5 ms·

Democracy Dies in the 21st Century

11 points by samizdis 4y ago

hunglee2 4y ago
not helped by propaganda sheets like The Atantic
88840-8855 4y ago
Give people a strong leader who is wise, does the right things for the vast majority, improves lifes in a tangible way, brings a utopia as a vision so people can have a dream again and who is democratic. You dont have those leaders? Then you have to deal with populists who pretend to be. It is simple. Democracy will not go down because of some idiots shoot down innocent people or because a fat old racist man is in office one more time. It will go down bacause the legitimation of democracy is disappearing: PROSPERITY. Let us have the energy crisis here in Yurop .. you will see how quickly people will revolt and blame the democratic structures. No prosperity = no democracy.
- raxxorraxor 4y ago
  I think democracy has vastly more legitimacy than alternative forms which all rely on violence. I also believe that democracy needs cool and considerate heads. A Trump here and there is for the fun. At least as a non-US citizen it was quite funny but perspectives might diverge here.
  - 88840-8855 4y ago
    The benefit of a democracy is that you can blame the guy who was ruling before you for stuff that did not work well. This is my criticism of the Chinese party and Xi's unlimited terms. The CCP seems to be alright in many ways, but there must be a transfer of power after a certain period of time. It worked so well for China when power was limited and did not work well when you had unlimited terms.
  - EddieDante 4y ago
    > I think democracy has vastly more legitimacy than alternative forms which all rely on violence. If you think that democracy doesn't also rely on violence then I have some waterfront property in Arizona you might be interested in buying. It's called the "tyranny of the majority" for a reason.
    - dane-pgp 4y ago
      I see what you're saying, but I also think a case could be made that democracies rely on violence less than other forms. I'm assuming that solid democracies are less likely to have civil wars, international wars, or genocides, than countries that are more authoritarian. They may also have less violent crime and less use of the death penalty. Anyway, if you think "the tyranny of the majority" is bad, just wait until you see "the tyranny of the minority".
    - raxxorraxor 4y ago
      Democracies defend themselves if someone tries to circumvent the election process, but rule is with consent of the governed. The legitimacy is that government won the election. A monarch doesn't have any legitimacy aside power. This power is established with violence. No democracy is perfect but most are better than competing ideas by significant margins.
- dane-pgp 4y ago
  > No prosperity = no democracy. I'm not sure how you're measuring "prosperity", but democracies tend to be richer per capita, and I don't see prosperity "disappearing". Do you mean that countries are facing the risk of recession due to Covid, and this will make some voters temporarily vulnerable to populists? I suppose that's true, but on longer time scales, economic growth remains positive. What is decreasing, though, is equality, with the Gini coefficient of rich countries getting consistently worse over the past few decades: https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/industries/public%20and%20social%20sector/our%20insights/inequality%20a%20persisting%20challenge%20and%20its%20implications/svgz-mgi-inequality-ex2.svgz https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/industries/public%...
akagusu 4y ago
US democracy already died. What we are seeing here is the death of the illusion of democracy we have. You can vote but oligarchies and monopolies control who gets elected. The policies adopted by those who were elected serves a few purposes: transfer money from those who have less to those who have more, increase the amount of power they have over those who supposed elected them and finally oppress those who not agree with this arrangement. It's not different from any kind of non democratization government out there.
- rufus_foreman 4y ago
  >> You can vote but oligarchies and monopolies control who gets elected You think the oligarchs and monopolists got together in 2016 and chose Donald Trump to be president?
  - mrcheesebreeze 4y ago
    yes, that's why he gave certain groups more preference. He talked a big game but wasn't new. Remember how he, like most recent presidents, shilled for the apartheid state israel? He was a harder to control stooge so he was ditched for biden who can't even speak properly.
dane-pgp 4y ago
> Consequently, there are two main ways to protect American democracy. The first is to reform the GOP, so that it’s again a conservative, but not authoritarian, party (à la John McCain’s or Mitt Romney’s Republican Party). The second is to perpetually block authoritarian Republicans from wielding power. But to do that, Democrats need to win every election. So to protect democracy, America needs to institute one party rule forever? To save the village we have to destroy it? This "lesser of two evils" mindset is a major reason why the country got into this mess in the first place (and why both parties can get away with terrible candidates and policies). Fortunately the article does offer some excellent proposals for reform later on, but they include: > establishing a nonpartisan national election-management body, ..., and enforcing an upper age limit for Supreme Court justices Trying to make a political body "nonpartisan" is like trying to find a non-biased newspaper, and implementing it at the national level is just a honeypot waiting for the next authoritarian leader to wield it against states that are making genuine efforts to protect their elections. Similarly, I think that setting an upper age limit on judges will have unwanted consequences, and we'd see presidents appointing 15 year olds to serve on the court. The better reform here is to limit them to 30 year terms (although with that in place there may be some merit to also introducing age limits). I'm glad, though, that the article didn't suggest term limits for congress, which would just make politicians more dependent on their parties and donors rather than their reputation and records.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
  > So to protect democracy, America needs to institute one party rule forever? I think it's clear that what is meant is that voters must steadfastly refuse to vote for a party that continues to promote anti-democratic ideas until they reform. In this case that means Democrats winning every election. Of course that's not going to happen, since it seems that Republicans have by and large just doubled down on anti-democratic maneuvering to the thunderous applause of a bit less than half of the country.

11 points by samizdis 4y ago

not helped by propaganda sheets like The Atantic

Give people a strong leader who is wise, does the right things for the vast majority, improves lifes in a tangible way, brings a utopia as a vision so people can have a dream again and who is democratic. You dont have those leaders? Then you have to deal with populists who pretend to be. It is simple. Democracy will not go down because of some idiots shoot down innocent people or because a fat old racist man is in office one more time. It will go down bacause the legitimation of democracy is disappearing: PROSPERITY. Let us have the energy crisis here in Yurop .. you will see how quickly people will revolt and blame the democratic structures. No prosperity = no democracy.

raxxorraxor 4y ago
I think democracy has vastly more legitimacy than alternative forms which all rely on violence. I also believe that democracy needs cool and considerate heads. A Trump here and there is for the fun. At least as a non-US citizen it was quite funny but perspectives might diverge here.
- 88840-8855 4y ago
  The benefit of a democracy is that you can blame the guy who was ruling before you for stuff that did not work well. This is my criticism of the Chinese party and Xi's unlimited terms. The CCP seems to be alright in many ways, but there must be a transfer of power after a certain period of time. It worked so well for China when power was limited and did not work well when you had unlimited terms.
- EddieDante 4y ago
  > I think democracy has vastly more legitimacy than alternative forms which all rely on violence. If you think that democracy doesn't also rely on violence then I have some waterfront property in Arizona you might be interested in buying. It's called the "tyranny of the majority" for a reason.
  - dane-pgp 4y ago
    I see what you're saying, but I also think a case could be made that democracies rely on violence less than other forms. I'm assuming that solid democracies are less likely to have civil wars, international wars, or genocides, than countries that are more authoritarian. They may also have less violent crime and less use of the death penalty. Anyway, if you think "the tyranny of the majority" is bad, just wait until you see "the tyranny of the minority".
  - raxxorraxor 4y ago
    Democracies defend themselves if someone tries to circumvent the election process, but rule is with consent of the governed. The legitimacy is that government won the election. A monarch doesn't have any legitimacy aside power. This power is established with violence. No democracy is perfect but most are better than competing ideas by significant margins.
dane-pgp 4y ago
> No prosperity = no democracy. I'm not sure how you're measuring "prosperity", but democracies tend to be richer per capita, and I don't see prosperity "disappearing". Do you mean that countries are facing the risk of recession due to Covid, and this will make some voters temporarily vulnerable to populists? I suppose that's true, but on longer time scales, economic growth remains positive. What is decreasing, though, is equality, with the Gini coefficient of rich countries getting consistently worse over the past few decades: https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/industries/public%20and%20social%20sector/our%20insights/inequality%20a%20persisting%20challenge%20and%20its%20implications/svgz-mgi-inequality-ex2.svgz https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/industries/public%...

akagusu 4y ago

US democracy already died. What we are seeing here is the death of the illusion of democracy we have. You can vote but oligarchies and monopolies control who gets elected. The policies adopted by those who were elected serves a few purposes: transfer money from those who have less to those who have more, increase the amount of power they have over those who supposed elected them and finally oppress those who not agree with this arrangement. It's not different from any kind of non democratization government out there.

rufus_foreman 4y ago
>> You can vote but oligarchies and monopolies control who gets elected You think the oligarchs and monopolists got together in 2016 and chose Donald Trump to be president?
- mrcheesebreeze 4y ago
  yes, that's why he gave certain groups more preference. He talked a big game but wasn't new. Remember how he, like most recent presidents, shilled for the apartheid state israel? He was a harder to control stooge so he was ditched for biden who can't even speak properly.

dane-pgp 4y ago

> Consequently, there are two main ways to protect American democracy. The first is to reform the GOP, so that it’s again a conservative, but not authoritarian, party (à la John McCain’s or Mitt Romney’s Republican Party). The second is to perpetually block authoritarian Republicans from wielding power. But to do that, Democrats need to win every election. So to protect democracy, America needs to institute one party rule forever? To save the village we have to destroy it? This "lesser of two evils" mindset is a major reason why the country got into this mess in the first place (and why both parties can get away with terrible candidates and policies). Fortunately the article does offer some excellent proposals for reform later on, but they include: > establishing a nonpartisan national election-management body, ..., and enforcing an upper age limit for Supreme Court justices Trying to make a political body "nonpartisan" is like trying to find a non-biased newspaper, and implementing it at the national level is just a honeypot waiting for the next authoritarian leader to wield it against states that are making genuine efforts to protect their elections. Similarly, I think that setting an upper age limit on judges will have unwanted consequences, and we'd see presidents appointing 15 year olds to serve on the court. The better reform here is to limit them to 30 year terms (although with that in place there may be some merit to also introducing age limits). I'm glad, though, that the article didn't suggest term limits for congress, which would just make politicians more dependent on their parties and donors rather than their reputation and records.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
> So to protect democracy, America needs to institute one party rule forever? I think it's clear that what is meant is that voters must steadfastly refuse to vote for a party that continues to promote anti-democratic ideas until they reform. In this case that means Democrats winning every election. Of course that's not going to happen, since it seems that Republicans have by and large just doubled down on anti-democratic maneuvering to the thunderous applause of a bit less than half of the country.