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> the complete 180 in direction the US is taking and descending in to authoritarianism A similar (though currently a little bit less marked) trend can also be

> the complete 180 in direction the US is taking and descending in to authoritarianism A similar (though currently a little bit less marked) trend can also be observed for the EU and EU countries.

s_dev 7mo ago
>(though currently a little bit less marked) Again this is a false equivalence, 'a little less marked' isn't close to imparting the true state of things and to be honest a little disingenuous. The EU is not in full motion to dismantle democracy across her 27 states. The US should it not turn this around in the midterms is finished as a liberal democracy. So 'ah yes but Hungary' doesn't persuade me even though I'll concede it's a problem for the EU. If Tisza is elected in April, Hungary will be on course to turn things around. So you're comparing 1 out of 27 to 50 out of 50 states.
- sunaookami 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  - krzyk 7mo ago
    EU did not force Romania. Romania itself annulled them because Russian intervention happened.
    - sunaookami 7mo ago
      Sure that happened :)
      - telmo 7mo ago
        Yes, it sure did. Read my comment on your original post.
      - krzyk 7mo ago
        Knowing Russia, it for sure did.
  - telmo 7mo ago
    What actually happened was that former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton publicly stated on French TV in January 2025 that if the AfD won in Germany, elections there could also be annulled by the EU "as was done in Romania". That was a stupid thing for him to say, but he is a private citizen, he did not represent the EU in any capacity, and there is no evidence whatsoever that the EU pressured Romania. Of course, post-truth political movements run with a distorted version of this story to play the victim. Romania's Supreme Court decision was based mainly on illegal campaign financing. The Constitutional Court noted that Georgescu had officially reported zero campaign expenditures, yet had an enormous social media presence. His TikTok account had over 646K followers and 7.2M likes. This was in the context of interconnected declassified intelligence. Around 25000 pro-Georgescu TikTok accounts became highly active in the two weeks before the first-round vote, with nearly 800 accounts created in 2016 that had remained dormant until the election. Activity was coordinated through a Telegram channel. Romania's intelligence service said there were signs of state-sponsored attacks operating in a hybrid manner, targeting critical infrastructure and shaping public opinion through misinformation. The campaign was said to mirror influence operations conducted by Moscow during elections in Ukraine and Moldova. Romanian prosecutors later charged Georgescu with involvement behind cyberattacks targeting Romanian electoral systems. Russia has been systematically attempting to interfere with EU elections, and anyone who argues otherwise in the face of mountains of evidence is either being naive or disingenuous. Post-truth political parties such as the AfD are funded and supported by the Kremlin, which is interested in sowing division and wished the collapse of the EU for a long time. Unfortunately, the current US administration is also ideologically aligned with the Kremlin and also wishes the collapse of the EU, as is explicitally stated in the recent strategic document published by the Trump administration. These are the actual facts, that are easy to verify if you are actually interested in the truth.
    - sunaookami 7mo ago
      Yes it's always the evil Russians and the stupid people are influenced by TikTok so we need to tell them what they should vote! From e.g. Wikipedia: >At the time of his exclusion, Georgescu was leading in public opinion polls D'oh! >That was a stupid thing for him to say, but he is a private citizen How convenient he got fired, everything is good now, surely the Commission does not hold the same views as him! Are you really this naive? And don't get me wrong, I support neither Georgescu (a typical conspiracy theorist nut) nor AfD (who only argue that the evil immigrants are at fault). But I support a free and democratic process and these are no longer in place. If you ban leading candidates and try to ban political parties that are in the lead (AfD and CDU constantly switch #1 positions in polls by 1-2 percentagep points) just because they are not on "your side" you are not better than any country that you mark as authoritian.
  - alessioalex 7mo ago
    Didn't like the candidate? Half the country (or perhaps more) didn't even know the candidate. He was pushed with the help of Russia/China via Tiktok and that's about it. He declared 0 (z-e-r-o) campaign expenses. Delusional!
- Aurornis 7mo ago
  > The US should it not turn this around in the midterms is finished as a liberal democracy. I wish there was an easy way for me to bet against the imminent fall of the United States as predicted by so many internet commenters. I don’t like what the current administration is doing, either, but I would readily bet against all of these “the end is just around the corner” or “the empire is dying” takes in a heartbeat.
  - s_dev 7mo ago
    I didn't say the US is finished, I said it was finished as a liberal democracy. It's already slid in to 'electoral democracy' instead of 'liberal democracy' the difference between the two is how 'rule of law' is prioritised and the balance between checks and balances between institutions is enforced. https://www.v-dem.net/documents/60/V-dem-dr__2025_lowres.pdf https://www.v-dem.net/documents/60/V-dem-dr__2025_lowres.pdf
    - colin_jack 7mo ago
      Not quibbling but to be fair that report shows problems in Europe too, not the same speed of change, and its a different situation, but if you care about democracy its not great.
Maxion 7mo ago
AFAIK there's no murdering of citizens going on in any EU member country by the same countries government at the moment.
- emp-constantine 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  - snowpid 7mo ago
    for example?
    - fleroviumna 7mo ago
      [dead]
  - fleroviumna 7mo ago
    [dead]
  - emp-constantine 7mo ago
    [flagged]
krzyk 7mo ago
Trends are various. You had Poland remove rightwing goverment 2 years ago (yes and elect righwing president few months ago). Romania electing a European centric president. We can go on. EU is not a single country, not a single community of people.

> the complete 180 in direction the US is taking and descending in to authoritarianism A similar (though currently a little bit less marked) trend can also be observed for the EU and EU countries.

s_dev 7mo ago

>(though currently a little bit less marked) Again this is a false equivalence, 'a little less marked' isn't close to imparting the true state of things and to be honest a little disingenuous. The EU is not in full motion to dismantle democracy across her 27 states. The US should it not turn this around in the midterms is finished as a liberal democracy. So 'ah yes but Hungary' doesn't persuade me even though I'll concede it's a problem for the EU. If Tisza is elected in April, Hungary will be on course to turn things around. So you're comparing 1 out of 27 to 50 out of 50 states.

sunaookami 7mo ago
[flagged]
- krzyk 7mo ago
  EU did not force Romania. Romania itself annulled them because Russian intervention happened.
  - sunaookami 7mo ago
    Sure that happened :)
    - telmo 7mo ago
      Yes, it sure did. Read my comment on your original post.
    - krzyk 7mo ago
      Knowing Russia, it for sure did.
- telmo 7mo ago
  What actually happened was that former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton publicly stated on French TV in January 2025 that if the AfD won in Germany, elections there could also be annulled by the EU "as was done in Romania". That was a stupid thing for him to say, but he is a private citizen, he did not represent the EU in any capacity, and there is no evidence whatsoever that the EU pressured Romania. Of course, post-truth political movements run with a distorted version of this story to play the victim. Romania's Supreme Court decision was based mainly on illegal campaign financing. The Constitutional Court noted that Georgescu had officially reported zero campaign expenditures, yet had an enormous social media presence. His TikTok account had over 646K followers and 7.2M likes. This was in the context of interconnected declassified intelligence. Around 25000 pro-Georgescu TikTok accounts became highly active in the two weeks before the first-round vote, with nearly 800 accounts created in 2016 that had remained dormant until the election. Activity was coordinated through a Telegram channel. Romania's intelligence service said there were signs of state-sponsored attacks operating in a hybrid manner, targeting critical infrastructure and shaping public opinion through misinformation. The campaign was said to mirror influence operations conducted by Moscow during elections in Ukraine and Moldova. Romanian prosecutors later charged Georgescu with involvement behind cyberattacks targeting Romanian electoral systems. Russia has been systematically attempting to interfere with EU elections, and anyone who argues otherwise in the face of mountains of evidence is either being naive or disingenuous. Post-truth political parties such as the AfD are funded and supported by the Kremlin, which is interested in sowing division and wished the collapse of the EU for a long time. Unfortunately, the current US administration is also ideologically aligned with the Kremlin and also wishes the collapse of the EU, as is explicitally stated in the recent strategic document published by the Trump administration. These are the actual facts, that are easy to verify if you are actually interested in the truth.
  - sunaookami 7mo ago
    Yes it's always the evil Russians and the stupid people are influenced by TikTok so we need to tell them what they should vote! From e.g. Wikipedia: >At the time of his exclusion, Georgescu was leading in public opinion polls D'oh! >That was a stupid thing for him to say, but he is a private citizen How convenient he got fired, everything is good now, surely the Commission does not hold the same views as him! Are you really this naive? And don't get me wrong, I support neither Georgescu (a typical conspiracy theorist nut) nor AfD (who only argue that the evil immigrants are at fault). But I support a free and democratic process and these are no longer in place. If you ban leading candidates and try to ban political parties that are in the lead (AfD and CDU constantly switch #1 positions in polls by 1-2 percentagep points) just because they are not on "your side" you are not better than any country that you mark as authoritian.
- alessioalex 7mo ago
  Didn't like the candidate? Half the country (or perhaps more) didn't even know the candidate. He was pushed with the help of Russia/China via Tiktok and that's about it. He declared 0 (z-e-r-o) campaign expenses. Delusional!
Aurornis 7mo ago
> The US should it not turn this around in the midterms is finished as a liberal democracy. I wish there was an easy way for me to bet against the imminent fall of the United States as predicted by so many internet commenters. I don’t like what the current administration is doing, either, but I would readily bet against all of these “the end is just around the corner” or “the empire is dying” takes in a heartbeat.
- s_dev 7mo ago
  I didn't say the US is finished, I said it was finished as a liberal democracy. It's already slid in to 'electoral democracy' instead of 'liberal democracy' the difference between the two is how 'rule of law' is prioritised and the balance between checks and balances between institutions is enforced. https://www.v-dem.net/documents/60/V-dem-dr__2025_lowres.pdf https://www.v-dem.net/documents/60/V-dem-dr__2025_lowres.pdf
  - colin_jack 7mo ago
    Not quibbling but to be fair that report shows problems in Europe too, not the same speed of change, and its a different situation, but if you care about democracy its not great.

Maxion 7mo ago

AFAIK there's no murdering of citizens going on in any EU member country by the same countries government at the moment.

emp-constantine 7mo ago
[flagged]
- snowpid 7mo ago
  for example?
  - fleroviumna 7mo ago
    [dead]
- fleroviumna 7mo ago
  [dead]
- emp-constantine 7mo ago
  [flagged]

krzyk 7mo ago

Trends are various. You had Poland remove rightwing goverment 2 years ago (yes and elect righwing president few months ago). Romania electing a European centric president. We can go on. EU is not a single country, not a single community of people.