One article at this website gave me pause to think about what sort of animal we have become in the US compared to the rest of the world.
German and US Conservatives have Little In Common
The Political Compass:
While Conservatives in the US equate public provision of healthcare as ‘socialism’, in Germany, and most other western democracies for that matter, mainstream conservative parties — like their left wing opponents — see healthcare as the right of every citizen. The supreme irony is that it costs each taxpayer a good deal less than what Americans shell out for so little in return.(...) Germany, incidentally, has an incarceration rate that is less than a tenth of that in the US, and boasts a far more humane system, oriented more towards rehabilitation than punishment. The jails are run entirely by the state in Germany, where private for-profit prisons are widely seen as an abhorrent idea.
Conservative Americans might also assume that their German political namesakes are against gay marriage. To the contrary, a poll shows that 73 percent of Conservative voters are for it, and it has been legalized.(...) Then what about abortion? It’s available in ‘Conservative’ Germany during the first three months of pregnancy. Then surely Germany’s ‘Conservative’ chancellor has opposed immigration? To the contrary, she welcomed well over a million Muslim refugees in a single year.
Right across the board — minimum wage, trade union rights, generous sick pay, at least 5 weeks paid holiday, free childcare and so on — Germany’s Conservatives have little in common with those of the US. Indeed Angela Merkel has been generally well to the left of Elizabeth Warren and the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. (...)After 16 years of Conservative-led government, the top basic tax rate in Germany stands at 45 percent — an unconscionable figure for most US conservatives. But it’s still a far cry from the 91 percent top earners’ bracket reached during the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower. That was a time before liberal Republicans became an extinct species; when conservatives in the US and Germany would have sat more closely together on The Political Compass.
Maybe now I see why you are so anti-Republican, Xongsmith. We have a lot of work to do here in the US.