big government etc. TOP is like a more economically focused Green (think UBI etc but also very environment focused). ACT are classic libertarian. NZ First are like old people and they're currently in government with labor which is a kinda weird combo and has resulted in some policy issues. Mana party are somewhere between national and labor but focus on Maori issues. Sustainable NZ are in between national and labor but are environment focused. there aren't really any major conservative parties other than national who aren't really even conservative by US standards but New Conservative and Vision are the two newer ones that are filling this lane.

Right now Labor has Jacinda Ardern who has struggled policy wise but has been unbelievably good through several crises - passed gun laws right after Christchurch shooting, eliminated coronavirus entirely in NZ etc. She'll win the election comfortably and might even get labor over 50% but they'll still probably combine with Green because they need to keep that relationship.

National recently changed leader to a guy named Todd Muller. He has a trump hat which was a controversy here but he actually supported Hilary in 2016 and is not a fan of trump just has it as memorabilia. He'll probably be removed as party leader post election.

New Zealand has some issues but the party system allows for options outside the big two and coalitions allow for small parties to have an impact. Additionally a lot of stuff here is very bipartisan - the gun laws were unanimous in parliament. Abortion is debated but only in terms of how long its legal up till rather than pro-choice vs pro life. National's next party leader is evangelical christian so they might move further right but I think thats a bad decision given labors popularity.

for me personally im split between green, top and Maori. Green will do well and get 5-8% of the vote but I fundamentally disagree with their environmental policy (ironic considering they're Green Party but its an area that ive done a lot of work in). TOP sit very well with me thanks to their economic policy but they don't go far enough on some areas important to me - justice reform, taxes. Maori I like a lot all around but they don't have as strong an economic platform. Their criminal justice reform policy is great though

also elections every 3 years and no term limit for prime ministers

:word:

but nah i mean u got countries individual histories, their relation and connections to each other whether that be as allies or enemies.. etc