- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
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It lost that status a long time ago. We keep the veneer of it intact, though.
Most of the “Democracy” status countries are bull shit anyway. They are heavily weighed on “Economic Freedom” which is a fancy way of saying the freedom for which Imperialist nations corporations are able to exploit third world countries resources.
Nationalize your oil system and have the profits of it go directly back to your people for the improvement of social programs? Damn, that sounds like Communism!
Sell oil drilling rights to Shell to “bring jobs” to your country that pay poverty wages, destroy local ecosystems, and extract all your resources with no benefits to the local population? Well, that’s “Economic Freedom” baby!
First of all, that’s not what “Economic Freedom” means in the context of democracy, but more importantly “economic freedom” is not even a factor in the methodology used by the group this article is citing.
I wasn’t referencing the article I was speaking more generally on things like “Democracy Index” or others that care more about a country having unregulated free markets than they do about citizens having healthcare. This is often what these “democracy” surveys refer to as Economic Freedom. You can pretend it’s how they act like it’s defined like “oh the government can’t tell you what business you can run as a poor mom and pop shop”. But in reality it’s the biggest players that benefit from unregulated markets on a global scale.
It’s why a capitalist hellhole like Argentina is considered a “flawed democracy” and Cuba is considered “Authoritarian”. It’s just neoliberal bull shit.
Is this just your vibes or do you have a source? Because I just checked the website of the organization this article is referencing and it says no such thing.
Could? Lmao. Don’t you need laws and elected officials to count as a democracy to begin with?
We haven’t had a vote on the shape or priorities of our economy since 1980. This is an economic dictatorship, and has been longer than most of us here have been alive.
We just get a vote on how/if to address the social wedge symptoms that economy either causes or exacerbates.
And only IF addressing them won’t meaningfully harm quarterly earnings expectations for our sociopath class. Example: you know what would drastically reduce the number of abortions without any kind of ban? A living wage that can support a family. But that would cut into corporate metastasis and is therefore a non-starter by either party in anything more than rhetoric.
You can have scapegoating® or affirmation ribbons(D), so long as you vote for for profit prisons, legal murder for profit, millions of Americans dying of exposure on the streets, crumbling commons, public education in utter ruin… Freedom!
Could? …should.
Has lost*
Probably won’t get it back
America deserves to be recognized as a Third World Country. I say this as an American, it’s deplorable how the citizens are treated.
To be clear- this is just your personal “vibe” and not an actual fact, because the term “third world country” literally means a country that is not aligned with the US or USSR. If you meant “developing nation” that term also has a definition the US does not meet.
South Sudan is a third world country. America isnt third world, it’s heading into authoritarianism.
I think the term is “A third world country with a Gucci belt”
We’ve been a third world country for a several decades already. Just because we use to change out guys in the office every 4-8 years, doesnt mean it was ever all that good here.
The cold war is over, they are called developing countries now. Your point still stands, the US has lots of developing to do, especially on the social/society front.
It doesn’t meet the definition of “developing nation” either.
“Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…”
Winston S Churchill, 11 November 1947
Anyone surprised by this? Anyone? Because I’m not.
We should have never had the status given we still use slaves.
Land of the free founded on slaves. America really is just a big pile of hypocrisy under the hood of vain surface level patriotism.
Having a for-profit prison system was a bad choice.
Who could have seen it coming ?
And a pay to win political candidate system, and a heavily monetized educational system. Who is surprised about the decline of the man who steps on his dick and machineguns his own foot?
Oh, but were not a democracy, were a constitutional republic hardy har har har har
- my republican friends.
constitutional republic
So we’re going to follow the constitution?
ohh
It’s like talking to MAGA about Christianity So you’re going to follow the bible?
ohh
I wish I could award this comment. It follows my occasional and unfulfilling conversations with Republicans extremely closely. If the conversation doesn’t end with wanting to pull my hair out and put my head through the nearest available drywall, did I really talk to Republican?
Oh don’t worry, they’re going to try to change the constitution to match the worldview they like.
we’re a constitutional federal republic, with democratically elected representatives, but a plutocracy, in practice
- me, a political science pedant of highest/worst order
I’d like to subscribe to more political pedantry
FilthyHookerSpit
Discount for you, but on one condition:
You gotta spit on all of my tankie “friends” over at lemmy.ml, hexbear, and lemmygrad and say, “This service was prepaid, and I made a handsome profit, ultimately at your expense and exploitation.”
As a political science pedant, can you explain to me the difference between a democracy and a constitutional republic? I tried to Google “constitutional republic” but I just got a Wikipedia page that said they were the same thing.
Which I guess would fit, since republicans are absolute dumbfucks, but if there’s actually some nuance there, I’m curious to know.
Thanks!
If the question is “What’s the difference?”, then, as is tradition, we must figuratively clear our throats before such discourse with the well-worn adage, “It depends.”
As a disclaimer, much of this content was copied from Wikipedia and arranged in a way to support my opinion; none of this should be taken as Gospel. This is not financial advice. And please accept my apologies for the tedious length.
If we limit our terms’ definitions to their etymological roots, then:
Democracy
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The term democracy first appeared in ancient Greek political and philosophical thought in the city-state of Athens during classical antiquity. The word comes from dêmos ‘(common) people’ and krátos ‘force/might’.
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In a direct democracy, the people have the direct authority to deliberate and decide legislation. In a representative democracy, the people choose governing officials through elections to do so. The definition of “the people” and the ways authority is shared among them or delegated by them have changed over time and at varying rates in different countries.
Republic
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The term originates from the Latin translation of Greek word politeia. Cicero, among other Latin writers, translated politeia into Latin as res publica, and it was in turn translated by Renaissance scholars as republic (or similar terms in various European languages). The term can literally be translated as ‘public matter’. It was used by Roman writers to refer to the state and government, even during the period of the Roman Empire. The term politeia can be translated as form of government, polity, or regime, and it does not necessarily imply any specific type of regime as the modern word republic sometimes does.
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A republic, based on the Latin phrase res publica (‘public affair’ or ‘people’s affair’), is a state in which political power rests with the public (people) through their representatives—in contrast to a monarchy. Although a republic is most often a single sovereign state, subnational state entities that have governments that are republican in nature may be referred to as republics.
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Representation in a republic may or may not be freely elected by the general citizenry. In many historical republics, representation has been based on personal status and the role of elections has been limited. This remains true today; among the 159 states that use republic in their official names as of 2017, and other states formally constituted as republics, are states that narrowly constrain both the right of representation and the process of election.
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The term developed its modern meaning in reference to the constitution of the ancient Roman Republic, lasting from the overthrow of the kings in 509 BC to the establishment of the Empire in 27 BC. This constitution was characterized by a Senate composed of wealthy aristocrats wielding significant influence; several popular assemblies of all free citizens, possessing the power to elect magistrates from the populace and pass laws; and a series of magistracies with varying types of civil and political authority.
Plutocracy
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A plutocracy (from Ancient Greek πλοῦτος (ploûtos) ‘wealth’ and κράτος (krátos) ‘power’) or plutarchy is a society that is ruled or controlled by people of great wealth or income. The first known use of the term in English dates from 1631. Unlike most political systems, plutocracy is not rooted in any established political philosophy.
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Some modern historians, politicians, and economists argue that the U.S. was effectively plutocratic for at least part of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era periods between the end of the Civil War until the beginning of the Great Depression.
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President Theodore Roosevelt became known as the “trust-buster” for his aggressive use of antitrust law, through which he managed to break up such major combinations as the largest railroad and Standard Oil, the largest oil company. According to historian David Burton, “When it came to domestic political concerns, TR’s bête noire was the plutocracy.” In his autobiographical account of taking on monopolistic corporations as president, Roosevelt recounted:
…we had come to the stage where for our people what was needed was a real democracy; and of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of a plutocracy.
On paper, we (the U.S.) are a not a direct democracy, though we do vote directly about some issues via referendums; our constitution codifies the extents and limitations of legislation, enforcement, and jurisprudence of our laws and our rights as citizens.
We directly elect representatives to carry out the business of governance from local, state, to the federal level as our country’s political union is a federation of States that simultaneously retain their autonomy via the parameters outlined within the constitution and cede ultimate authority of jurisprudence to our bicameral national assembly (in our case, Congress) and Supreme Court.
In practice, due to regulatory capture, political expedience and corruption, and the realities of our global economic expansion, our country is effectively ruled by 2 factions of a political class of wealth that use faux-populism to maintain their power and influence.
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Unsubscribe!!!
Do your friends not understand that Republics are a small subset of Democracies?
Yes, though in all fairness, they were acquaintances. I unfriended them.
Oh, we are? Is that why everyone other than hetero white males is getting mentions removed or protections gutted and/or removed? What part of the constitution that provides rights to all Americans is in play when this is happening? Go ahead, I’ll wait…
That would be my response.
My response is to click that “unfriend” button and never see them on social media again.
That works as well. I was going to delete my Facebook but decided posting things supporting minorities and other groups while being an annoyance to the right was more important.
And a few days after that, PragerU releases a video titled “Why democracies will fail eventually”, which tells its viewers that democracy creates “moral decadence”, and now a “strong leader” is needed to fix the issue, who might have told some noble lies like a parent tells their kid the stork brings the children when they’re not ready for reality. And the video ends with a “Roman salute” over “God Bless America”.
New banana republic just dropped!
It’s not exactly new, it’s just that we’re seeing clarification of changes that have been in the works for the last 20 years or longer, depending if you want to go back to Reagan.
And not surprisingly, he has to try to grab power as quickly as possible. If things collapse slowly then the people will still have the ability to rise up against him.
Old banana Republic just dropped!
deleted by creator
Really? Seems like we had a peaceful transition of power just this year.
'Bloodless coup" comes to mind…
Democracy isn’t defined solely by peaceful transfer of power. Our government is completely captured by monied interests. Public opinion has a near zero influence on policy.
We peacefully transitioned into a technocracy with a wanna-be dictator idiot at the helm.
As an exercise for anyone reading this who doesn’t already know: How did Hitler got into a position of power? Look that up, don’t use AI, actually check up on that yourself.
Technically the Nazis lost that election, but the Conservatives who won turned around and handed power to Hitler, all to prevent the Left from gaining power.
That’s not how elections work here. There is not really a “winner” in elections unless someone gets an absolute majority, which is almost never. Parties form a coalition to have a majority together.
That’s how it is nowadays, but I think the old system had coalitions too.
Alien school: For todays class we will begin Earth history, please open your text book titled “Earth: All to Prevent the Left From Gaining Power.” This book covers the vast majority of Earth history.
Unironically though, you can see the same pattern going all the way back to Rome.[Michal Parenti’s The Assassination of Julius Caesar]
Something about the history of all hitherto existing society being the history of class struggles.
Wait a minute, so democracy brings people like Trump, Hitler and Hamas to power? Does it mean that democracy is shit?
How about single party socialism? Has that ever turned back into stateless communism, comrade? Or did it turn into “socialism with Chinese characteristics”, Putin’s Russia, Pol Pot, and the DPRK that Trump wants to turn the US into?
The Khmer Rouge was never socialist, they were some weird feudal ideology, hence why the CIA supported them and the US recognized them as the legitimate government of Cambodia for like 30 years after Vietnam liberated them and put an actual socialist government in power.
Russia hasn’t been socialist since 1992; Putin’s Russia is what happens when you overthrow a democratic state run by the workers for the workers with a vibrant, multiparty capitalist “democracy”.
“Socialism with Chinese characteristics” is more democratic than the US; the average Chinese person feels they have far greater influence on the government than the average American. They tend to be confused why Americans hate and fear the police and why we aren’t able to vote for politicians who will fix the problem.
There’s also Cuba, who had a referendum on a new constitution a few years ago. After years of debate at the community level, they came up with a final draft that 92% of Cubans voted yes on. Could you imagine if we had that level of influence over our own government?
See the thing you’re missing is that the communist parties of these countries themselves democratic; they’re typically structured such that every member above the rank-and-file is elected, with instant recall and “give us a better candidate” options.
Yeah it’s really amazing the number that Western propaganda has done on folks perception of China
They assume democracy requires more than one party. When it should be people you vote for, rather than raw tribalism.
The Khmer Rouge was never socialist
They weren’t socialist bc they took a step past socialism and into communism directly. They abolished money, replaced army with armed militia, achieved direct democracy, abolished institution of family, replaced farmers with agrarian proletariat, achieved 100% public housing. USSR is a capitalist shithole compared to Democratic Kampuchea.
Communism isn’t when everyone lives like a farmer from 200 BC.
I’m not a communist bro.
Optical illusion. Plutocrats sharing power among themselves is not democracy, friend.
I would assume most monarchies transitioned just as peaceful. What does that prove?
Every 4-8 years to all elected opponent?
No, but it’s irrelevant to the question.
…You might want to study some more history there bub
Sure mate. Hereditary successions were usually smooth. In elective monarchies, there were more power struggles. Do you have anything to add other than insults?
Not to mention that monarchies last way longer than democracies on average throughout history.
Is that so? I would assume democracies last a lot longer than 10 to 50 years? Considering that most of the world has democracies and they tend to be at least since WW2 that does not feel right.
Considering I don’t know any democracy that laster longer than 200-300 years and there are a lot of monarchies that lasted for many hundreds or even thousands of years.
The only party willing to accept defeat and not cry foul until their cult riots lost. It will never happen the other way around are you’d have be to a deeply vastly empty head to not know that.
That makes one in a row now.
Degree of democracy has more to do with the size of the ruling coalition relative to the size of the pool of the interchangeables. When power is shared within a large ruling coalition, there tends to be a louder and more influential voice by the interchangeables, leading to more democracy and better living conditions for everyone, including those in the losing coalition. Autocracies on the ruling spectrum tend to have tiny ruling coalitions.
Source: my memory of reading The Dictator’s Handbook by Bueno de Mesquita and Smith. Highly recommended reading.
If the ruling coalition of the US is much smaller than it appears to be, then yeah, it’s at risk of losing its foothold as a democracy.
That’s not the only quality of a democracy.
How many eligible voters abstained?
Is there any way to tell who abstained and who just chose not to take time off work so they could pay their bills?
Unfortunately the system is fucked.
Yeah for sure.
How long is the voting window? Is it like 9-5?
It depends on the state. It does tend to be a bit broader than that and most states allow early voting.
However, red states tend to put more hurdles in to maintain their power, limiting polling access in working class districts, especially ones that aren’t predominantly white. Forcing folks to stand in long lines or get across town to cast a ballot. Or scrutinizing and tossing out more mail in ballots in those districts over something petty. Folks don’t have the spoons for that between bills, kids, work, and chores.
Also factor in that a lot of folks abstained because they know their state is already blue or red, and at least, in the swing state I live in, the turnout was actually very high.
Anyway, it’s not as simple as 1/3rd of folks abstained. While I imagine some did, just out of apathy toward the federal government and not understanding how dangerous Trump is to our planet, it’s just not the whole story is all I’m saying.
The US has a long history of making voting a privilege based on class. And while on paper it’s not supposed to be the case, there are certainly mechanisms at play that disinfranchise folks who would likely otherwise vote.
“Could lose”? We are long past this point. When you can chose between two parties and they try to manipulate the election as hard as they can, then that’s a zombie democracy at best. And now? The president stands above the law. He can fire people illegally. He can disable law enforcement. Democracy in the US is gone. Hopefully only temporarily. Now it’s up to people to act, take their rogue government down and repair what can be repaired.
To be fair they did explicitly say that this report includes no data from 2025.
Oh fuck …
“You’ve only been a democracy for only 50 years. Not unless you don’t count black people… you are nearly as mature democracy as Botswana.” - Lukas Matsson (Swedish guy) on Succession
