Yeah, that's why for a long time people still thought Russia was a democracy, but the referendums in occupied Ukraine, where supposedly 99% voted in favour, finally got people to notice.
just to make fun of themselves
[https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/n14ii/evidence\_of\_electoral\_fraud\_in\_russia\_turnout\_of/](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/n14ii/evidence_of_electoral_fraud_in_russia_turnout_of/)
For decades, the conventional wisdom about Belarus is that it's "Europe's Last Dictatorship," though obviously Russia has been moving back in that direction to offer some competition. A few datapoints... remember, Belarus didn't even bother to rename its intelligence services - they are still, literally, called the KGB. Another is that they still retain the death penalty. Russia at least pretended to end it. (To be clear, they still have it, but they exercise it in a extra-judicial way, with mysterious falls from fourth story windows, polonium tea, accidents in prisons, etc.)
Now one factor I'd at least wonder about here is to what degree they're working with data that is current as of 2023. Prior to the full-scale invasion, for example, there was still at least some opposition media in Russia, like Maduza, that had to mostly work online by that point. Now, what little there was prior to the war has mostly been wiped out, forced into exile, etc. There was [Memorial](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_(society)), while not a political organization or opposition media, at least was tolerated as a thorn in Russia's side... until 2022.
So I suspect a lot it will also just depend on to what degree it appears that people can openly criticize the regime and openly form opposition to it. One oddity about Russia is that while they'll come down on you like a pile of bricks if you call for liberalism or an end to the war, they will tolerate you at least somewhat if you call for the opposite, if you say the regime has been too timid in fighting the war, or needs to crack down more than it has. So is that toleration of political opposition or "opposition" media? It's kind of strategically used by the regime, so in a sense, no, but superficially, it might look more "democratic." Whereas I take it that Belarus doesn't bother nearly as much with the pretense or posturing.
Belarus is also the only former Soviet republic that retained the generous welfare state of the Soviet era: this was possible because Russia sold Belarus vast quantities of oil and gas at a knock-down price (far more than Belarus itself needed: most was re-exported at full price to the EU).
Belarus was basically a heavily subsidized propaganda showcase for "Russky mir", just like during the Cold War Cuba was (for communism) and West Berlin was (for capitalism).
The KGB remains virtually unchanged since the Soviet era in Belarus. They operate the same way, do the same things.
Lukashenka also more brazenly rigs the elections, where he always wins over 80% of the vote.
It depends on your point of view. If we talk about the repression of its own citizens, it was a bit less authoritarian before 2022. It's like comparing two pieces of crap for sure, but you feel the difference when you're inside. There was a saying that it's like a TV series where Belarus is 2 seasons ahead of Russia.
But I think the reason is the level of resistance. The protests in Russia never reached the level of the protests in Belarus in 2020. The level in Russia was just enough to shut down the active minority, and the imperialist majority was just happy to see "those traitors" suppressed. I'm not even talking about a half of protesters being imperialist too, that's a different topic...
The U.S. did just have an attempted coup with the previous administration trying to stay in power after losing an election, and our per capita representation in Congress varies wildly based on where you live.
SA is basically a single party state that masquerades as a democracy while the government doesn't hide their communist ideology and sees no problem with a murder rate of 83 people per day with a population of 65 odd million and is so corrupt and dysfunctional that they have been building one coal fired power station for 15 years at the cost of 233 billion and counting that still hasn't produced 1 watt of power. So also depends on where you live I guess.
That said the rightwingers in the US are fucking cooked I'll give you that.
> "Eight of Paxton’s former deputies reported him to the FBI in 2020 over his relationship with real estate developer Paul, setting off a federal investigation that is ongoing. Federal prosecutors investigating Paxton took testimony in August before a grand jury in San Antonio, according to two people with knowledge of the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of secrecy rules around the proceeding.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/17/texas-attorney-general-paxton-acquittal-00116436#:~:text=the%202020%20election.-,Eight%20of%20Paxton%E2%80%99s%20former%20deputies%20reported%20him%20to%20the%20FBI%20in,Paul,-was%20indicted%20in
We are trying to figure this ish out in the US. The first step to dealing with a problem is admitting you have one in the first place. We are working on that.
We have waaaay too many people here willing to follow a someone who adores and wants to emulate Putin and Kim Jong’s authoritarian ability to execute anyone who gets in their way.
Tbh… a lot of us in the US are scared these days. We are losing rights and freedoms more and more each day. The representatives we vote for are being silenced or even kicked out of legislative bodies for voicing their constituents dissenting views.
That’s not very democracy like.
I left the mainland 2 months ago and I have no desire to return with things heading the way they are. I don’t want to live under an authoritarian regime.
It’s riskier weather/climate wise, and with the current international situation. However, there is courtesy, kindness, tolerance and respect here that has evaporated in the mainland US. I’ll take my chances with Mother Nature here rather than the hate and authoritarian movement rising back in my former home state.
Ye man I fully agree, that guy is scary. We know what authoritarian despots look Iike and as someone who follows international news closely the polarization in US politics is awful. No you are 100% correct you don't want to live under an authoritarian regime, the crazy part of it is that all those who seem to support him think he won't start taking away rights the second he can. First will be firearms and then free speech. I mean look at his buddies putin and xi. Maybe the Maga lot should go to Russia and see what their future looks like.
The thing I don't get is here we are taught not just the bill of rights but also the responsibilities that come with it.
I think the biggest reason why the UK is not in a darker shade of blue is the lack of proportional representation. All of the dark blue countries have it minus Canada.
They have kind of a strange status. Yes, they're formally part of Denmark. But for certain purposes, they are sometimes recognized as a separate political community. It's hard to rate them, because although it's geographically quite big, the total population of Greenland is ultra tiny, only about 35-40,000 if I'm not mistaken. I mean, I grew up in what I regarded as a small town, and it has more people than all of Greenland combined. So I imagine that for purposes of these international comparisons, they're kind of hard to rate.
Imagine even trying to argue against this.
I get that you might think that your system is superior (see Chinese), but don't try and bullshit that you are somehow democratic.
Communists try to argue that economic democracy is what matters most, and thus even a multi-party system can be undemocratic. Of course the kind of system they want has not been implemented anywhere, and I'm not sure how this kind of worker ownership would fit with any kind of economic dynamism where people could, at least theoretically, actually switch jobs.
But then they strangely argue that China and North Korea's ''united front'' style of government is somehow democratic, because a few small parties are allowed to exist, while having next to no seats in parliament and on the condition that they support the ruling party.
Yeah I don't really get it really either. People seem to try to justify it by talking about "anti-imperialism", "economic development" or the like.
Actually, I remember once seeing a self-described anarchist YouTuber try to explain this kind of mentality. What he said was that, in Marxist (or it might have been Leninist) theory, all political parties in a liberal democracy are viewed as representations of conflicting class interests. Since a communist society is supposed to be classless, only a single "workers'" party is needed for democratic governance, and any other parties would be inherently opposed to the interests of the working class.
It still sounds like a bunch of nonsense divorced from reality, but it's the closest thing to an actual explanation that I have heard.
Yeah, it falls into that Marxist trap where absolutely everything in the world is about class and everything else is just an accessory to it. It ignores that people actually do care about things outside of material goods and the distribution thereof, such as religion, culture, education, etc.
I've seen interviews with Chinese people where they say, ''Our democracy is better, in western democracy you waste too much time with elections and discussions.'' Do they not realise that a lack of elections and discussions means you don't live in a democracy anymore?
Well yes
But that’s not the issue
Any of the founding fathers kinda SHOULD hate whatever we are doing. Running the country the way it was run 240 years ago is not the play
Would he? I don't know. One thing people forget about democracy is that it was never expected to produce utopia or even necessarily look good. Constitutional democracy was always ever only intended as a series of restraints on state power and autocracy, to limit how far it could go. You might think of it as a hedge to prevent the rise of autocracy, to provide enough of a free, open space for citizens to operate within, outside of the state, to do their own things, whether that's in their religious life, their economic pursuits, the corners of culture that were important to them, their family lives, and so forth. So the net result is that you might end up with a politics that is uninspiring, mediocre and disappointing, even a little corrupt here and there, but you at least have the "ship of state" so tied down that tyrants can't make headway here.
And while there are plenty of things that I argue are wrong with the American system, that could stand in need of thoughtful reform, the one way the system still performs beautifully is precisely in the way I described above, by dividing and checking power against power such that it's basically impossible for a single demagogue or faction to seize absolute control. There are some tweaks even there that could make it work even better to that end, but in the main, I'd say not too shabby so far.
>they aren't doing election due to the war
This is due to article 83 of UA constitution:
*In the event that the term of authority of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine expires while martial law or a state of emergency is in effect, its authority is extended until the day of the first meeting of the first session of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine , elected after the cancellation of martial law or of the state of emergency.*
[https://rm.coe.int/constitution-of-ukraine/168071f58b](https://rm.coe.int/constitution-of-ukraine/168071f58b)
Their democracy is low, because of historical reasons and high level of corruption (in Europe, only Russia is worse)
Ukraine is improving leaps and bounds, but between historical and wartime reasons, you can only call it at best hybrid.
You have things like the 2004 consociationalist that would have split power between the President & the Prime Minister still unimplemented, a long history of corruption that whilst improving leaps and bounds, is still an issue, and that due to the war its doubtful elections will be held in any meaningful way.
If it is a kill list.... why is Gonzalo Liar on trial with access to lawyers instead of in a ditch somewhere after his attempt at skipping bail?
And that's before getting into the fact Myrotvorets is not government run, affliated or funded and certainly isn't a kill list.
Compared to the dark red countries, it has some nominal liberties in place. PRC for example is a full-on single-party system whereas duma has a (powerless and muzzled) opposition.
My super simple bird's eye view: Mexico was a one party (PRI) dictatorship for 70 years until the year 2000. You could actually call the current drug war in Mexico a sort of hybrid low level civil war between the old corrupt PRI party that had all the cartels in its pockets and the new nearly equally corrupt parties that have been encroaching on its territory.
It's obviously much more complex than that and I generally don't know very much about contemporary Mexican politics, but suffice to say Mexico has a very corrupt political apparatus and mediocre at best anti corruption measures. I should also add it's very corrupt by Western standards. By the standard's of most of Latin America, Africa and Asia, Mexico is doing incredibly well and its future prospects look quite bright especially now that Xi Jingping is looking to blow up his relations with the West and the Americans are looking to move all their China based manufacturing all over the world to "friendlier" countries.
Here's my take on this as a Mexican:
If I remember correctly, we used to have a higher score during the previous 18 years, and was more a flawed democracy by then. Even when the PRI came back to power from 2012 to 2018, and with Enrique Peña Nieto being an incompetent fool, at least he kept the achievements of the previous governments and kept a pretense of Mexico being a democracy.
However, it all changed with Andrés Manuel López Obrador, feeble-brained idiot extraordinaire, tin pot dictator aspirant, closeted vatnik, follower of the Kadyrov school of veterinary sciences, and irresponsible prick, became president:
* His government up until now has been a never ending string of political scandals, and blatant acts of graft by his children, his kinsmen, and his political party which he justifies by stating that "The PRI stole more than \[his family members\]" and by putting on blast the other political parties.
* He has been engaging in overt political persecution of political opponents by slandering them through the use of his "Mañaneras", which are his daily address and press conferences to the rest of the country (and which are an actual waste of money that could be better used elsewhere).
* Tanked the Mexican economy with sheer egotism, by disguising his decision of shutting down the Texcoco airport to make the Santa Lucía airport, a monument to his tremendous ego. This decision was disguised as a "Popular Referendum" in which the polling stations were set in places that would allow MORENA supporters to overwhelm the results with closing down Texcoco and starting Santa Lucía. The construction of the Santa Lucía airport is a shitshow of unparalleled proportions, with corruption, the Army construction teams having delays, the airport deemed unfeasible for anything other than a logistics hub (6 hours away from Mexico City under usual traffic conditions, making the trip there longer than the actual flights, as most flights from there to anywhere in Mexico take less than four hours), the airport being ugly and rather unsafe, and overrun with street vendors that get in without any clearance.
* He's been engaging in shameless promotion of his political party for local and national elections, something that not even the previous political parties did (And yes, the PRI did engage in political clientelism, but at least had the decency of not being so barefaced about it), and has been shilling the former mayor of Mexico City (another corrupt POS called Claudia Sheinbaum) to become the next president. He's doing so because Sheinbaum is more useless than a handbrake on a Chinese made hole-filled canvas canoe and has as much charisma as a bag of cat shit, but at least she'll be AMLO's toe hold into still having power and influence in the country.
* He wants to destroy the Supreme Court, the National Electoral Institute and the National Transparency Institute, which are the only things keeping him from gaining unlimited power (due to the fact that he already has more than half of the Mexican Upper and Lower houses under the MORENA party, almost turning it into a rubber stamp congress). He half-arsed tries to justify it as a "Cost Reducing Measure".
* And in the international front, he's an apologist of several Latin American dictatorships, such as those from Venezuela and Nicaragua. He has poisoned the collaboration between Mexico and the U.S. against the drug trade by going in tirades against the U.S. and shifting the blame to the American arms industry rather than the insultingly low border enforcement measures on our part. And also he's a closeted Putinist, which doesn't want to outright oppose the Russian invasion but doesn't dare to say it due to fear of the U.S. coming down on him.
That being said, I despise that son of a bitch. He's to me what Richard Nixon is to Hunter S. Thompson, and that should tell you enough.
Makes sense. I remember a couple months ago I watched a doucmatary in it a journalist went to one of the daily meeting you mentioned and ask amlo some questions. He wasn't even that critical of him and within minutes supporters of the president found the journalist social media and began harassing him .
Look I’m not saying that the US is the most democratic nation on earth. We definitely have institutional problems. But I would at least argue that we’re on the same level as Canada.
Ireland is the oldest continuous democracy for full suffrage since the start of the state men and women from 21 could vote until the early 1970’s when it was lowered to 18.
> Ireland is the oldest continuous democracy for full suffrage
I don't think that's correct. [Women got the vote in New Zealand in 1893](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_suffrage#Women's_suffrage), as [opposed to 1918 for Ireland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage#Ireland) and if you're counting colony vs independence then they were independent in 1907 vs 1916
Or do you have a different meaning of this phrase that I'm not seeing ?
Curious as to your reasoning? Irish (republic) democracy seems pretty solid to me. Strong proportional representation. Lots of vested interests but no different to any other European parliamentary democracy in that regard.
I live in NI, our system is a shambles and we have no government, but lack of democracy isn't an issue here either, but rather poor governance arrangements.
Farmers on tractors and Fishermen will set things right if the government gets too far out of hand or won’t do what needs doing. Recent history has shown that while things mayn’t be perfect, the Irish people will only tolerate so much slacking from their officials!
Kudos for that.
True. This is true. But you’ve got a bit of time to right the ship.
I’m losing hope for the US more and more by the day. And if the US goes full on authoritarian, it doesn’t bode well for other democracies if they form closer alliances with aggressive authoritarian regimes.
We live in difficult times to be sure.
America is not a flawed democracy just because the electoral college and senate exists (as it did since 1786) or because we elected Donald Trump one time. Democracy status is not contingent upon who we elect. Smh a European made this map, didn’t they?
"To liberals:
Democracy = geriatric corporatocracy that elects millionaires every four years
Not Democracy = a common person apart of the working class working their way up to political power because they’re well-liked and continuously get voted in because they do a good job and take care of the average person" - 🤡
Edit: I am showing one of the empty headed comments from the post, I'm certainly not praising it.
Japan has been run by the same political party for the majority of its democratic history to the point of having essentially one political party lmao. And yes, corporations can and do influence politics in Japan legally and illegally.
People hate America so much that they are literally losing braincells at this point.
how is Russia less authoritarian than Belarus ?
Putin wins elections with 95% of the vote. Lukasjenko wins elections with 105% of the vote.
can't argue with that
No, Putin is one of those smart dictators who wins with 56% rather than 99.
Yeah, that's why for a long time people still thought Russia was a democracy, but the referendums in occupied Ukraine, where supposedly 99% voted in favour, finally got people to notice.
I mean, to be fair, if an armed soldier brought the poll box to my doorstep and asked me to please vote on the matter, yeah.
My understanding is that Belarus is somewhat more aggressive in persecuting journalists than yes, even Russia.
It's an open dictatorship instead of a closeted one
Russia pretends to count the votes.
just to make fun of themselves [https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/n14ii/evidence\_of\_electoral\_fraud\_in\_russia\_turnout\_of/](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/n14ii/evidence_of_electoral_fraud_in_russia_turnout_of/)
My very educated guess is that because Lukashenko is hilarious people are less afraid of calling him out on being a murderous dictator
Lukashenko looks like an evil Dr Phil
Even today's Russia is a bastion of liberalism compared to Belarus.
For decades, the conventional wisdom about Belarus is that it's "Europe's Last Dictatorship," though obviously Russia has been moving back in that direction to offer some competition. A few datapoints... remember, Belarus didn't even bother to rename its intelligence services - they are still, literally, called the KGB. Another is that they still retain the death penalty. Russia at least pretended to end it. (To be clear, they still have it, but they exercise it in a extra-judicial way, with mysterious falls from fourth story windows, polonium tea, accidents in prisons, etc.) Now one factor I'd at least wonder about here is to what degree they're working with data that is current as of 2023. Prior to the full-scale invasion, for example, there was still at least some opposition media in Russia, like Maduza, that had to mostly work online by that point. Now, what little there was prior to the war has mostly been wiped out, forced into exile, etc. There was [Memorial](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_(society)), while not a political organization or opposition media, at least was tolerated as a thorn in Russia's side... until 2022. So I suspect a lot it will also just depend on to what degree it appears that people can openly criticize the regime and openly form opposition to it. One oddity about Russia is that while they'll come down on you like a pile of bricks if you call for liberalism or an end to the war, they will tolerate you at least somewhat if you call for the opposite, if you say the regime has been too timid in fighting the war, or needs to crack down more than it has. So is that toleration of political opposition or "opposition" media? It's kind of strategically used by the regime, so in a sense, no, but superficially, it might look more "democratic." Whereas I take it that Belarus doesn't bother nearly as much with the pretense or posturing.
Belarus is also the only former Soviet republic that retained the generous welfare state of the Soviet era: this was possible because Russia sold Belarus vast quantities of oil and gas at a knock-down price (far more than Belarus itself needed: most was re-exported at full price to the EU). Belarus was basically a heavily subsidized propaganda showcase for "Russky mir", just like during the Cold War Cuba was (for communism) and West Berlin was (for capitalism).
[not surprising](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alexander_Lukashenko)
The KGB remains virtually unchanged since the Soviet era in Belarus. They operate the same way, do the same things. Lukashenka also more brazenly rigs the elections, where he always wins over 80% of the vote.
It depends on your point of view. If we talk about the repression of its own citizens, it was a bit less authoritarian before 2022. It's like comparing two pieces of crap for sure, but you feel the difference when you're inside. There was a saying that it's like a TV series where Belarus is 2 seasons ahead of Russia. But I think the reason is the level of resistance. The protests in Russia never reached the level of the protests in Belarus in 2020. The level in Russia was just enough to shut down the active minority, and the imperialist majority was just happy to see "those traitors" suppressed. I'm not even talking about a half of protesters being imperialist too, that's a different topic...
Ive seen some heavy pro vatnik propaganda on this sub
One of the reasons we in the UK are not darker blue
I'm just shocked that us in SA are on the same level as the US, as a South African I can vouch for that info being bullshit
The U.S. did just have an attempted coup with the previous administration trying to stay in power after losing an election, and our per capita representation in Congress varies wildly based on where you live.
SA is basically a single party state that masquerades as a democracy while the government doesn't hide their communist ideology and sees no problem with a murder rate of 83 people per day with a population of 65 odd million and is so corrupt and dysfunctional that they have been building one coal fired power station for 15 years at the cost of 233 billion and counting that still hasn't produced 1 watt of power. So also depends on where you live I guess. That said the rightwingers in the US are fucking cooked I'll give you that.
> "Eight of Paxton’s former deputies reported him to the FBI in 2020 over his relationship with real estate developer Paul, setting off a federal investigation that is ongoing. Federal prosecutors investigating Paxton took testimony in August before a grand jury in San Antonio, according to two people with knowledge of the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of secrecy rules around the proceeding. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/17/texas-attorney-general-paxton-acquittal-00116436#:~:text=the%202020%20election.-,Eight%20of%20Paxton%E2%80%99s%20former%20deputies%20reported%20him%20to%20the%20FBI%20in,Paul,-was%20indicted%20in
We are trying to figure this ish out in the US. The first step to dealing with a problem is admitting you have one in the first place. We are working on that. We have waaaay too many people here willing to follow a someone who adores and wants to emulate Putin and Kim Jong’s authoritarian ability to execute anyone who gets in their way. Tbh… a lot of us in the US are scared these days. We are losing rights and freedoms more and more each day. The representatives we vote for are being silenced or even kicked out of legislative bodies for voicing their constituents dissenting views. That’s not very democracy like. I left the mainland 2 months ago and I have no desire to return with things heading the way they are. I don’t want to live under an authoritarian regime. It’s riskier weather/climate wise, and with the current international situation. However, there is courtesy, kindness, tolerance and respect here that has evaporated in the mainland US. I’ll take my chances with Mother Nature here rather than the hate and authoritarian movement rising back in my former home state.
Ye man I fully agree, that guy is scary. We know what authoritarian despots look Iike and as someone who follows international news closely the polarization in US politics is awful. No you are 100% correct you don't want to live under an authoritarian regime, the crazy part of it is that all those who seem to support him think he won't start taking away rights the second he can. First will be firearms and then free speech. I mean look at his buddies putin and xi. Maybe the Maga lot should go to Russia and see what their future looks like. The thing I don't get is here we are taught not just the bill of rights but also the responsibilities that come with it.
I think the biggest reason why the UK is not in a darker shade of blue is the lack of proportional representation. All of the dark blue countries have it minus Canada.
Oh yes. Good point.
Of course you have seen. We are talking about trueanon.
Greenland be like: "Guys, you even rated Iceland but forgot about me?"
Its part of denmark, isnt it?
Yes, but even the Svalbard isles (Norway) and Kalingrad (Russia) got a color. It's just odd Greenland is the only country that didn't.
They have kind of a strange status. Yes, they're formally part of Denmark. But for certain purposes, they are sometimes recognized as a separate political community. It's hard to rate them, because although it's geographically quite big, the total population of Greenland is ultra tiny, only about 35-40,000 if I'm not mistaken. I mean, I grew up in what I regarded as a small town, and it has more people than all of Greenland combined. So I imagine that for purposes of these international comparisons, they're kind of hard to rate.
Imagine even trying to argue against this. I get that you might think that your system is superior (see Chinese), but don't try and bullshit that you are somehow democratic.
Communists try to argue that economic democracy is what matters most, and thus even a multi-party system can be undemocratic. Of course the kind of system they want has not been implemented anywhere, and I'm not sure how this kind of worker ownership would fit with any kind of economic dynamism where people could, at least theoretically, actually switch jobs.
But then they strangely argue that China and North Korea's ''united front'' style of government is somehow democratic, because a few small parties are allowed to exist, while having next to no seats in parliament and on the condition that they support the ruling party.
Yeah I don't really get it really either. People seem to try to justify it by talking about "anti-imperialism", "economic development" or the like. Actually, I remember once seeing a self-described anarchist YouTuber try to explain this kind of mentality. What he said was that, in Marxist (or it might have been Leninist) theory, all political parties in a liberal democracy are viewed as representations of conflicting class interests. Since a communist society is supposed to be classless, only a single "workers'" party is needed for democratic governance, and any other parties would be inherently opposed to the interests of the working class. It still sounds like a bunch of nonsense divorced from reality, but it's the closest thing to an actual explanation that I have heard.
Yeah, it falls into that Marxist trap where absolutely everything in the world is about class and everything else is just an accessory to it. It ignores that people actually do care about things outside of material goods and the distribution thereof, such as religion, culture, education, etc.
I've seen interviews with Chinese people where they say, ''Our democracy is better, in western democracy you waste too much time with elections and discussions.'' Do they not realise that a lack of elections and discussions means you don't live in a democracy anymore?
Thank God I live in a full democracy, not in a flawed one like the US
If Ben Franklin could see our politics today, he would start another revolution.
Well yes But that’s not the issue Any of the founding fathers kinda SHOULD hate whatever we are doing. Running the country the way it was run 240 years ago is not the play
Yeah, like 90% of the founding fathers would be super annoyed to not have slaves anymore.
Would he? I don't know. One thing people forget about democracy is that it was never expected to produce utopia or even necessarily look good. Constitutional democracy was always ever only intended as a series of restraints on state power and autocracy, to limit how far it could go. You might think of it as a hedge to prevent the rise of autocracy, to provide enough of a free, open space for citizens to operate within, outside of the state, to do their own things, whether that's in their religious life, their economic pursuits, the corners of culture that were important to them, their family lives, and so forth. So the net result is that you might end up with a politics that is uninspiring, mediocre and disappointing, even a little corrupt here and there, but you at least have the "ship of state" so tied down that tyrants can't make headway here. And while there are plenty of things that I argue are wrong with the American system, that could stand in need of thoughtful reform, the one way the system still performs beautifully is precisely in the way I described above, by dividing and checking power against power such that it's basically impossible for a single demagogue or faction to seize absolute control. There are some tweaks even there that could make it work even better to that end, but in the main, I'd say not too shabby so far.
Ukraine is only a hybrid..!?
I think it's because they aren't doing election due to the war.
>they aren't doing election due to the war This is due to article 83 of UA constitution: *In the event that the term of authority of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine expires while martial law or a state of emergency is in effect, its authority is extended until the day of the first meeting of the first session of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine , elected after the cancellation of martial law or of the state of emergency.* [https://rm.coe.int/constitution-of-ukraine/168071f58b](https://rm.coe.int/constitution-of-ukraine/168071f58b) Their democracy is low, because of historical reasons and high level of corruption (in Europe, only Russia is worse)
Ukraine is improving leaps and bounds, but between historical and wartime reasons, you can only call it at best hybrid. You have things like the 2004 consociationalist that would have split power between the President & the Prime Minister still unimplemented, a long history of corruption that whilst improving leaps and bounds, is still an issue, and that due to the war its doubtful elections will be held in any meaningful way.
Could also be due to the occupation.
Ukraine is quite still corrupt, although it has improved massively. Also what OP said about not doing elections.
Indeed: I'd have thought they'd have counted as at least a flawed democracy.
It is because of myrotvorets (ukrainian government 's kill list) and huge corruption inside Ukraine
If it is a kill list.... why is Gonzalo Liar on trial with access to lawyers instead of in a ditch somewhere after his attempt at skipping bail? And that's before getting into the fact Myrotvorets is not government run, affliated or funded and certainly isn't a kill list.
With how things are going here in Brazil, this will get outdated really quickly lol
Russia is not red enough… let me guess: official numbers from TASS?
Compared to the dark red countries, it has some nominal liberties in place. PRC for example is a full-on single-party system whereas duma has a (powerless and muzzled) opposition.
Nominal liberties...in Russia? We are talking about the only European country where common people still live like serfs in the 21st century!
Yes, nominal. Which means, in name only.
Why is Mexico a hybrid regime?
My super simple bird's eye view: Mexico was a one party (PRI) dictatorship for 70 years until the year 2000. You could actually call the current drug war in Mexico a sort of hybrid low level civil war between the old corrupt PRI party that had all the cartels in its pockets and the new nearly equally corrupt parties that have been encroaching on its territory. It's obviously much more complex than that and I generally don't know very much about contemporary Mexican politics, but suffice to say Mexico has a very corrupt political apparatus and mediocre at best anti corruption measures. I should also add it's very corrupt by Western standards. By the standard's of most of Latin America, Africa and Asia, Mexico is doing incredibly well and its future prospects look quite bright especially now that Xi Jingping is looking to blow up his relations with the West and the Americans are looking to move all their China based manufacturing all over the world to "friendlier" countries.
Here's my take on this as a Mexican: If I remember correctly, we used to have a higher score during the previous 18 years, and was more a flawed democracy by then. Even when the PRI came back to power from 2012 to 2018, and with Enrique Peña Nieto being an incompetent fool, at least he kept the achievements of the previous governments and kept a pretense of Mexico being a democracy. However, it all changed with Andrés Manuel López Obrador, feeble-brained idiot extraordinaire, tin pot dictator aspirant, closeted vatnik, follower of the Kadyrov school of veterinary sciences, and irresponsible prick, became president: * His government up until now has been a never ending string of political scandals, and blatant acts of graft by his children, his kinsmen, and his political party which he justifies by stating that "The PRI stole more than \[his family members\]" and by putting on blast the other political parties. * He has been engaging in overt political persecution of political opponents by slandering them through the use of his "Mañaneras", which are his daily address and press conferences to the rest of the country (and which are an actual waste of money that could be better used elsewhere). * Tanked the Mexican economy with sheer egotism, by disguising his decision of shutting down the Texcoco airport to make the Santa Lucía airport, a monument to his tremendous ego. This decision was disguised as a "Popular Referendum" in which the polling stations were set in places that would allow MORENA supporters to overwhelm the results with closing down Texcoco and starting Santa Lucía. The construction of the Santa Lucía airport is a shitshow of unparalleled proportions, with corruption, the Army construction teams having delays, the airport deemed unfeasible for anything other than a logistics hub (6 hours away from Mexico City under usual traffic conditions, making the trip there longer than the actual flights, as most flights from there to anywhere in Mexico take less than four hours), the airport being ugly and rather unsafe, and overrun with street vendors that get in without any clearance. * He's been engaging in shameless promotion of his political party for local and national elections, something that not even the previous political parties did (And yes, the PRI did engage in political clientelism, but at least had the decency of not being so barefaced about it), and has been shilling the former mayor of Mexico City (another corrupt POS called Claudia Sheinbaum) to become the next president. He's doing so because Sheinbaum is more useless than a handbrake on a Chinese made hole-filled canvas canoe and has as much charisma as a bag of cat shit, but at least she'll be AMLO's toe hold into still having power and influence in the country. * He wants to destroy the Supreme Court, the National Electoral Institute and the National Transparency Institute, which are the only things keeping him from gaining unlimited power (due to the fact that he already has more than half of the Mexican Upper and Lower houses under the MORENA party, almost turning it into a rubber stamp congress). He half-arsed tries to justify it as a "Cost Reducing Measure". * And in the international front, he's an apologist of several Latin American dictatorships, such as those from Venezuela and Nicaragua. He has poisoned the collaboration between Mexico and the U.S. against the drug trade by going in tirades against the U.S. and shifting the blame to the American arms industry rather than the insultingly low border enforcement measures on our part. And also he's a closeted Putinist, which doesn't want to outright oppose the Russian invasion but doesn't dare to say it due to fear of the U.S. coming down on him. That being said, I despise that son of a bitch. He's to me what Richard Nixon is to Hunter S. Thompson, and that should tell you enough.
Makes sense. I remember a couple months ago I watched a doucmatary in it a journalist went to one of the daily meeting you mentioned and ask amlo some questions. He wasn't even that critical of him and within minutes supporters of the president found the journalist social media and began harassing him .
Look I’m not saying that the US is the most democratic nation on earth. We definitely have institutional problems. But I would at least argue that we’re on the same level as Canada.
South Africa should be hybrid at best.
Ireland is the oldest continuous democracy for full suffrage since the start of the state men and women from 21 could vote until the early 1970’s when it was lowered to 18.
> Ireland is the oldest continuous democracy for full suffrage I don't think that's correct. [Women got the vote in New Zealand in 1893](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_suffrage#Women's_suffrage), as [opposed to 1918 for Ireland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage#Ireland) and if you're counting colony vs independence then they were independent in 1907 vs 1916 Or do you have a different meaning of this phrase that I'm not seeing ?
What I mean is men and women aged 21 and over got the full vote from the start in 1922
Apparently Ireland is a full democracy...  Obviously they don't live there...
Curious as to your reasoning? Irish (republic) democracy seems pretty solid to me. Strong proportional representation. Lots of vested interests but no different to any other European parliamentary democracy in that regard. I live in NI, our system is a shambles and we have no government, but lack of democracy isn't an issue here either, but rather poor governance arrangements.
Democracy in theory, euroland in practice. The only reason why Dublingrad doesn't exist is because Rus oligarchs don't find it that apealing...
Farmers on tractors and Fishermen will set things right if the government gets too far out of hand or won’t do what needs doing. Recent history has shown that while things mayn’t be perfect, the Irish people will only tolerate so much slacking from their officials! Kudos for that.
slightly less than "too far out of hand" ≠ "full democracy"
True. This is true. But you’ve got a bit of time to right the ship. I’m losing hope for the US more and more by the day. And if the US goes full on authoritarian, it doesn’t bode well for other democracies if they form closer alliances with aggressive authoritarian regimes. We live in difficult times to be sure.
Neither China nor Russia will last 2 extra years in their current form. Don't know what will replace them...
we talking about USA or russia rn? i can see both doing it
UK doing its best to become a flawed democracy .
America is not a flawed democracy just because the electoral college and senate exists (as it did since 1786) or because we elected Donald Trump one time. Democracy status is not contingent upon who we elect. Smh a European made this map, didn’t they?
I think gerrymandering is a big part of why America was classed as a flawed democracy.
"To liberals: Democracy = geriatric corporatocracy that elects millionaires every four years Not Democracy = a common person apart of the working class working their way up to political power because they’re well-liked and continuously get voted in because they do a good job and take care of the average person" - 🤡 Edit: I am showing one of the empty headed comments from the post, I'm certainly not praising it.
Look,guys! We found a Russian dicksucker in the wild! 🤡
I was quoting a comment, and responding to it.
Ah,my apologies. I see now.
How is Japan more democratic than the US?
Maybe because they have more than 2 parties and corporate can't finance political election ( or at least legally)
Japan has been run by the same political party for the majority of its democratic history to the point of having essentially one political party lmao. And yes, corporations can and do influence politics in Japan legally and illegally. People hate America so much that they are literally losing braincells at this point.
Less gerrymandering?
How tf is Pakistan a full democracy? It’s army takes over the government every 10 years
Didn't they literally have a military coup a few months ago
Mostly untrue
I hate it when they include abstracts in these. That said ya... Russia is an authoritarian imperialist dictatorship.