Comment by piker
3 months ago
> The US is a one-party state because of elite capture.
This is demonstrably false given the election result in 2016. Donald Trump was absolutely the anti-elite candidate with all of the establishment politicians on both sides of the aisle denouncing him as a candidate and calling his supporters fascists. His election was a national shock.
> China found a system that works for them after a century of trying every system.
Fine, and we'll see how that system works over the next century. This thread isn't about the efficacy of the Chinese system. It's about protecting the concept of democracy from propaganda.
> This is demonstrably false given the election result in 2016. Donald Trump was absolutely the anti-elite candidate with all of the establishment politicians on both sides of the aisle denouncing him as a candidate and calling his supporters fascists. His election was a national shock.
And then he governed in a reactionary way that favored the elites with whom he transacted. One man cannot change the superstructure through electoral means, as Lenin pointed out. All the undemocratic, unilateral powers that Trump has taken advantage of didn't start with him; they began with his predecessors and the larger national security state, who expanded executive power without oversight.
>Fine, and we'll see how that system works over the next century. This thread isn't about the efficacy of the Chinese system. It's about protecting the concept of democracy from propaganda.
Propaganda is how you control public opinion and sentiment in a democracy. See the work of Edward Bernays and Chomsky. Propaganda is an integral part of modern liberal democracies to arrive at a consensus that is largely disconnected from the needs or will of the electorate.
China doesn't need us to tell them how to run their country or their provinces.