I remember sitting in a pub in Northampton, England talking politics with a English dude. He was working class, and not particularly well-educated. Yet he had a keen sense of what was going on with George II, and how his administration was influencing England, America, and the rest of the world. What I found particularly refreshing was that this guy understood that the Presidents positions and deeds were not necessarily reflective of the American people. I bought him a beer for saying that.
I've had similar experiences when traveling in Europe. And I'm glad that the Europeans I've met don't blame me, personally, for George Bush's actions. As an individual, I felt pretty powerless to influence them.
However, they would be right to blame Americans, cumulatively, for them. If there's ever a country whose people can reasonably be held responsible for the actions of their leaders, it's this one.
Unfortunately, your not-particularly-well-educated English dude may have had a better grasp of what was going on with George Bush than a large portion of American voters. That's the sad part. I've seen the same thing here at BetterMost, where people from other countries pay more attention to what's going on here than people here do. Oh, but we can all say how long Kim Kardashian was married.
A friend of mine recently remarked that she doesn't remember whether Ronald Reagan was a Democrat or Republican. A different friend asked me whether a longtime senator from our state was still in office -- he's been out of office for 15 years. And these are both people with average-ish intelligence and some education.
