Comment by vertis

It's really easy to tell the difference between a democracy and a fake democracy. Democracies are messy, people never agree. Anywhere that get's consistent landslides for one person or party is not a democracy.

Take for example France vs Russia. In the 2022 election, Macron managed to get just ~30% of the voters that wanted him as President. In the second round where only two options remained, only 58%.

Without any serious opposition (with the murder of Boris Nemtsov and jailing/deregistration of Alexei Navalny), the 2018 was again a landslide for Putin with 76.69% of the vote.

There are of course other easy ways to tell, but this serves as a pretty easy heuristic.

This is, of course, a gross simplification, of everything that makes up a democracy. For example, the US is at best a flawed democracy because of all the lobbying, money and gerrymandering (and things like the Electoral College).

Disclaimer: Not American, I'm a Kiwi, so outsiders view of US politics.