Ask Lemmy

The US had always been a questionable democracy with the hyperfixation on the president and just two parties setting the agenda, but I'd argue that it's still a democracy, though it is a rapidly deteriorating one.

See, as a German, when I see a country go down the same route as the Weimar Republic after handing over the power to the Nazi party, I think it's just very obvious. Hitler took some two months to completely destroy democracy, and the US are juuust in the middle of that. History doesn't repeat, but sometimes it rhymes, and the similarities are just remarkable.

So yeah, I guess that would be a big fat trench in the sand.

Anyone who is eligible to vote, and chooses not to, implicitly throws their support behind whoever wins.

On 2024-11-05, ⅔ of US citizens who were eligible to vote told the rest of the world they don’t want to be taken seriously for at least 2 years.

Absolutely not. A two party system was barely nominally a form of democracy. Current it walks like a dictatorship and quacks like a dictatorship. They might hold a fake election one day like many of those do, but still no.

Am Dutch. I have considered the US an incomplete democracy since I learned about voting in school. It’s not one person one vote, which to me is crucial for a democracy. The US right now is still a nation of laws, but democracy is sharply in decline. The voter-roll issues and Gerrymandering come to mind immediately. Not to mention the fact that guaranteed access to polls has been pulled by the courts. Which is insane to me.

Line in the sand? Going after political opponents. Censoring information. Dismantling media. Abandoning rule of law. Business and government mixing too much.

USA is speed running these.

A struggling democracy, in the beginning of an Orban/Hungary-like overtake of the country.

Its possible to revert, but you seem to have atleast a 1/3 of the country that would walk down a straight up facist line willingly and happily do so.

You need to fix your shit america.

The short answer: yes.

The long answer: it will take a long time to completely dismantle a democracy in a country as big and complex as America. You don't just do that in three months.

All trump has done so far is move as fast as possible to make as much of a mess as possible in the hopes that some of his nutty ideas goes through once the system catches up to him. And the system will catch up to him and Musk and all the other cunts who are having their little ego fest currently.

I have patience. Kind of. I look forward to seeing the consequences of their actions come to haunt them. I also hope this period in American politics will be the wake up call America needs to hopefully bar politicians and political parties from taking donations from big corps essentially try to buy the government and weaken true democracy from flourishing. The US isn't the only country with this problem, but it is certainly neck deep in one of the worst outcomes of letting big corporations take ownership of a government.

I consider it an autocratic regime with strong fascist characteristics.

Would be nice to know what part of America you mean by that. It is a pretty big continent you know? Argentinians, Mexicans, Brasilians and so on are all part of America.

Buuuut I'm gonna go ahead and assume you are asking about the UNITED STATES country, right?

Yes it is a Democracy. Not perfect, but then again which one is?

First off, I'm an American. Born a stone's throw from the location of one of the critical events in the history of the American revolution.

To answer the question, no. Leaving aside the whole Republic versus democracy argument, my point of realization was when one party seized upon a minor technical issue and disenfranchised countless voters via lawsuit, sufficient to allow the race to be called in their favor.

I'm sure there are many readers who believe I'm talking about 2016. For those readers, your keyword search is "hanging Chad".

It was never a democracy.

I consider it a lesser democracy / something that barely qualifies for a few years now.

I consider it a faux democracy. It still has the semblance of one, with people voting, believing they matter and that they have actual free speech, but the masses are being, increasingly less subtly, controlled by media corporations and rendered incapable of critical, independent thinking by an ever decreasing quality of education.

Don't be fooled though! This isn't happening in the US alone. It is widespread all over the globe. The US is simply doing it in a smarter, more cunning way, while leading the wealthy 1% in other countries by example.

Not at all, you are just an autocracy now but don't fully realise it, and as the other commentator had said, not even really a good democracy in the loosest of terms before this entire mess going on ATM!

How can you be a democracy if you have only two political parties?

Absolutely not. A country where two parties are the only two viable electoral options, is absolutely not a democracy. Doesn’t mean I’ll stop my membership for the PSL.

Ignoring court orders, and "fake national emergency declarations" to create war and international extortion and remove rights and citizenships for deportations crossed the line. The voter suppression/rigging that won election for Trump is also clearly anti-democratic, but anti-democratic as usual. Media/oligarchy/Israel influence/disinformation might not make for an ideal democracy, but also "democracy as usual".

The big problem with the world is the US empire's manufacturing of hatred/war against "those who are less democratic than us and our colonies" Corruption of democracy in US, who can cheaply manipulate democracy in its colonies, means that you don't have functional democracy either. US praises the most violently oppressive apartheid ethnostates suspending federal and local elections as great democracies if they support US wars. There is something wrong when the most important issue of your government is to increase divisiveness/threats to the US's enemies when the US unjustifiably threatens you, and that thrills you as right track.

So, democracy is simply not working at bringing progressiveness and shared prosperity, or even the most basic understanding of humanist/national interests, to those who say they love it so much. This is global collapse level of delusion. Nations doing best economically are those distancing themselves from US colonial control.

The more objective measure of "good government" is control against oligarchist pillaging, while having pluralism/sustainability, and economic constructiveness. US approved democracies are failing hard on these metrics. Warmongering based on "blanket, evidence free, refusal to accept election results when non-CIA candidate wins" is not the democratic/liberal ideal you think it is.

The answer depends of the reference point. I was born in Russia (I'm living abroad from 2022) and compared to the putin's dictatorship US is a democracy. You guys still have a freedom of speech, not fake opposition to Trump and independent courts. From the other side, most of the countries are democracies if compared to Russia..

No but this isn't recent. My line in the sand was Russian interference in the 2016 US election that came to light in 2018.

*United States Democracy Index

Nyet.

I really never did, not a well functioning at least. They've practiced voter repression for decades, and then they had fun testing how low they could go after 9/11, doing a lot of unlawful shit, going after citizens who spoke out against their policies and wars.

Not for a long time. The Economist Democracy Index demoted the US to a "flawed democracy" since 2016, where it has been ever since.

Democracy index, 2024 - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/democracy-index-eiu

Yes, but a bad example of one very quickly heading towards autocracy. Some characteristics like screwing up your own economy and blaming 'the foreigners' rings a distant bell.

Maybe a flawed democracy at best and it's getting worse every day. At least on federal level, I don't much about states politics. Not really an expert but democracy can't really work that well if you are stuck in a two party system. Having more choice would sure help against populists and autocrats.

No. I also don't consider the United States to be a democracy.

The next election will tell, my tin hat is on Puting the US into a situation where an election can't be held so they can have a third term.