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The US is rated as an "flawed democracy" and not a "full democracy" for the last decade by the Economist Intelligence Unit (an offshoot of the Magazine that pu

The US is rated as an "flawed democracy" and not a "full democracy" for the last decade by the Economist Intelligence Unit (an offshoot of the Magazine that published this article). https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2024/03/21/why-america-is-a-flawed-democracy https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2024/03/21/why-amer... That would be my guess as to both why Trump got elected and why voting isn't very popular.

gruez 2y ago
>That would be my guess as to both why Trump got elected and why voting isn't very popular. A turnout of 63.5% isn't popular? Even compared to past elections it's the second highest turnout in the past 3 decades. The highest was in 2020.
- ZeroGravitas 2y ago
  First past the post systems generally have lower turnout than proportional systems. Even record turnout for the US isn't very high in international terms. And if that record turnout is to support and/or oppose a candidate that seeks to burn the whole system down and gets votes due to the system not reflecting voters priorities for a while then it further supports my theory.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > record turnout for the US isn't very high in international terms Who are you comparing it to? The U.S. is middle of the pack in the OECD [1]. The highest-turnout countries are Equitorial Guinea, Rwanda and Turkmenistan [2]. None are democracies. [1] https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/reg_glance-2009-35-en.pdf?expires=1731776538&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=DF2B309569EB38D4219B57FE1ABC5C35 https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/reg_glance-2009-35-e... [2] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/voter-turnout-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/voter-tur...
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- soco 2y ago
  Switzerland has usually a less than 50% turnout, for a comparison - and still gets brownie points for democracy. Yes, I'm sad myself, but I'll still take it over any other systems.

gruez 2y ago

>That would be my guess as to both why Trump got elected and why voting isn't very popular. A turnout of 63.5% isn't popular? Even compared to past elections it's the second highest turnout in the past 3 decades. The highest was in 2020.

ZeroGravitas 2y ago
First past the post systems generally have lower turnout than proportional systems. Even record turnout for the US isn't very high in international terms. And if that record turnout is to support and/or oppose a candidate that seeks to burn the whole system down and gets votes due to the system not reflecting voters priorities for a while then it further supports my theory.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > record turnout for the US isn't very high in international terms Who are you comparing it to? The U.S. is middle of the pack in the OECD [1]. The highest-turnout countries are Equitorial Guinea, Rwanda and Turkmenistan [2]. None are democracies. [1] https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/reg_glance-2009-35-en.pdf?expires=1731776538&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=DF2B309569EB38D4219B57FE1ABC5C35 https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/reg_glance-2009-35-e... [2] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/voter-turnout-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/voter-tur...
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    [deleted]
soco 2y ago
Switzerland has usually a less than 50% turnout, for a comparison - and still gets brownie points for democracy. Yes, I'm sad myself, but I'll still take it over any other systems.