Comment by bborud

That's a legitimately run _election_, which is necessary for but not the same as a legitimate democracy. For a democracy to be legitimate you need an impartial judiciary, an enforced constitution, fundamental civil liberties, and an accountable government.

Thank you for serving as a poll worker. (Seriously: thank you)

We have a legitimate democracy in terms of vote-counting, and you personally contribute to that.

It looks a lot less legitimate to me when I think about factors like votes having vastly varying weights because of gerrymandering and the Electoral College.

It gets even less legitimate when I think about how severely restricted our choice of candidates are, and how they are more or less chosen by party leaders and the oligarchy via billions of dollars of lobbying etc.

Well, in the same vein I could tell you to re-take your primary school civics classes and write me an essay on the key components of a modern democracy.

The mechanism by which we choose leaders isn’t even in the top three most important prerequisites for a functioning democracy. If you didn’t pay attention in history and civics classes this may come as a surprise.

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As corporate lobbying succeeds with its lobotomization/capture of public institutions, it fundamentally raises the bar for what constitutes legitimate democracy - for example ranked choice voting rather than raced-to-the-bottom plurality. Or to the point you're responding to - as Congress continues to sit by and let this dictator run amok, how much can we say that this is really the democratic system working as laid out, rather than a mere husk of the old democratic structure going through the motions while something else is actually running the show?

This should be doubly apparent in this thread, where this specific invasion would likely still be happening even if the fascists had lost in 2024 - this has military industrial complex's manufacturing consent and nation building all over it, regardless of it benefiting Trump to distract from the childrape files and whatever other corruption/stealing he can wedge in.

> You do realize the current government won the elections and the president won the popular vote right

Technically he won a plurality of the popular vote, but he didn't win the popular vote. This is typically not a distinction that matters, but in this case it's what happened. The majority of people voted for someone else, but he got votes from more people than any other candidate did.

Of course, what really matters is the electoral college, but the popular vote is often seen as lending even more legitimacy to a victory.

All while Europe dabbles in outlawing and criminalizing opposition parties they’re deeming “far right”. Sure anyone who opposes unlimited unrestricted immigration is now “far right”. Regardless of opinion, democracy is about the people determining that conversation, not politburos.

Alternatively the UK violating the millennia old Magna Carta by halting jury trials for criminal offenses with less than 2 years of jail time.

If you're still treating Reddit, especially large subreddits, as a serious source of information rather than an extremely manipulated outlet of 90% propaganda bots, that is quite foolish.

Maybe I should make a website where example.com/e/Europe shows whatever I want people to think Europe thinks, and people will treat it as an authority for some reason? That's basically what you're doing with Reddit.

Yes, clearly the russian bots are running a campaign against Trump, the most explicitly pro-Russia president we've had in decades. Donald "Ukraine started the war" Trump.

Elected heads of state have moved towards totalitarian rule before.

Besides, elections isn’t what defines a functioning democracy.

Why do so many people fail to pay attention in history and civics class? And why do people get so upset when their ignorance is pointed out to them.

«He was elected» is not a justification. If it were then the rest of the world would take a dim view of Americans. Be glad that hasn’t become worse.

What if it isn't? What if the sentiments expressed represent what Europeans think of the US?

While there may be some truth to that (bots)... there are definitely a lot of quasi communists that are participating in these groups. They are active, involved and have an outsized influence in terms of being a squeaky wheel.

You just have to look at the protests in NYC over Venezuela to see it... they aren't actually for what the people of Venezuela seem to want (they're celebrating), the protestors are clearly pushing for and protecting at what represents communist values, even if Maduro isn't really much of a Communist.

Never forget that the largest share of the 2024 US voting-eligible population went to "did not vote".

Harris received 97% of Trump's vote count.

There is not that strong a popular mandate for Trump, which shows in his approval ratings.

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> I certainly see the vitriol against the US on r/europe which seems like it has more news about the United States than Europe.

Nonsense.

> Can’t help but think it’s orchestrated by Russian bots.

Rational people can.

> the president won the popular vote

False.

trump was ineligible due to his attempted insurrection on Jan 6th, end of story

The problem is they elect a different president and their opinion of authoritarian changes.

Maybe they know what they're talking about then?

Whataboutism says a great deal about a person and the evaluation of their thought processes and the validity of their statements.

This one is probably also -- if not completely invented by -- at least seriously boosted by russotrolls. And weaponized for several pro-Russia talking points, such as campaigning against Kamala Harris ("she is not against Israel so don't vote for her") and driving global gaze out of Ukraine.

Authoritarians can legitimately win elections, as in receiving the majority of the cast votes, there is no “joke” or contradiction here.

Probably because there appear to no longer be checks and balances.

Proposed by the European Council [1] = governors in US terms.

Accepted by the European Parliament = single chamber congress.

What part of this process is not democratic?

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

Elections is only one characteristic of a democracy. Other characteristics include freedom of the press, freedom of speech, minority rights, rule of law, accountability and transparency, and separation of powers.

> Today, congress can be largely ignored by the executive and congress seems to support it vocally.

I seem to remember the 116th and 118th Congresses pushing back against executive power, which were the last times the US had divided government. https://history.house.gov/Institution/Presidents-Coinciding/...

And I wouldn't exactly say that Congress is wholly supporting unrestricted presidential power currently either. E.g. Senator Thune continually shooting down Trump's more oddball pleas.

There are very vocal supporters of the president in both the House and Senate GOP caucuses, but they're not the majority.

I think the strongest version of your argument would be something like 'In recent US Congressional history, both parties when in power have used congressional power to tactically check opposition party presidents, but neither have sought to permanently expand and defend the bounds of congressional power.'

Really doesn't matter. America had two choices and made the one it did. It's clear what the country is, and is not.

Gerrymandering alone would be enough to disqualify the US elections as 'free and fair' by many standards. And that's before we get into dollars are votes and other little details.