Putin Just Revealed Democracy’s Superpower

https://octavian.substack.com/p/how-putin-just-revealed-democracys

by KoftaBob • 4 years ago

43 112 4 years ago

octavian.substack.com

yolo69420• 4 years ago

it's less about democracy and more about the economical systems and hierarchy in use. i suspect an encounter with china for example would go quite differently

consumer45110• 4 years ago

Maybe, but one of the issues Putin faces is that his subordinates are apparently afraid to tell him the truth if it strays from the party line.

Would this not be same situation in the CCP?

peoplefromibiza2• 4 years ago

Would this not be same situation in the CCP?

Wasn't it the same situation with Trump, democratically elected POTUS?

Or, in my country, with Berlusconi?

Isn't it the same with many CEOs that have far more power and impact on people's lives than a politician?

The only real difference is that Putin has been there for 20 years and will be there for another 20, if nothing changes.

pydry3• 4 years ago

Maybe, but one of the issues Putin faces is that his subordinates are apparently afraid to tell him the truth

I've heard this repeated many times but:

A) most of the evidence comes mostly from western propaganda organs saying that it's happening.

B) other evidence is circumstantial at best and really reaching at times (e.g. pictures of putin sitting at the end of a long table)

C) it's a pretty standard kind of disinfo tactic to try and say this kind of thing to undermine troop morale.

D) it will ultimately not be disprovable.

Which is not to say it's definitely not true, but every time I hear it repeated I wince a little.

nextstep• 4 years ago

Piece has a rather simplistic view of western democracy. Regular replacement of leaders isn’t useful if they all believe the same general doctrine and work toward the same goals over many decades. The will of the people is not expressed in the western system either.

Comevius• 4 years ago

Case in point the United States lobbyist corruption. The will of the people is overshadowed by the will of large corporations.

tored5• 4 years ago

A huge problem with western democracy is that even if the leader is replaced the political party remains. This breeds corruption and entitlement ("we are the only proper ruling party!")

A few examples of political parties over a hundred years old

  Democratic 1828
  Republican 1854

Fought each other in the civil war, still at war.

Sweden

  Socialdemokraterna 1889
  Moderaterna        1904
  Centerpartiet      1913
  Vänsterpartiet     1917

And of course the two big ruling parties in Sweden are Socialdemokraterna and Moderaterna, the oldest ones. Centerpartiet used to be a ruling party.

Denmark

  Venstre                      1870
  Socialdemokraterne           1871
  Radikale Venstre             1905
  Det Konservative Folkeparti  1915

Guess which are the two ruling parties?

Norway

  Høyre              1884
  Venstre            1884
  Arbeiderpartiet    1887
  Senterpartiet      1920

Norwegians correct me, my understanding is that Venstre used to be part of the ruling parties up until the war and then after that faded. Høyre and Arbeiderpartiet are still.

  Conservative 1834
  Labour       1900

The two ruling parties obviously.

Interesting is that France is somewhat the exception where younger political parties are quite common.

hackeraccount• 4 years ago

I can't speak to the other countries but in the United States there are in fact more or less 2 political parties. It's a winner take all system which tends to drive that for good or ill.

I wouldn't take too much from that. What if for example the Republican party changed it's name tomorrow to the Democracy party. Would anything change from that? No, not really - it's all the same people with the same ideas. The politics are all the same.

Now, what if the politics changed. What if the people who actually voted for the Republicans changed? What if these different people had different ideas and different interests? In that case the name would be the same but the party would be different.

consumer45110• 4 years ago

One of the stunning things to me in the last few years was our collective inability to explain why democracy is a good thing.

The best short statement I can come up with is that a functional democracy is the best system of accountability that we have come up with. It is the system most likely to keep morons from positions of power. It is the system most likely to eject corrupt leaders.

jillesvangurp• 4 years ago

I think Churchill had a way with words:

‘Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’

bloak2• 4 years ago

In my opinion that's a stupid saying because democracy isn't a "form of Government". In reality there is an infinite range of forms of Government and people can argue for ever about which form is more or less democratic than which other forms.

I also find that the conclusions, if there are any, from that kind of argument are often not very useful. For example, the UK is in some ways a great place from a constitutional point of view, but that's despite having a totally crap electoral system (I usually don't bother voting: it makes no difference). What makes the UK's constitution great is the way the judiciary really is independent and really can rein in the government: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_(Miller)_v_The_Prime_Ministe...

Is that part of democracy? Probably, but it's all very vague and subjective.

BrandoElFollito• 4 years ago

If there was some kind of filtering for voters it wild be even better.

Since you are supposed to choose someone who will lead your country, it means you understand what that person says. Some su PO er basic test on that would be welcome.

Then a second part on general culture, such as name a country we have a border with. Or who is the current prime minister. Or is your country part of nato or the eu.

Sure this is not democracy anymore, but the vote makes more sense because you know what you vote for. Specifically it does not matter of I find your candidate good or not.

m000• 4 years ago

When democracy regresses to essentially a 2-party system, then accountability is pretty limited. Essentially an omerta is established between the two main parties. Then, the ruling party knows that they can rule however they want, and they're pretty much guaranteed to bounce back in power eventually.

That could be even worse than the accountability of a strongman/autocratic leader. An autocrat may be harder to dispose of, but at least you know they're not very likely to bounce back.

consumer45110• 4 years ago

When democracy regresses to essentially a 2-party system, then accountability is pretty limited.

I agree with that one hundred percent. I am not arguing that any one implementation of democracy is The Way, but that the concept is generally superior to other known alternatives.

Omertà

Thanks for the new vocabulary word! That's a great one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omert%C3%A0

tored5• 4 years ago

Can't really agree.

Many of the professional politicians in Sweden doesn't have any formal degree or professional career, they are uneducated broilers, i.e. morons.

The ruling political party in Sweden, Socialdemokraterna, has given themselves their own lottery system, A-lotterierna, a system filled with filth and corruption like selling lottery tickets on credit (against the law) to poor people, and at the same time legislating on lottery in general. Socialdemokraterna has made over 3 billion SEK on their lottery system.

Democracies strength has been not to go to war against other democracies. But the corruption is still there. And the morons.

consumer45110• 4 years ago

I should not have said “morons.” I am not formally educated beyond high school, does that make me a moron? Well, maybe. I meant no insult there. Not sure what better word to use.

I am repeating myself in the thread, but perfect is the enemy of good. Just because there are easily citable instances of corruption does not make the entire concept of democracy invalid, does it?

What would be a better system in your view? Would it still involve elections?

muchtest• 4 years ago

"The fact that the regular replacement of leaders has turned out to be democracy’s strongest feature underscores"

That also assumes power is concentrated in the Leader as much as it is in Russia/China. In the West the President/PM is more of a face than the person with the final say.

If we look at US Policy, the policies that effect the common man, hasn't changed much between Republican/Democrat leadership - especially contentious policies - Erosion of wealth of the lower/middle class, Regime change/Expeditions in Middle East, Reduction of civil liberties/press freedoms/internet.

nicoburns3• 4 years ago

That might be true in the US (where the president is leader of only the executive branch, and there is a two party system with not much difference between the two parties), but it's decidedly not the case in other systems. For example, here in the UK we also have a two party system but a greater difference between the two, and the Prime Minister also largely controls the legislative agenda.

busterarm4• 4 years ago

But the PM in your country doesn't have unilateral authority to commit to military action, which is not the case in the big powers. That's the point.

Of course yes, yes in the United States the President can't declare war without Congress, but we just don't call them wars anymore.

socialdemocrat• 4 years ago

But a prime minister is not remotely as powerful as a president. A prime minister has no independent power as he was not elected by the people but by the party or coalition he/she leads. That party/coalition can in principle remove the prime minister any time they want. You cannot remove a president. Look at the attempts at removal of Trump. It requires an impeachment which proved near impossible.

A vote of no-confidence is contrast is a very simple procedure.

busterarm4• 4 years ago

In the post-9/11 United States, power is much more concentrated in the Executive than you think.

Remember that in the classified 2012 Inspector General's report that Snowden leaked it states clearly that President Obama asked the Director of the NSA that if the warrantless wiretapping program were deemed to be illegal, would he continue it on the President's orders and that the Director's answer was "Yes, Sir."

pydry3• 4 years ago

I wouldnt be surprised if they'd also refuse to stop it on the president's orders. Post-9/11 the security establishment has become a law unto itself.

robbiep5• 4 years ago

Which is a point where, say, Westminster system or similar really starts to move ahead of the US system - not only do you have reasonable multi-party options (to varying degrees) but also issues don’t boil down to a single person - the douche or turd sandwich - because whilst the modern media state does actually distill everything down to that single person as a figurehead, you still have to win 50% of electorates (or form coalitions to get there) and power is more devolved

sofixa• 4 years ago

The Westminster system is pretty close to the American one, and the fact that there are different parties is a bit by luck. A representative parliamentary system is much better for that - you don't disenfranchise up to half of the electorate, compromise is forced due to the need of coalitions, etc.

fmajid• 4 years ago

The Westminster system has proven its utter failure to provide any measure of accountability for its executive when it emerged that the person who gets to decide whether Boris Johnson violated the Ministerial Code is one... Boris Johnson.

US Presidents have been impeached, and in the case of Nixon forced to resign. French Presidents, probably the most powerful executives in the West, have been successfully prosecuted for crimes committed in office. Same with Helmut Kohl, the King of Spain, or Italian Prime Ministers. British Prime Ministers get a free ride for war crimes like Tony Blair or gross corruption like Boris Johnson.

rstuart4133• 4 years ago

I'm not really sure the Westminster system is that different to what the USA, or Australia or any country whose system is to divide the country into small pieces each of which elect a single member. They all evolve into two party system.

The reason is pretty simple. If your country is divided into say 4 groups 40%, 30%, 20% and 10%, then it's likely highly either the 40% or 30% are going to win in every electorate. The 20% and the 10% won't get a look in. The 40% and 30% then become your two parties, and competition for the centre tends to make them look very similar.

If you want you parliament to reflect that 40%, 30%, 20% and 10% ratio, then one way to do it is get rid of electorates. Instead ask the 40%, 30% ... parties to nominate candidates in ranked order, and appoint candidates to parliament in proportion to the votes the party received across the entire country.

Mixed-member proportional representation [0] does that in a complicated way, mostly complicated because they keep electorates. It's been remarkably successful for countries that have adopted it, eg Germany, New Zealand, South Korea. And remarkably successful includes financial outcomes. (New Zealand was a mess before they adopted it.) Australia has it for it's upper house, and as an Australian I think that's what keeps the place sane.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_repr...

pram• 4 years ago

The US has had numerous pointless wars of attrition that turned out to be awful ideas and spanned multiple presidents and congresses. I don’t disagree with the premise but really, who was held accountable for anything on our side?

scotty793• 4 years ago

Nobody. That's the beauty of democracies. When you spread power over a clicque of background characters without any clear tyrant to blame, you can get away with anything.

drewm1980• 4 years ago

Presidential immunity helps defend against Trump-like situations. Who knows, maybe he would not have attempted the coup if there weren't so many lawsuits hanging over him. American democracy almost failed. I actually think we need a system that retires every billionaire for life with honors and a luxurious lifestyle but not power. Sort of a "congratulations you won capitalism" award, after which they have to give up their money and power but get to be cool and get like 100k per year to blow on a lavish lifestyle.

Isinlor• 4 years ago

I don't know what kind of accountability do you expect? Presidents who started these wars are no longer presidents. Also, Americans wanted and supported wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even withdrawal from Afghanistan was politically costful for Biden.

yucky• 4 years ago

Presidents who started these wars are no longer presidents.

That's unrelated though. They're limited to 8 years, and Bush served all 8. Obama carried on the wars and he served all 8 as well. There has been no accountability.

pydry3• 4 years ago

Bit of a confused piece. First it sounds like hes arguing for democracy or is it about a renaissance of western imperialism? Then it turns out to be about term limits. Then he turns around and praises Lee Kuan Yew.

All seen through the prism of the beltway bubble.

nbzso• 4 years ago

Sadly, censorship and normalisation of abuse of government power is not Putins trademark anymore. Propaganda and whitewashing is everywhere.

vivekd• 4 years ago

all leaders get worse with time
only democratic leaders can be removed when they get bad

I dont think either of these statements are true. America seems to be conflating bad for America or bad for American interests with bad in general.

sharemywin2• 4 years ago

bad authoritarian leaders are killed all the time. Me personally I'd give up a little of that sweet, ultimate power for a better outcome on the backside. But, like they say no guts, no glory.

smitty1e2• 4 years ago

The U.S. model has been tarnished by hyper-partisanship, gridlock, fake news, the rise of Trump

Done. HAND.

LAC-Tech2• 4 years ago

What does "HAND" mean here?

smitty1e2• 4 years ago

Have a nice day.

One cannot bemoan hyper-partisanship and take a swipe at a specific figure in the same sentence and expect to be taken seriously.

t786347767891• 4 years ago

Regular fair elections are a mechanism for dissuading governments from making catastophic errors. By manipulating elections or by making oneself president for life one disables this mechanism thus make it more likely that you will make a catastrophic error (like invading a neighboring country). Karl Popper explained this all a long time ago. This view of elections an essential mechanism for preventing catastrophic errors is a liberal principle worth fighting for.

codingdave• 4 years ago

Karl Popper explained this all a long time ago.

Seems like a snarky statement that assumes everyone knows the same things you do. Maybe you could provide a link to that explanation instead?

rrgmitchell• 4 years ago

Poster is probably referring to Popper's 'The Open Society and Its Enemies' [1].

Some colleagues of Popper would refer to it as 'The Open Society By One Of Its Enemies'.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Society_and_Its_Enemi...

lIIIllllIIII2• 4 years ago

Elections incentivize governments to prevent errors that result in not being elected any more.

Errors that result in the entire planet warming by a couple of degrees, or that generally just screw the country over on a timescale longer than an election cycle, are collectively shrugged off by wider society and a complicit media apparatus.

kumarvvr• 4 years ago

When power is distributed, entrenched corruption can build a malaise.

Democracies and autocracies have their own serious flaws, with the scale tipping only slightly in favour of democracies.

The fundamental issue is himan nature. Power, Money, Pleasure are the drivers of human behaviour when it comes to administration.

It is difficult to overcome human nature. We seem to be destined to be a mixed bag of cyclical governments, lumbering towards whatever our ultimate destiny is.

southerntofu11• 4 years ago

The fundamental issue is himan nature. Power, Money, Pleasure are the drivers of human behaviour when it comes to administration.

I strongly disagree with this assessment, despite agreeing with your analysis of what's wrong in the current system. Power and money are products of a specific culture and not natural traits. Some human communities have existed without either, and some exist to this day.

We need a strong cultural shift to abolish power and money in order to build a more fair society.

imtringued4• 4 years ago

I agree, the democratization of land has still not been started despite the fact that hundreds or thousands of idealists have come up with good enough solutions that could be implemented today.

If we followed GP's reasoning then democracy wouldn't be so widespread. But for me a land reform is just a matter of time. If you can maintain peace in a society long enough e.g. avoid wars over land, then at some point, people will have to figure out how to share land peacefully.

bmitc• 4 years ago

I would say the situation is more foreshadowing of what could become of the U.S. Russia's problem is one of autocracy and oligarchy, which the U.S. seems hell bent on moving towards. Furthermore, the U.S. is not a democracy, even on paper.

MadSudaca• 4 years ago

I sometimes think that human beings are not meant to be rational in the long-term, and this is why democracy is good. Let me explain, get ready for some crazy hypothesizing...

The premise is that the only thing we consistently do is manifest our personality. Personalities can be described quantitatively and they follow an approximate multi-dimensional normal distribution. Personalities shape how we see the world and in turn how we act. This means that, as a society, when faced with a challenge, we will respond on average as the average personality would respond. Every once in a while, novel challenges come and they are faced in a way that extreme personalities would act. We don't know in advance if this is the most effective personality to deal with the issue, but we have to try something new as the average personality won't do anymore. Thus we approach novel problems in a trial and error basis, with extreme personalities taking the charge. Since new members of the species are constantly being born, and random mutations in their genes, plus environment, assure that their personalities fall more or less randomly somewhere in the distribution of personalities, we can be assured that we will always have a very big supply of average personalities to tackle average problems, and a smaller supply of exceptional personalities to tackle exceptional and novel problems.

Given the above paragraph, democracy is a way, in theory, to make all personalities heard, in the exact proportion in which they could be effective at dealing with problems.

stareatgoats• 4 years ago

some crazy hypothesizing

This is crazytalk indeed - but I like it. The role of personalities in society is certainly underestimated and understudied. My favorite "proof" is how certain societies favor certain personality types, i.e. how a certain personality probably won a culture war that took place in the formative years of that culture. Which could explain why som introvert westerners feel at home in in the restraining culture of Japan, and why some extrovert and freedom-needy Japanese feel more at home in the US culture.

And I agree that democracy should better allow for peaceful coexistence between personality types - it is not always the case though, at least not hitherto: even democracy has a history of repression against people with certain personality types: introversion (shyness, modesty) is still regarded as borderline pathological in many western societies.

With that said - there is much more going on in a culture than things predicated on personalities. But it has a certain influence, I'm sure of it.

golergka• 4 years ago

Democracies are better at war because they don't need to coup-proof their armies. In authoritarian regimes, army is always a threat. Secret police, which often is a controlling force in the regime, doesn't trust the army, neutralises talented generals and doesn't give officers on the ground authority to act autonomously. Sky-high levels of corruption and outright theft are also crippling the military capability.

There's an excellent Russian historian and blogger Kamil Galeev, whom I've known long before he started a twitter account, and his threads on Russia's internal affairs are 100% legit. (Source: I'm born in Moscow, lived in Russia most of my adult life and have been somewhat active as a political activist, as have two previous generations of my family). His threads are very instructive if you want to understand what's actually going on: https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1498377757536968711

oytis2• 4 years ago

Putin’s blundering and brutal behavior has accidentally highlighted democracy’s greatest superpower: the trait that insures that, for all of democracy’s flaws, it will triumph over autocracies in the long run.
Russia’s debacle in Ukraine underscores the fact that democracy’s guarantee that leaders are regularly replaced is actually the system’s most important advantage

I don't understand this premature triumphalism. The war is not over yet, and although the campaign is not running as Putin planned, Ukraine is exhausted too and no other army has chosen to intervene, so I would say if Putin wants to push to the end (and looks like he does) the odds are in his favour in general.

Economic war is not over yet too. Sanctions did harm Russia's economy, but Russia also introduced some countermeasures and works hard to adapt. Looks like the West can't introduce more meaningful sanctions in the near future, so whether military threat from Russia is neutralized by these sanctions remains open for me too.

bigbizisverywyz• 4 years ago

I personally see no evidence Ukraine is exhausted, although their country has, and continues to receive a pummeling - ironically largely in the more Russian speaking parts to the south and east.

Russia on the other hand will of course work hard to adapt, but they are about to learn that they will be ostracized and blocked at every turn when they try to reintegrate with the rest of the world. No longer will their oligarchs get to jet around the world with their outsized wealth, no longer will Russian propaganda be accepted as 'valid discussion' and their activities overlooked and hopefully no longer will Russian money be accepted to influence politics.

The mask is off now and the snarling beast underneath can be seen - hopefully now by all.

oytis2• 4 years ago

I personally see no evidence Ukraine is exhausted

There are news of a few fuel stores blown up by Russians every day. This limits Ukrainian mobility greatly. Ukraine has not been able to regain any significant territory despite the majority of Russian army being concentrated around Mariupol. Russian army makes advances in Mariupol step by step and after that will be free to attack other parts of Ukraine. Whether it will is going to be a decision of one man.

they are about to learn that they will be ostracized and blocked at every turn when they try to reintegrate with the rest of the world

With the rest of Western world to be precise. Yes, isolation of Russia from the West is likely to succeed (although I see threats to this as well in Hungary, Germany and France). But it is open whether it will be enough to restrain Russia's military power in the long term.

Isolation was just the start of the first Cold War, and is probably a start of the new one. Winning it was, and still is a non-trivial challenge.

thriftwy• 4 years ago

Yet another fur of a bear being partitioned, whilist the bear in question is not slain yet.

jmyeet2• 4 years ago

tl;dr:

The answer is that Putin’s blundering and brutal behavior has accidentally highlighted democracy’s greatest superpower: the trait that insures that, for all of democracy’s flaws, it will triumph over autocracies in the long run.

IMHO that's some serious copium.

Russia (briefly) had a modicum of democracy and now doesn't. It's suffering really because it's in decline [1]. Compare it with China, which by any objective measure is an autocracy, and it's doing just fine.

Democracies historically have been few and far between and they've thus far not lasted that long comparatively. Some examples:

- Roman Republic may well be the longest lasting and I'm not sure you'd call it strictly a democracy but it's close and it lasted several hundred years before being swept away into empire;

- Weimar Republic -> Nazi Germany. Let's not forget in 1933 when Hitler was appointed Chancellor, the Nazis held the most seats through elections;

- Athenian democracy -> (briefly) a territory of an empire and then a Roman province

- Turkey is now effectively an autocracy

- In completely honesty and seriousness, the attempted insurrection of January 6 (yes, that's what it was) foreshadowed an end to American democracy. It's a race against time between evangelicals trying to institute a fascist theocracy through subversion of every institution meant to protect the republic vs demographics making them irrelevant [2].

Democracies just have different failure modes and nothing lasts forever.

[1] https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/why-the-population-decline...

[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/01/5-facts-abo...

southerntofu11• 4 years ago

- Weimar Republic -> Nazi Germany. Let's not forget in 1933 when Hitler was appointed Chancellor, the Nazis held the most seats through elections;

Let's not forget also that Hitler did not rise to chancellor by democratic process but by state of emergency measures, and that all the seats he grabbed was thanks to his friends from big industry campaigning for him because he promised to rid them of unions. See also the documentary Fascism Inc on the relations between historical fascism/nazism and corporate power.

jmyeet2• 4 years ago

... all the seats he grabbed was thanks to his friends from big industry

Sounds a lot like modern US politics, doesn't it (eg [1] [2] [3])?

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/26/koch-brother...

[2] https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/inside-the-koch-bac...

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/climate/koch-brothers-pub...

Gravityloss• 4 years ago

It's a bit like infrastructure as code. When you rebuild the infrastructure from code regularly, you don't accumulate in-place changes. Hmm, that reminds me of a biological version...

southerntofu11• 4 years ago

The U.S. model has been tarnished by hyper-partisanship, gridlock, fake news, the rise of Trump, his mishandling of COVID, and Biden’s inability to push through his reform agenda.

This is a very local view of politics produced by commercial news storytelling based on nationalist sentiment. First, what's the US model? Is it laissez-faire capitalism with oligarchy controlling every aspect of politics (as it is today, and as it was in the times of the robber barons)? Is it planned centralized economy without unemployment like in the time of Roosevelt? Is it legal slavery (not wage slavery) as it was even before? The USA is a mix of all those things, and plenty more. If you talk about "the US model" you need to be very precise about what you mean, unless you mean the model the CIA/NSA have exported all over the world since 1945 which is private property (massive poverty) and political dictatorship (no power to the people).

If you're not talking about a specific model but USA's reputation as a brand around the planet, it sure has been tarnished. Anti-USA sentiment is more alive than ever, but is completely unrelated to any of the points you quoted. I would personally say it's more because of:

- 9/11 turning into a mass hysteria of killing/pillaging millions of people in Iraq/Afghanistan (who had nothing to do with 9/11?!) in the name of "freedom" because that's exactly what freedom means apparently... then the USA government hunts down and prosecutes the journalists responsible for the public knowing what the government is doing (eg. wikileaks & friends)

- the much-predictable collapse of the .com bubble, the subprime crisis, and the formation of a new bubble with VCs giving billions of dollars to startup based on cash burn rate no matter what value they actually produce for society ; in every crisis, the government intervenes to bail out the big fish but lets poorer people to die on the streets, or as people coined it "socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor"

- the consolidation of economy in the hands of a few corporations: from an outside perspective it appears anti-trust regulations don't exist in the USA anymore... how can you allow Bayer and Monsanto (two of the most despicable firms producing chemical weapons for war) to merge? or Microsoft and Github? I'd be tempted to say the authorities are corrupt, but it seems the whole system is broken

- inequalities and injustice are more visible than they ever were previously thanks to widespread internet and cameras: people all around the world know that the USA police is a terrorist organization slaughtering innocent black people, and that the USA is a country in which many people sleep on the streets despite an abundance of empty dwellings (this fact only is inconceivable in many parts of the world)

- the government waging war against its own population: FBI's CoIntelPro was dismantled on paper but equivalent programs exist to this day and most people advertised in the media as domestic terrorists were in fact setup by the FBI (as outlined by The Intercept in its most glorious reporting), or were legit radical activists fighting for a better world ("ecoterrorism")

- the price of healthcare climbing up even for well-established medicine that we know to mass-produce since over 100 years like insulin: people from countries with free healthcare are shocked that this is a thing in a country that pretends to lead the world by example

- massive pollution in the cities (Flint?) and in the countryside (fracking turning water taps into flamethrowers of sorts), an ever-growing list of environmental disasters, and industry and government who continue to produce more useless industrial projects that negatively impact most people

- women's rights regressing significantly with anti-abortion abortion centers, thriving anti-gay/trans conversion therapies, and constant legislative pushbacks against anything that's not workplace discrimination

And probably many other things that don't come to mind right now. The american dream was always a lie (read some socialist/anarchist critique from the 19th century if you doubt it) but the scam is now more apparent than ever.

Let us know what you think

You outlined an important fact that people in the global north are concerned with Putin's dictatorship and value peace and multi-party decision making now more than ever. But in doing so, you forgot to talk about actual politics and that ordinary people don't hold any political power (democracy) in the USA: no, delegating your power to whichever brand/party of psychopaths is gonna fuck up your life is not democracy (power to the people). I bet life would be better for everyone if we all lived in actual democracies (autonomous communes without a centralized Nation States) and not in a TV reality show where oligarchs who own all mass media communication "engineer consent".

I personally recommend you read some political sciences books. You may realize we struggling people have more in common across all borders and cultural divides than geopolitical analysis (which ruling psychopath gets which part of the pie) will ever tell you. You may then produce analysis which resonate more with people outside of your corporate US media bubble who believes the problem is "partisanship" and "fake news".

Greetings from France, another colonial empire who's worked hand in hand with the USA (since before the USA was even a thing) to fuck up the lives of the entire (neo-)colonized world.

jeswin• 4 years ago

If anything, the war is showing the weaknesses of democracies. Authoritarian governments can push their agenda without distraction, while most politicians in democracies are fighting a popularity contest. In the race to get elected, politicians will embrace short term economic wins, and avoid hardship at all costs. It took a brutal war for Europe to realize that they have limited ability to defend themselves, and that they've made themselves dependent on Russian energy.

A war with Xi's China will be a wholly different matter. In peace time, democracies shifted a large part of their manufacturing capacity into a dictatorship. And funneled trillions into their economy; a part of which is being spent on creating a powerful military. Democracies will continue to do this, since in the short term doing business with dictatorships may be good for their local economy. And It'll help with reducing emissions, because the factories are out of sight. Doing business with dictatorships will improve the prospects of getting re-elected, and getting re-elected is a politician's job.

southerntofu11• 4 years ago

Authoritarian governments can push their agenda without distraction, while most politicians in democracies are fighting a popularity contest.

Correct. But i personally would argue if we had actual democracies in the global north, such dictatorships could not last. If we had power to the people, and everyone was housed, fed and healthcared (as we claim in our neocolonial propaganda), the West would appear like a suitable model for many people around the planet and everyone would rise for freedom. The truth is many people living under those dictatorships despise the USA and France (and others) for what they truly are: neocolonial oligarchies abusing people and destroying the environment. There is no freedom or equality here, we just have a different brand of authoritarianism than they do.

scotty793• 4 years ago

Authoritarian governments can push their agenda without distraction, while most politicians in democracies are fighting a popularity contest.

But that is exactly the strength of the democracies.

Inability to push with horrible ideas is many times more valuable than ability to push with good ones.

'Do nothing' is in most cases still a decent strategy even though it's rarely optimal it is still better than vast number of active strategies.

ThrowawayR2• 4 years ago

"Inability to push with horrible ideas is many times more valuable than ability to push with good ones."

The electorate's disinterest in addressing climate change could be the thing that breaks that rule. Seems far too likely that the word megadeath won't just be the name of a band anymore within our lifetimes.

imtringued4• 4 years ago

That is true but the population as a whole wants things this way. If you ask them whether they would accept higher gas prices or more expensive meat they would flat out tell you no.

All those liberals aren't dreaming of upright and honest politicians with a conscience that are forcing their population into doing the right thing.

You can argue that capitalism makes a lot of people desperate and unwilling to make small compromises I disagree because of the very same reasons. Capitalism is a choice that people actively make. Everyone is against allowing the market to actually express negative interest rates. Everyone is against fair land value taxes. Just those two things alone would get us so much closer to the end of capitalism but there is a complete lack of interest because everyone thinks that they will become the abuser at some point.

Even Marx admits that the middle class, which has the vast majority of its needs met, would rather have the chance at becoming part of the "owning" class than give up that chance and let the lower classes have a better life even if the existence of an upper class that does not derive its wealth from work is actually against the interests of the middle class.

beepbooptheory• 4 years ago

Is there a concept for the psychological phenomenon where, after you have identified an assuredly bad guy, you see a good guy appear?

I just don't understand how we can attribute this strength of democracy to the United States in particular. I think it's very clear the rotation of leaders we get all come from the same batch of people, and all of them, within their party lines, say the same things over and over. Pervasive problems in gerrymandering are widely known. The conditions and conciliations under which you can even enter and be supported by a political party to become a leader, seems to preclude a lot of the benefits of the democratic rotation of leaders. Not even to mention the economic requirements.

I think its good to be hopeful I guess, but I just really really don't understand. It seems like so many valid issues with our country have just disappeared from people's mind the past month. Just a few years ago, all these pundits were going "democracy dies in the darkness" and articulating how fragile all this is because of interests ultimately alien to the common person. Now? It seems like we truly manifest the superpowers of democracy. I just don't understand why we can't handle the minimum of nuance such that we don't devolve into naive moral stories about the world.

imtringued4• 4 years ago

I think people are looking for a bad guy all the time. The difference is that they often blame those who they should be friends with. Once you have a cartoon villain the infighting stops.

rhn_mk1• 4 years ago

What does it mean that "democracy has failed"? In my opinion, the failure of democracy is that it appears unstable, and its superpower of kicking out lasts only so much.

In that light, the surveys showing that people want military rule highlight the failure of democracy: it isn't likely to last despite its advantages.

You'd think that the continuous replacement would make the public opinion more favourable of the system compared to rulesrs for life, and yet some prefer autocracy. Why is that? I think that's the missing question from this article and the real insight to be gleaned.

kvathupo• 4 years ago

Gabuev added, Putin never had to do what a normal leader in a democracy would: go to his national-security establishment and say, “‘Hey guys, I want to invade Ukraine, so let’s start thinking through the scenarios and debate the economic costs.’

Didn't we do exactly that with the Iraq War? In particular, Colin Powell's notorious UN speech that contradicted the State Department's INR reports on Iraq's weapons capabilities [1].

As others have stated, the problem is deviance from Constitutional checks-and-balances. The Executive branch is far too powerful, wantonly exercising judicial and legislative powers.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/18/colin-powell...

hoseja2• 4 years ago

I'm just waiting for the Chinese gut punch after they used Russia to feint.

Shadonototra2• 4 years ago

It revealed that they are willing to protect the most corrupt country in Europe (Ukraine), wich is quite sad to be honest

imtringued4• 4 years ago

Are you forgetting Belarus?

At least Russia has rigged elections to pretend Russia is a democratic country.

Shadonototra2• 4 years ago

Close to no debt, self sufficient country, seems like it's for the best of their people

This can't be said for the said supposed to be "democratic" countries in the west, poverty and inequalities growing, debt out of control, dependency to totalitarian countries for energy, food, and industries (china)

Who's gonna be the next Roman empire?

tablespoon• 4 years ago

But Russia’s debacle in Ukraine underscores the fact that democracy’s guarantee that leaders are regularly replaced is actually the system’s most important advantage. It turns out that our power to throw the bums out could end up saving not just the West, but the world.

That's not necessarily a "superpower" exclusive to democracy. You can get it with a competitive oligarchy as well (e.g. I'm thinking of pre-Xi China). It's also one that any system can lose (e.g. the democracy elects a strong, ruthless leader who abolishes it).

ekianjo• 4 years ago

Democratic virtues like the supremacy of law, independent courts, and the protection of human rights are all important

cough, Canada, cough

The problem with your whole point of view is that there's quite a few so-called democracies that are not behaving like democracies anymore, making your whole point moot.

tweitzel• 4 years ago

Quoting Tony Benn:

In the course of my life I have developed five little democratic questions. If one meets a powerful person--Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin or Bill Gates--ask them five questions: “What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?” If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system.

dncornholio• 4 years ago

Article that bashes Putin, can't downvote. It's a rubbish article though, too much personal opinion and super naive.

Eddy_Viscosity2• 4 years ago

Maybe lifetime terms on the supreme court are a bad thing?

Putin Just Revealed Democracy’s Superpower

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