I’m glad I’m not the only one seeing this happen all over the world. All over the world we have feckless neoliberal parties failing to represent their people and getting replaced with populist right-wingers.
Not just Europe and the anglosphere. It’s also happening in Latin America (ecuador), and that’s basically all the regions where democracy used to be prevalent.
The middle east is still as dictatorial as it always was. Asia is still as dictatorial as it always has. Africa is still as dictatorial as it always has. I know all of these regions are huge and diverse, and that there are democracies. But none of them I can think of has gained democracy.
So the places that had democracy are turning less democratic, and the places that had little democracy still have little democracy. I’d say that’s an “All over the world” thing.
At least there’s Lula in Brazil. And I’m sure someone could come and tell me something bad about him, but not being Bolsonaro is a huge improvement, and I’ve heard other good things. In fact I believe the majority of Latin America is under leaders to the left of the US Democrats. And no I’m not counting non democracies like Venezuela or Cuba.
Meanwhile Brazil went back to their last progressive president after Bolsonaro’s failure, and Bolivia has foiled two attempted coups by reactionary forces. Venezuela and Cuba also remain strong, with the latter being possibly the most democratic country on this planet.
In Africa, the most notable “democracies” that have been overthrown in recent memory were all client states of western countries whose previous governments cannot in good faith be said to have been representative of the people.
The Middle East is pretty bad, what with Israel going full fash in the past year. It’s not like they haven’t been edging for decades, though.
But in Asia, the only country that might be more democratic than Cuba is China, and they’re as strong as they’ve ever been. Since that’s 1/5th of the population of this planet living under one of its premier democratic governments, I’d say the prognosis for global democracy is fine.
So the most Democratic countries on this planet according to you are cuba and china. Both of them are 1-party states, and China is straight up a surveillance state. Ok lol.
Does china pay you or are you spreading their bullshit propaganda for free?
Cuba’s democracy is actually a 0-party state. Candidates stand on their own for election, and most politics are run through local orgs and workplaces. They recently concluded one of the most democratic exercises in the history of the Western Hemisphere, when through a series of local referendums they amended their constitution. No lobbyists, no special interests, no controlled media - an almost totally pure example of a government run by citizens, for citizens.
As for China, the Chinese people have something like 90%+ satisfaction with their central government, as measured by independent observers. The reason for this is their commitment to Full Process Democracy, which means that your democratic participation in the system doesn’t end with your vote for a representative - low and mid level officials are required to constantly be polling their constituencies, and they can be dismissed (either by a recall election or by higher ups) if they don’t act in accordance with the desires of the people they’re supposed to represent.
Furthermore, China’s ruling party may be one party on paper, but it is “one party” that is made up of over one hundred million members. It has internal factions that range from neoliberal to anarcho-communist, and it is very intentionally embedded into every single Chinese institution. Most of the service that the CPC provides to the people is provided at a local or even individual level - for example, a Chinese worker’s equivalent to a union leader is a coworker who’s with the party, where if you have problems with your boss you can get it resolved through them.
I guess not having freedom of press and a very censored internet is an easy way to have the population like the government. You could feed people worms if you don’t let them know there’s other food out there, they’ll like you if you tell them out there not even worms exist.
The people of Hong Kong absolutely LOVED having their democracy suppressed by china’s (#1 best democracy of the world!!!).
I guess nobody even asked the Uyghurs how they feel about their government. Or they’re <10% of Chinese population so who cares, they don’t need democracy.
Do you think that there isn’t independent press in China? You’re not allowed to spread baseless conspiracy theories, but you can express dissatisfaction with the government or its policies. This 'aint the Cultural Revolution.
Hong Kong’s system is still entirely intact under the one country two systems principal. China has shown more restraint in reintegrating it into the national system than pretty much any other country that has undergone something similar, like when East Germany was plundered and deindustrialized by West Germany.
The Harvard study was a study of all Chinese people, not sure why you think that Uyghurs would be excluded. They stopped collecting that data because, frankly, they didn’t like the results they were getting, which is that China’s government is successful and that the people living under it aren’t trampled and downtrodden and miserable. Meanwhile in the “free” west, our population dutifully changes its opinion on foreign countries when it’s commanded to by the ruling class.
There is no freedom of press because there isn’t even freedom of speech. You can’t mention tiananmen square. You can’t show imagery of Winnie the Pooh (because it was used to depict the supreme leader of china in a non-positive way), and you can’t show support for taiwanese independence. Neither of those are baseless conspiracy theories.
The topic of east-germany deindustrialization I’ve been recently aware of it, so I might be wrong about some of it. As I understand it, first, east Germany’s infrastructure was stolen by the soviets (railways dismantled and sent to the USSR). Later, when Germany was unified, east Germans wanted to exit communism so hard (and they voted like so) that east German companies didn’t have time to adapt to their new market. East German companies benefitted from protectionism and weren’t competitive when markets opened up and they were competing with more efficient west German companies.
How is that fault of west Germany? They were crippled by the USSR, didn’t improve due to the USSR’s policies, and then they voted for a fast reunification. The deindustrialization of east Germany looks to me more like it was done by the USSR and east Germany, not west Germany.
I’m not a US citizen and I don’t remember mentioning it in this thread.
That’s not what one-party system means. The US is in principle a many-party system, but because of how their system works it means that voting anything that isn’t one of the 2 top parties means throwing away your vote. Making it a functionally 2-party system, which is way more democratic than a 1-party system.
1-party = voters have no choice, therefore that one party can do whatever they want.
2-party = there is some choice. There’s an “in power” party and one opposition. The opposition acts as a limit of what the “in power” party can do, because if people are unhappy, they’ll vote for the opposition.
Sure, you can’t choose what kind of opposition they want, which most of the times leads to a “least bad” voting. But you still have a way to influence government.
Having some choice >>>> having no choice.
I never 2-party is enough democracy, but it is still way more than 1-party. It’s not just a 2x increase. “Democracy” doesn’t scale linearly with the amount of parties.
I’m glad I’m not the only one seeing this happen all over the world. All over the world we have feckless neoliberal parties failing to represent their people and getting replaced with populist right-wingers.
Showing your bias here, because really this is only happening in Europe and the Anglosphere.
Not just Europe and the anglosphere. It’s also happening in Latin America (ecuador), and that’s basically all the regions where democracy used to be prevalent.
The middle east is still as dictatorial as it always was. Asia is still as dictatorial as it always has. Africa is still as dictatorial as it always has. I know all of these regions are huge and diverse, and that there are democracies. But none of them I can think of has gained democracy.
So the places that had democracy are turning less democratic, and the places that had little democracy still have little democracy. I’d say that’s an “All over the world” thing.
At least there’s Lula in Brazil. And I’m sure someone could come and tell me something bad about him, but not being Bolsonaro is a huge improvement, and I’ve heard other good things. In fact I believe the majority of Latin America is under leaders to the left of the US Democrats. And no I’m not counting non democracies like Venezuela or Cuba.
Meanwhile Brazil went back to their last progressive president after Bolsonaro’s failure, and Bolivia has foiled two attempted coups by reactionary forces. Venezuela and Cuba also remain strong, with the latter being possibly the most democratic country on this planet.
In Africa, the most notable “democracies” that have been overthrown in recent memory were all client states of western countries whose previous governments cannot in good faith be said to have been representative of the people.
The Middle East is pretty bad, what with Israel going full fash in the past year. It’s not like they haven’t been edging for decades, though.
But in Asia, the only country that might be more democratic than Cuba is China, and they’re as strong as they’ve ever been. Since that’s 1/5th of the population of this planet living under one of its premier democratic governments, I’d say the prognosis for global democracy is fine.
So the most Democratic countries on this planet according to you are cuba and china. Both of them are 1-party states, and China is straight up a surveillance state. Ok lol.
Does china pay you or are you spreading their bullshit propaganda for free?
Cuba’s democracy is actually a 0-party state. Candidates stand on their own for election, and most politics are run through local orgs and workplaces. They recently concluded one of the most democratic exercises in the history of the Western Hemisphere, when through a series of local referendums they amended their constitution. No lobbyists, no special interests, no controlled media - an almost totally pure example of a government run by citizens, for citizens.
As for China, the Chinese people have something like 90%+ satisfaction with their central government, as measured by independent observers. The reason for this is their commitment to Full Process Democracy, which means that your democratic participation in the system doesn’t end with your vote for a representative - low and mid level officials are required to constantly be polling their constituencies, and they can be dismissed (either by a recall election or by higher ups) if they don’t act in accordance with the desires of the people they’re supposed to represent.
Furthermore, China’s ruling party may be one party on paper, but it is “one party” that is made up of over one hundred million members. It has internal factions that range from neoliberal to anarcho-communist, and it is very intentionally embedded into every single Chinese institution. Most of the service that the CPC provides to the people is provided at a local or even individual level - for example, a Chinese worker’s equivalent to a union leader is a coworker who’s with the party, where if you have problems with your boss you can get it resolved through them.
I guess not having freedom of press and a very censored internet is an easy way to have the population like the government. You could feed people worms if you don’t let them know there’s other food out there, they’ll like you if you tell them out there not even worms exist.
The people of Hong Kong absolutely LOVED having their democracy suppressed by china’s (#1 best democracy of the world!!!).
I guess nobody even asked the Uyghurs how they feel about their government. Or they’re <10% of Chinese population so who cares, they don’t need democracy.
Do you think that there isn’t independent press in China? You’re not allowed to spread baseless conspiracy theories, but you can express dissatisfaction with the government or its policies. This 'aint the Cultural Revolution.
Hong Kong’s system is still entirely intact under the one country two systems principal. China has shown more restraint in reintegrating it into the national system than pretty much any other country that has undergone something similar, like when East Germany was plundered and deindustrialized by West Germany.
The Harvard study was a study of all Chinese people, not sure why you think that Uyghurs would be excluded. They stopped collecting that data because, frankly, they didn’t like the results they were getting, which is that China’s government is successful and that the people living under it aren’t trampled and downtrodden and miserable. Meanwhile in the “free” west, our population dutifully changes its opinion on foreign countries when it’s commanded to by the ruling class.
There is no freedom of press because there isn’t even freedom of speech. You can’t mention tiananmen square. You can’t show imagery of Winnie the Pooh (because it was used to depict the supreme leader of china in a non-positive way), and you can’t show support for taiwanese independence. Neither of those are baseless conspiracy theories.
The topic of east-germany deindustrialization I’ve been recently aware of it, so I might be wrong about some of it. As I understand it, first, east Germany’s infrastructure was stolen by the soviets (railways dismantled and sent to the USSR). Later, when Germany was unified, east Germans wanted to exit communism so hard (and they voted like so) that east German companies didn’t have time to adapt to their new market. East German companies benefitted from protectionism and weren’t competitive when markets opened up and they were competing with more efficient west German companies.
How is that fault of west Germany? They were crippled by the USSR, didn’t improve due to the USSR’s policies, and then they voted for a fast reunification. The deindustrialization of east Germany looks to me more like it was done by the USSR and east Germany, not west Germany.
The US is effectively a one-party system as well, because the rest of the world gets fucked over either way you guys vote.
I’m not a US citizen and I don’t remember mentioning it in this thread.
That’s not what one-party system means. The US is in principle a many-party system, but because of how their system works it means that voting anything that isn’t one of the 2 top parties means throwing away your vote. Making it a functionally 2-party system, which is way more democratic than a 1-party system.
If you think a two party system is “way more” democratic than a one party system, there’s nothing else worth discussing with you.
1-party = voters have no choice, therefore that one party can do whatever they want. 2-party = there is some choice. There’s an “in power” party and one opposition. The opposition acts as a limit of what the “in power” party can do, because if people are unhappy, they’ll vote for the opposition.
Sure, you can’t choose what kind of opposition they want, which most of the times leads to a “least bad” voting. But you still have a way to influence government.
Having some choice >>>> having no choice.
I never 2-party is enough democracy, but it is still way more than 1-party. It’s not just a 2x increase. “Democracy” doesn’t scale linearly with the amount of parties.
Because in a lot of other places, or was already the case.