6 ms·

Allies Believe U.S. 'No Longer a Good Model of Democracy,' Poll Shows

38 points by dlcmh 5y ago

egberts 5y ago
Newsweek, a heavily biased media website whose corporation was bought by a millionaire stereo mogul for just exactly $1.00 as a birthday gift for his wife, a former Democratic congresswoman, so she can use it as a yellow journalistic web rag. #caring
- LatteLazy 5y ago
  Careful, even fox news is right sometimes. I'm a brit, we're not doing much better than the US. But no one really takes the US seriously as a democracy. Partly for the reason you yourself give: propoganda and fake news. Partly because the US system is just such a mess (the senate has so much power and seems designed to be antidemocratic for a start). Trump and Jan 6th are just the icing on the cake.
  - syshum 5y ago
    >>> (the senate has so much power and seems designed to be antidemocratic for a start). That is because it is.... and that is a GOOD thing The Senate is designed to be the State's (i.e the state governments) representative in the federal government, We are a union of 50 independent states, people seem to forget that. it is the United *States* of America, The House of Representatives is the People i.e the citizens chamber, and the Senate is the States chamber of government it was not until 1913 that Senators were elected by voters, before then State legislators appointed the Senators and IMO we should return to that model
    - LatteLazy 5y ago
      I think we're mostly in agreement: the senate is NOT a democratic institution. Whether it should be or not is another matter. Fyi, I'd say the senate is more like a house of Lords. Before it was required to be elected it was routinely bought by the richest interests in a state. It represented the interests of the Uber rich. Again, not a judgment just an observation...
      - bhupy 5y ago
        The US Senate pre-17A was more akin to the EU upper house, the Council of the EU. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01402382.2016.1188549 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01402382.2016.11... Same with Germany’s upper house, the Bundesrat, today.
      - rsynnott 5y ago
        The senate is rather like the House of Lords 200 years ago. Many countries have pseudo-democratic or undemocratic upper houses, but they’ve generally been neutered to some extent over time. The US hasn’t done this (no Parliament act, say).
    - rayiner 5y ago
      Agreed. And state legislators appointing senators would make them a lot more visible and make state elections more important.
      - dctoedt 5y ago
        > And state legislators appointing senators would make them a lot more visible and make state elections more important. At the very least, it's debatable whether a state legislature's (hypothesized) collective power to appoint U.S. senators would be an especially-salient consideration for voters in individual legislative races. Quaere whether any light might be shed by data available from before adoption of the 17th Amendment.
    - dctoedt 5y ago
      > We are a union of 50 independent states, people seem to forget that. We haven't forgotten it because it's not the case: First, the Constitution's opening words are "We, the People of the United States," NOT "The States of the United States ...." Second, the issue was conclusively settled at Appomattox and with the ensuing enactments of the 14th and 15th Amendments. > The Senate is designed to be the State's (i.e the state governments) representative in the federal government In the modern era that might still be viable if the Senate's power were only to veto enactments by the House, perhaps by a supermajority vote — and with that veto power being waived after X days — instead of what it is now, i.e., a roadblock even for popular House bills. The old "cooling saucer" notion seems outdated.
      - syshum 5y ago
        >>"The States of the United States ...." That would not be proper English nor make any sense linguistically. If you believe that the Founders thought the States were not independent, and sovereign in their own right then you clearly have not read the Federalist Papers. Take a close look at Federalist 17 as an example If the States were not separate but equal, i.e the foundational principle of our style of governance, then why call the nation the United *States*, why not just call it America or some other name all together No the founders clearly believed the States should not be servant to the Federal Government, nor should the Federal Government be servant to individual state governments. >>Second, the issue was conclusively settled at Appomattox and with the ensuing enactments of the 14th and 15th Amendments. I disagree that it was conclusively settled, nor do I agree that application of the federal constitution to the states by default makes the states Subservient vassals of the federal government Further last I check the passage of an Amendment requires the ratification of said amendment by 3/4 of States thus proving they are in fact not vassals as if they were then their consent would not be needed. >In the modern era that might still be viable if the Senate's power were only to veto enactments by the House, perhaps by a supermajority vote Yea... no That does not make any sense historically, legislatively or logically. Having a chamber that can only act in the negative would be a pointless chamber of government. Bills should be assumed to be Bad and at every level require affirmation. Your process of legislative review makes about as much sense as a criminal system on the principle of Guilty until Proven innocent. Laws should be hard to pass, laws should be extremely hard to pass, and federal laws should be almost impossible to pass ensuring the federal government does very little and most governance is done at the local level where it should be done. In general the government that governs the least, governs the best, and this is quadruple true for a Federal Government
  - redis_mlc 5y ago
    You admitted to being European, but I'll respond anyway: > propaganda and fake news Fox, NTD and Sky Australia are fairly accurate. Ignore the rest. > the senate has so much power and seems designed to be antidemocratic Yes, by design. The Senate is supposed to review new laws and get consensus. > Trump and Jan 6th Trump is the best US President in 75 years. Pelosi failed to provide sufficient Capitol security, resulting in 1 person shot by police (and 4 dying of natural causes.) I hope that summary helped.
- helsinkiandrew 5y ago
  Data/Research is from Pew Research: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/06/10/americas-image-abroad-rebounds-with-transition-from-trump-to-biden/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/06/10/americas-image...
- phaemon 5y ago
  The research wasn't by Newsweek, it was by the Pew Research Center. Newsweek is just reporting it.
- scottshamus 5y ago
  Newsweek has an been an independent publication since 2018.
syshum 5y ago
That is good, as we are a model of good Federalist Republic. The continued attempts to make the U.S. a national democracy is an ongoing problem, we need and should revert many of the "democratic" elements that have been put into our system, such as repealing the 17th amendment, we should more limit the power and scope of the federal government reversing bad Supreme Court Rulings such as Wickard v filburn which expended the power of the federal government far beyond what is should be, we should also expand the size of the House (using the Wyoming Rule) there by limiting the power of any one representative person. We should also make the House a 4 year term Elected with a 2 year offset of the president. And Ofcourse we should be using Instant Runoff / Ranked Choice voting not First past the post.
- disgu 5y ago
  You're completely missing the point here and the federalist republic argument has always been a terrible one to defend this complete deafness when people criticize the US' democracy. It's like a dictatorship saying they're simply a one party system.
  - syshum 5y ago
    No I am not, your simply reading that one line and making assumptions about my position ignoring everything else I stated
    - disgu 5y ago
      This is hilarious. You literally only read the word democracy and started with the "federalist republic" nonsense without reading any further, which is exactly why you completely missed the point with your post.
- bildung 5y ago
  I have no idea what this means, but I'm also completely illiterate in US political theory. Is your point that republic implies strong federalism and democratic does not?
airza 5y ago
I felt this way for a long time, so I put my money where my mouth is and I left. I'm not sure if it will take 10, 20, or 30 years (sometimes it feels like even less!) but it's so hard to look at the American superstructure and see a system that is capable of self-repair or dealing with new problems.
- fatboy93 5y ago
  What other places are better to live in? My country is starting to look like a fascist authoritative regime run by a megalomaniac.
  - ludamad 5y ago
    I wonder about this - some have felt this under President $FOO but $FOO still had to concede to a loss or term limits. I feel like actual change of power is important, and the US still has this while a lot of the world is losing it
    - jfengel 5y ago
      The US messed around with losing it, too. It didn't end up happening, but it has edged closer and closer for the past couple of decades. The system has twice produced a result that was clearly against the popular preference, and most recently the losing candidate took numerous measures to attempt to make it a third. Both sides have significant doubt about whether the mechanisms used to count votes are accurate, and it's growing worse. It looks very much like a situation where sooner or later we, too, could lose the ability to have a peaceful change of power. Extrapolations about the future are always fraught, so take that with a grain of salt. Nonetheless, the fact that everybody is making the same extrapolation just makes it more likely.
      - leetcrew 5y ago
        > The system has twice produced a result that was clearly against the popular preference, and most recently the losing candidate took numerous measures to attempt to make it a third. the popular vote is not the popular preference. it's just the total number of people who voted for each candidate under a set of rules where that number doesn't matter. the popular vote would likely look quite different if the popular vote decided the election. people who live in overwhelmingly red or blue states often don't bother voting in presidential elections outside of the primaries.
austincheney 5y ago
I have to agree. The US is a two party system, which is extremely limiting. One party badly wants to become an autocracy while the other wants to erode compromise in favor of becoming a single party super majority. I wish anti-trust actions apply to political parties and break them both apart.
- syshum 5y ago
  First Past the Post voting system will always lead to 2 party rule... One of the ways to change that is to adopt a Ranked Choice voting system. For some reason Americans seem to be very opposed to this idea.
  - betwixthewires 5y ago
    I'm a fan of ranked choice voting, but I feel the need to add that the de facto 2 party system in the US functions similarly to political bloc majority government formation in European democracies. The difference is the US names the coalitions rather than the individual parties themselves. If you look at either US party you see very different voting trends on platform between different regions, you see sub parties (like justice Democrats or tea party) and a constant shift in platform to keep these groups appeased, very similar in effect to the process of compromise by which majority governments are formed in European democracies. IMO this is a symptom of majority rule and will occur regardless whether you name the parties or name the coalitions. What you wind up with is 2 blocs made up of diverse interests with enough overlapping or converging interest forming through negotiation.
    - nine_k 5y ago
      One important difference is that coalitions are fluent, and party P can choose to join a coalition with party Q or party R, depending on their electoral perspectives and alignment of values, even if Q and R are bitter rivals and never would form a coalition between themselves. Those who voted for P won't mind because P would still mostly stick to its program, for which the voters voted. Can you imagine a reasonably large group of politicians to move from R to D or vice versa, and not lose the voices of their electorate?
ChrisRR 5y ago
As long as the US keeps treating politics like it's a sport to be won by your team, and remain willfully ignorant of how big corporations actively run their country, it's not going to improve.
- Epskampie 5y ago
  I’d say the problem is more in the two party system. If you think about all the opinions one can have about how a country should be run, it’s plain weird to only have two choices.
  - saba2008 5y ago
    On the other hand, two party system proved to be stable in long term, while ensuring rotation in government.
    - nairboon 5y ago
      In what way is a two party system more stable than a multi-party system?
      - saba2008 5y ago
        Multiparty system has failure mode, when one party balloons in size, either by aggressive use of populist rhetoric (NSDAP) or by merging several smaller parties (United Russia). At this point rest either have to unite (producing two party system), or become irrelevant (producing single party system, opening way to totalitarian or authoritarian regime).
        nairboon 5y ago
        So the two party system is the result of a failed multiparty system. This doesn't seem to be an advantage of the two party system. Also the two party system can balloon into a single party regime. We probably need a proper definition on "stable" here.
brandonmenc 5y ago
You can see from the charts that this poll is really just "how do you feel about the current US president." https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/06/10/americas-image-abroad-rebounds-with-transition-from-trump-to-biden/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/06/10/americas-image...
- airza 5y ago
  Huh? The poll shows that 17% of people think that it is a good model for democracy in recent years, but Biden's confidence among those people is 75%.
  - koheripbal 5y ago
    "In recent years" means Trump.
    - airza 5y ago
      Aside from the ~25% of people who don't think the US was ever a good model of democracy: So what? The GP says that it's related to Biden being president now, and it's clearly not.
betwixthewires 5y ago
This has more to do with worldwide propaganda and less to do with changes in the US in particular, and with regard to changes, it probably has a lot more to do with post 9/11 military activity and demographic changes in ally countries than any one particular president or leadership. Also keep in mind their national pride and the propensity for Canadians and Europeans to shit on America as often as they can, which they have been doing for a century or longer. The US has a lot of problems and has had a lot of problems for a long time. The country might not be capable of overcoming some of them, and that also might not be something new. But, going by the strict definition of democracy, it has never been a good model for democracy, by design. The US is a dictatorship of laws, a dictatorship where the dictators are dead. Maybe it was a good champion of liberty for a long time and faltering more brazenly in that role as of the last couple of decades, but that's not the same thing as being a model for democracy.
strken 5y ago
On a purely systemic note, the first-past-the-post US voting system would benefit immensely from ranked voting, which in most forms makes it impossible to waste your vote if you choose a minor candidate. As an Australian, I also think mandatory voting would fix other problems with the US electoral system, like perceived voter fraud (since most of the population votes, to cast a vote as someone else is harder and more easily detected), access to polling places (since it's a more obvious and immediate injustice to fine someone for not voting at a polling place with a three hour line than to merely deny them a vote), and the election of presidents who didn't have anything close to a majority of the population voting for them. Mandatory voting is much more controversial than ranked voting when I bring it up with Americans, though, and a less important fix.
- koheripbal 5y ago
  I honestly think almost any other form is better than FPTP. The Parliamentary system, the instant runoff, ranked voted, etc... I support anything that we can most easily convince the people to accept the change.
- jfengel 5y ago
  The "perception" of voter fraud in the US is itself entirely a fraud, created to allow rules that make voting harder. Mechanisms like mandatory voting and greater access to polling places (and holidays on voting day) are exactly the opposite of what is desired by those talking about voter fraud. So while there is much talk of voter fraud, those options are always off the table. Voter fraud just isn't a significant thing in the US. The perception of it won't be fixed by dealing with voter fraud, one way or the other. Unfortunately, that means that the real problem is much harder. It's a combination of authoritarianism, partisanship, and xenophobia, deliberately exacerbated both within and without. We don't get to spend much effort on the genuine issues because we're too suspicious of each other, and spend all of our time fighting about non-issues.
  - TheAdamAndChe 5y ago
    Perception is everything in a society. Police can't be everywhere, and the stability of the system is maintained by everyone accepting the legitimacy of a certain political structure. There may not actually be fraud, but strengthening the election system wouldn't hurt, and it would calm those who think there is and help stabilize the system during a tumultuous time in our country's history.
asg101 5y ago
Democracy died in the USA the minute they gave corporations "personhood" and declared that money was "speech".
deepstack 5y ago
Not a surprise. First of all, US is a republic, not democracy. And even mainstream academia admits that US is an Oligarchy now days: http://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/Gilens%20homepage%20materials/Gilens%20and%20Page/Gilens%20and%20Page%202014-Testing%20Theories%203-7-14.pdf http://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/Gilens%20homepage%20materi...

38 points by dlcmh 5y ago

Newsweek, a heavily biased media website whose corporation was bought by a millionaire stereo mogul for just exactly $1.00 as a birthday gift for his wife, a former Democratic congresswoman, so she can use it as a yellow journalistic web rag. #caring

LatteLazy 5y ago
Careful, even fox news is right sometimes. I'm a brit, we're not doing much better than the US. But no one really takes the US seriously as a democracy. Partly for the reason you yourself give: propoganda and fake news. Partly because the US system is just such a mess (the senate has so much power and seems designed to be antidemocratic for a start). Trump and Jan 6th are just the icing on the cake.
- syshum 5y ago
  >>> (the senate has so much power and seems designed to be antidemocratic for a start). That is because it is.... and that is a GOOD thing The Senate is designed to be the State's (i.e the state governments) representative in the federal government, We are a union of 50 independent states, people seem to forget that. it is the United *States* of America, The House of Representatives is the People i.e the citizens chamber, and the Senate is the States chamber of government it was not until 1913 that Senators were elected by voters, before then State legislators appointed the Senators and IMO we should return to that model
  - LatteLazy 5y ago
    I think we're mostly in agreement: the senate is NOT a democratic institution. Whether it should be or not is another matter. Fyi, I'd say the senate is more like a house of Lords. Before it was required to be elected it was routinely bought by the richest interests in a state. It represented the interests of the Uber rich. Again, not a judgment just an observation...
    - bhupy 5y ago
      The US Senate pre-17A was more akin to the EU upper house, the Council of the EU. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01402382.2016.1188549 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01402382.2016.11... Same with Germany’s upper house, the Bundesrat, today.
    - rsynnott 5y ago
      The senate is rather like the House of Lords 200 years ago. Many countries have pseudo-democratic or undemocratic upper houses, but they’ve generally been neutered to some extent over time. The US hasn’t done this (no Parliament act, say).
  - rayiner 5y ago
    Agreed. And state legislators appointing senators would make them a lot more visible and make state elections more important.
    - dctoedt 5y ago
      > And state legislators appointing senators would make them a lot more visible and make state elections more important. At the very least, it's debatable whether a state legislature's (hypothesized) collective power to appoint U.S. senators would be an especially-salient consideration for voters in individual legislative races. Quaere whether any light might be shed by data available from before adoption of the 17th Amendment.
  - dctoedt 5y ago
    > We are a union of 50 independent states, people seem to forget that. We haven't forgotten it because it's not the case: First, the Constitution's opening words are "We, the People of the United States," NOT "The States of the United States ...." Second, the issue was conclusively settled at Appomattox and with the ensuing enactments of the 14th and 15th Amendments. > The Senate is designed to be the State's (i.e the state governments) representative in the federal government In the modern era that might still be viable if the Senate's power were only to veto enactments by the House, perhaps by a supermajority vote — and with that veto power being waived after X days — instead of what it is now, i.e., a roadblock even for popular House bills. The old "cooling saucer" notion seems outdated.
    - syshum 5y ago
      >>"The States of the United States ...." That would not be proper English nor make any sense linguistically. If you believe that the Founders thought the States were not independent, and sovereign in their own right then you clearly have not read the Federalist Papers. Take a close look at Federalist 17 as an example If the States were not separate but equal, i.e the foundational principle of our style of governance, then why call the nation the United *States*, why not just call it America or some other name all together No the founders clearly believed the States should not be servant to the Federal Government, nor should the Federal Government be servant to individual state governments. >>Second, the issue was conclusively settled at Appomattox and with the ensuing enactments of the 14th and 15th Amendments. I disagree that it was conclusively settled, nor do I agree that application of the federal constitution to the states by default makes the states Subservient vassals of the federal government Further last I check the passage of an Amendment requires the ratification of said amendment by 3/4 of States thus proving they are in fact not vassals as if they were then their consent would not be needed. >In the modern era that might still be viable if the Senate's power were only to veto enactments by the House, perhaps by a supermajority vote Yea... no That does not make any sense historically, legislatively or logically. Having a chamber that can only act in the negative would be a pointless chamber of government. Bills should be assumed to be Bad and at every level require affirmation. Your process of legislative review makes about as much sense as a criminal system on the principle of Guilty until Proven innocent. Laws should be hard to pass, laws should be extremely hard to pass, and federal laws should be almost impossible to pass ensuring the federal government does very little and most governance is done at the local level where it should be done. In general the government that governs the least, governs the best, and this is quadruple true for a Federal Government
- redis_mlc 5y ago
  You admitted to being European, but I'll respond anyway: > propaganda and fake news Fox, NTD and Sky Australia are fairly accurate. Ignore the rest. > the senate has so much power and seems designed to be antidemocratic Yes, by design. The Senate is supposed to review new laws and get consensus. > Trump and Jan 6th Trump is the best US President in 75 years. Pelosi failed to provide sufficient Capitol security, resulting in 1 person shot by police (and 4 dying of natural causes.) I hope that summary helped.
helsinkiandrew 5y ago
Data/Research is from Pew Research: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/06/10/americas-image-abroad-rebounds-with-transition-from-trump-to-biden/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/06/10/americas-image...
phaemon 5y ago
The research wasn't by Newsweek, it was by the Pew Research Center. Newsweek is just reporting it.
scottshamus 5y ago
Newsweek has an been an independent publication since 2018.

syshum 5y ago

That is good, as we are a model of good Federalist Republic. The continued attempts to make the U.S. a national democracy is an ongoing problem, we need and should revert many of the "democratic" elements that have been put into our system, such as repealing the 17th amendment, we should more limit the power and scope of the federal government reversing bad Supreme Court Rulings such as Wickard v filburn which expended the power of the federal government far beyond what is should be, we should also expand the size of the House (using the Wyoming Rule) there by limiting the power of any one representative person. We should also make the House a 4 year term Elected with a 2 year offset of the president. And Ofcourse we should be using Instant Runoff / Ranked Choice voting not First past the post.

disgu 5y ago
You're completely missing the point here and the federalist republic argument has always been a terrible one to defend this complete deafness when people criticize the US' democracy. It's like a dictatorship saying they're simply a one party system.
- syshum 5y ago
  No I am not, your simply reading that one line and making assumptions about my position ignoring everything else I stated
  - disgu 5y ago
    This is hilarious. You literally only read the word democracy and started with the "federalist republic" nonsense without reading any further, which is exactly why you completely missed the point with your post.
bildung 5y ago
I have no idea what this means, but I'm also completely illiterate in US political theory. Is your point that republic implies strong federalism and democratic does not?

airza 5y ago

I felt this way for a long time, so I put my money where my mouth is and I left. I'm not sure if it will take 10, 20, or 30 years (sometimes it feels like even less!) but it's so hard to look at the American superstructure and see a system that is capable of self-repair or dealing with new problems.

fatboy93 5y ago
What other places are better to live in? My country is starting to look like a fascist authoritative regime run by a megalomaniac.
- ludamad 5y ago
  I wonder about this - some have felt this under President $FOO but $FOO still had to concede to a loss or term limits. I feel like actual change of power is important, and the US still has this while a lot of the world is losing it
  - jfengel 5y ago
    The US messed around with losing it, too. It didn't end up happening, but it has edged closer and closer for the past couple of decades. The system has twice produced a result that was clearly against the popular preference, and most recently the losing candidate took numerous measures to attempt to make it a third. Both sides have significant doubt about whether the mechanisms used to count votes are accurate, and it's growing worse. It looks very much like a situation where sooner or later we, too, could lose the ability to have a peaceful change of power. Extrapolations about the future are always fraught, so take that with a grain of salt. Nonetheless, the fact that everybody is making the same extrapolation just makes it more likely.
    - leetcrew 5y ago
      > The system has twice produced a result that was clearly against the popular preference, and most recently the losing candidate took numerous measures to attempt to make it a third. the popular vote is not the popular preference. it's just the total number of people who voted for each candidate under a set of rules where that number doesn't matter. the popular vote would likely look quite different if the popular vote decided the election. people who live in overwhelmingly red or blue states often don't bother voting in presidential elections outside of the primaries.

austincheney 5y ago

I have to agree. The US is a two party system, which is extremely limiting. One party badly wants to become an autocracy while the other wants to erode compromise in favor of becoming a single party super majority. I wish anti-trust actions apply to political parties and break them both apart.

syshum 5y ago
First Past the Post voting system will always lead to 2 party rule... One of the ways to change that is to adopt a Ranked Choice voting system. For some reason Americans seem to be very opposed to this idea.
- betwixthewires 5y ago
  I'm a fan of ranked choice voting, but I feel the need to add that the de facto 2 party system in the US functions similarly to political bloc majority government formation in European democracies. The difference is the US names the coalitions rather than the individual parties themselves. If you look at either US party you see very different voting trends on platform between different regions, you see sub parties (like justice Democrats or tea party) and a constant shift in platform to keep these groups appeased, very similar in effect to the process of compromise by which majority governments are formed in European democracies. IMO this is a symptom of majority rule and will occur regardless whether you name the parties or name the coalitions. What you wind up with is 2 blocs made up of diverse interests with enough overlapping or converging interest forming through negotiation.
  - nine_k 5y ago
    One important difference is that coalitions are fluent, and party P can choose to join a coalition with party Q or party R, depending on their electoral perspectives and alignment of values, even if Q and R are bitter rivals and never would form a coalition between themselves. Those who voted for P won't mind because P would still mostly stick to its program, for which the voters voted. Can you imagine a reasonably large group of politicians to move from R to D or vice versa, and not lose the voices of their electorate?

ChrisRR 5y ago

As long as the US keeps treating politics like it's a sport to be won by your team, and remain willfully ignorant of how big corporations actively run their country, it's not going to improve.

Epskampie 5y ago
I’d say the problem is more in the two party system. If you think about all the opinions one can have about how a country should be run, it’s plain weird to only have two choices.
- saba2008 5y ago
  On the other hand, two party system proved to be stable in long term, while ensuring rotation in government.
  - nairboon 5y ago
    In what way is a two party system more stable than a multi-party system?
    - saba2008 5y ago
      Multiparty system has failure mode, when one party balloons in size, either by aggressive use of populist rhetoric (NSDAP) or by merging several smaller parties (United Russia). At this point rest either have to unite (producing two party system), or become irrelevant (producing single party system, opening way to totalitarian or authoritarian regime).
      - nairboon 5y ago
        So the two party system is the result of a failed multiparty system. This doesn't seem to be an advantage of the two party system. Also the two party system can balloon into a single party regime. We probably need a proper definition on "stable" here.

brandonmenc 5y ago

You can see from the charts that this poll is really just "how do you feel about the current US president." https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/06/10/americas-image-abroad-rebounds-with-transition-from-trump-to-biden/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/06/10/americas-image...

airza 5y ago
Huh? The poll shows that 17% of people think that it is a good model for democracy in recent years, but Biden's confidence among those people is 75%.
- koheripbal 5y ago
  "In recent years" means Trump.
  - airza 5y ago
    Aside from the ~25% of people who don't think the US was ever a good model of democracy: So what? The GP says that it's related to Biden being president now, and it's clearly not.

betwixthewires 5y ago

This has more to do with worldwide propaganda and less to do with changes in the US in particular, and with regard to changes, it probably has a lot more to do with post 9/11 military activity and demographic changes in ally countries than any one particular president or leadership. Also keep in mind their national pride and the propensity for Canadians and Europeans to shit on America as often as they can, which they have been doing for a century or longer. The US has a lot of problems and has had a lot of problems for a long time. The country might not be capable of overcoming some of them, and that also might not be something new. But, going by the strict definition of democracy, it has never been a good model for democracy, by design. The US is a dictatorship of laws, a dictatorship where the dictators are dead. Maybe it was a good champion of liberty for a long time and faltering more brazenly in that role as of the last couple of decades, but that's not the same thing as being a model for democracy.

strken 5y ago

On a purely systemic note, the first-past-the-post US voting system would benefit immensely from ranked voting, which in most forms makes it impossible to waste your vote if you choose a minor candidate. As an Australian, I also think mandatory voting would fix other problems with the US electoral system, like perceived voter fraud (since most of the population votes, to cast a vote as someone else is harder and more easily detected), access to polling places (since it's a more obvious and immediate injustice to fine someone for not voting at a polling place with a three hour line than to merely deny them a vote), and the election of presidents who didn't have anything close to a majority of the population voting for them. Mandatory voting is much more controversial than ranked voting when I bring it up with Americans, though, and a less important fix.

koheripbal 5y ago
I honestly think almost any other form is better than FPTP. The Parliamentary system, the instant runoff, ranked voted, etc... I support anything that we can most easily convince the people to accept the change.
jfengel 5y ago
The "perception" of voter fraud in the US is itself entirely a fraud, created to allow rules that make voting harder. Mechanisms like mandatory voting and greater access to polling places (and holidays on voting day) are exactly the opposite of what is desired by those talking about voter fraud. So while there is much talk of voter fraud, those options are always off the table. Voter fraud just isn't a significant thing in the US. The perception of it won't be fixed by dealing with voter fraud, one way or the other. Unfortunately, that means that the real problem is much harder. It's a combination of authoritarianism, partisanship, and xenophobia, deliberately exacerbated both within and without. We don't get to spend much effort on the genuine issues because we're too suspicious of each other, and spend all of our time fighting about non-issues.
- TheAdamAndChe 5y ago
  Perception is everything in a society. Police can't be everywhere, and the stability of the system is maintained by everyone accepting the legitimacy of a certain political structure. There may not actually be fraud, but strengthening the election system wouldn't hurt, and it would calm those who think there is and help stabilize the system during a tumultuous time in our country's history.

asg101 5y ago

Democracy died in the USA the minute they gave corporations "personhood" and declared that money was "speech".

deepstack 5y ago

Not a surprise. First of all, US is a republic, not democracy. And even mainstream academia admits that US is an Oligarchy now days: http://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/Gilens%20homepage%20materials/Gilens%20and%20Page/Gilens%20and%20Page%202014-Testing%20Theories%203-7-14.pdf http://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/Gilens%20homepage%20materi...