I&#x27;m not from Denmark, but not very far from it. Don&#x27;t you get civil disorder every time a high profile, widely hated criminal gets off with a sentence that&#x27;s much lighter than people get in the movies? Where I live, every time that happens, populist and right wing parties rise in the polls. At this time, they&#x27;re maybe one incident involving a Syrian refugee away from winning the elections. It&#x27;s inevitable, with so many thousands of them, there&#x27;s bound to be one who crosses the line at some point.<p>The US has a different kind of democratic tradition. Some will say they&#x27;re more democratic, but I think it has a lot to do with the &quot;winner takes all&quot; principle vs. &quot;proportional representation&quot;. Deep down inside, it&#x27;s what a significant chunk of the population wants: &quot;as long as there are still people whom I can&#x27;t identify with out there breaking the rules, we&#x27;re still not tough enough on crime&quot;. The largest group is the one that gets represented, and doesn&#x27;t have to share power.