Ask Lemmy

lol

The US had always been a questionable democracy with the hyperfixation on the president and just two parties setting the agenda, but I'd argue that it's still a democracy, though it is a rapidly deteriorating one.

Anyone who is eligible to vote, and chooses not to, implicitly throws their support behind whoever wins.

On 2024-11-05, ⅔ of US citizens who were eligible to vote told the rest of the world they don’t want to be taken seriously for at least 2 years.

Ignoring court orders, and "fake national emergency declarations" to create war and international extortion and remove rights and citizenships for deportations crossed the line. The voter suppression/rigging that won election for Trump is also clearly anti-democratic, but anti-democratic as usual. Media/oligarchy/Israel influence/disinformation might not make for an ideal democracy, but also "democracy as usual".

The big problem with the world is the US empire's manufacturing of hatred/war against "those who are less democratic than us and our colonies" Corruption of democracy in US, who can cheaply manipulate democracy in its colonies, means that you don't have functional democracy either. US praises the most violently oppressive apartheid ethnostates suspending federal and local elections as great democracies if they support US wars. There is something wrong when the most important issue of your government is to increase divisiveness/threats to the US's enemies when the US unjustifiably threatens you, and that thrills you as right track.

So, democracy is simply not working at bringing progressiveness and shared prosperity, or even the most basic understanding of humanist/national interests, to those who say they love it so much. This is global collapse level of delusion. Nations doing best economically are those distancing themselves from US colonial control.

The more objective measure of "good government" is control against oligarchist pillaging, while having pluralism/sustainability, and economic constructiveness. US approved democracies are failing hard on these metrics. Warmongering based on "blanket, evidence free, refusal to accept election results when non-CIA candidate wins" is not the democratic/liberal ideal you think it is.

I consider it a lesser democracy / something that barely qualifies for a few years now.

still consider

It has only two political parties, and a weird system where all votes are not equal and the actual vote majority doesn't always win.

It has frequently had multiple people from the same families running for office, and only wealthy people have a shot. Corporations get to lobby for laws in their favour.

It also spies on its own citizens, holds people indefinitely without trial, has a huge prison population, a militarized police with a high homicide rate, and is the only western nation with the death penalty.

Trump and Musk are laying bare how fragile the veneer of "democracy" really is in that country.

Absolutely not. A two party system was barely nominally a form of democracy. Current one quacks like a dictatorship and walks like a dictatorship. They might hold a fake election one day like many of those do, but still no.

Am Dutch. I have considered the US an incomplete democracy since I learned about voting in school. It’s not one person one vote, which to me is crucial for a democracy. The US right now is still a nation of laws, but democracy is sharply in decline. The voter-roll issues and Gerrymandering come to mind immediately. Not to mention the fact that guaranteed access to polls has been pulled by the courts. Which is insane to me.

Yes, but hardly an example for a good one. Besides that, it has become a bad ally, if it even is one at this time, and a factor of uncertainty.

yeah of course. it's still a corrupted and broken democracy.

Kinda. On how the voting process works in general, I consider it a worse democracy than Brazil, since nearly anything only gets voted if there's enough lobby money being thrown at it, not to mention the astronomic campaign costs. Each state having different voting laws makes the democracy weaker

It was never a democracy.

Nyet.

No. And I haven't for a while now. Looking at your electoral system (electoral college, gerrymandering etc.), it probably never was but it was never as obvious as it is now.

See, as a German, when I see a country go down the same route as the Weimar Republic after handing over the power to the Nazi party, I think it's just very obvious. Hitler took some two months to completely destroy democracy, and the US are juuust in the middle of that. History doesn't repeat, but sometimes it rhymes, and the similarities are just remarkable.

So yeah, I guess that would be a big fat trench in the sand.

Depends on the outcome of the next election.

Line in the sand? Going after political opponents. Censoring information. Dismantling media. Abandoning rule of law. Business and government mixing too much.

USA is speed running these.

I really never did, not a well functioning at least. They've practiced voter repression for decades, and then they had fun testing how low they could go after 9/11, doing a lot of unlawful shit, going after citizens who spoke out against their policies and wars.

Absolutely not. A country where two parties are the only two viable electoral options, is absolutely not a democracy. Doesn’t mean I’ll stop my membership for the PSL.

No. I also don't consider the United States to be a democracy.

A struggling democracy, in the beginning of an Orban/Hungary-like overtake of the country.

Its possible to revert, but you seem to have atleast a 1/3 of the country that would walk down a straight up facist line willingly and happily do so.

You need to fix your shit america.

I don't recognise the current American regime as a valid government. Just like I don't recognise the Israeli occupation force as a valid state.

It's not remotely binding or even meaningful to anyone but myself of course. But hey, nothing matters these days.

How can you be a democracy if you have only two political parties?

I consider it an autocratic regime with strong fascist characteristics.

I consider it a faux democracy. It still has the semblance of one, with people voting, believing they matter and that they have actual free speech, but the masses are being, increasingly less subtly, controlled by media corporations and rendered incapable of critical, independent thinking by an ever decreasing quality of education.

Don't be fooled though! This isn't happening in the US alone. It is widespread all over the globe. The US is simply doing it in a smarter, more cunning way, while leading the wealthy 1% in other countries by example.

Is demos how you say money in Greek?

The next election will tell, my tin hat is on Puting the US into a situation where an election can't be held so they can have a third term.

Yes, but a bad example of one very quickly heading towards autocracy. Some characteristics like screwing up your own economy and blaming 'the foreigners' rings a distant bell.

No but this isn't recent. My line in the sand was Russian interference in the 2016 US election that came to light in 2018.

*United States Democracy Index

Not for a long time. The Economist Democracy Index demoted the US to a "flawed democracy" since 2016, where it has been ever since.

Democracy index, 2024 - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/democracy-index-eiu

Not at all, you are just an autocracy now but don't fully realise it, and as the other commentator had said, not even really a good democracy in the loosest of terms before this entire mess going on ATM!