Regarding the long thread on similarity, or not, between Democrats and Republicans — perspectives from within the USA are limited by context.

I lived in Sweden my junior year in college, as an exchange student. It was 1983–84, and Reagan was running for his second term. Because USA politics impacts the rest of the world so much, there was considerable coverage of the campaigns on Swedish TV (some of it coming from UK and other European news sources as well).

A common political question I’d be asked when someone found out I was an American was precisely that — “what is the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans?”

This was a genuine question. No trace of sarcasm or facetiousness, as might be the case within the USA. They really were wondering, and curious. Because from their perspective, as citizens in a more-than-two-party parliamentary social democracy, it was truly hard to see much difference between Democrats and Republicans.

This is also congruent with both parties primarily serving an oligarchy identified in the study linked in your article.

The policy details that are presented as major party differences within the USA may look quite small, may be invisible even, from outside our bubble.

The most telling question I was asked, however, was this:

“Your American presidential election — is it basically just a popularity contest?”