Comment by pelorat
6 days ago
Among my European friends, no one considers the USA to be a legitimate democracy any more. The USA has for us devolved into a bandit state.
6 days ago
Among my European friends, no one considers the USA to be a legitimate democracy any more. The USA has for us devolved into a bandit state.
They should study political philosophy a bit more so they don’t say foolish things.
America is very clearly a legitimate democracy, even if who was voted in office and the actions of that democratically elected government don’t align with your expectations or world view.
I didn’t vote for the guy. But I did vote. And as a poll worker I can tell you first hand that we ran a free and fair election as we have for any year I can think of. Legitimate Democracy. Period.
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.
Those are good points and the United States could do a better job, but those elements are all graded on a spectrum. I don’t think that having a few failures over some number of years means all of a sudden the entire thing is illegitimate.
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.
In this case, Trump won both the popular vote and the Electoral vote... that said, I believe in the idea of the Electoral College in that it's important to balance population and each State's rights. The one thing I would like to see are a larger congressional body as there are too few congressional representatives for the size of the electorate. We should probably have at least 3x the members of the House to at least be closer to the founding norms. Just my own take.
I'd also like to see a better runoff system than what we have in place, which could give a chance to more parties coming out. Right now, there are alignments into the two major parties and a lot of infighting because they are at least closer to what each group wants, but not really aligned and these create hard splits where there shouldn't be on a lot of issues.
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.
Democracy is about voting. What you’re referring to is “modern government,” which is full of undemocratic institutions and run by unelected bureaucrats according to values that don’t reflect the public’s.
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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.
I certainly see the vitriol against the US on r/europe which seems like it has more news about the United States than Europe.
Can’t help but think it’s orchestrated by Russian bots.
You do realize the current government won the elections and the president won the popular vote right
> 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.
The reason it doesn’t matter is that everyone who chooses to vote third party does so fully knowing who the two front runners are, as well as the likely margin of their state. Most third-party voters are in extremely uncompetitive states, making it quite safe to make a statement vote, even though it potentially dampens your “lesser of two evils” candidate’s apparent mandate.
For instance, I wrote an invalid write-in candidate since both major parties ran clowns in 2024, but Harris carried my state by a mile.
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> 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.
Colloquially majority means 'greatest share', and he certainly had the greatest share of votes out of all candidates. I don't like it, but it's correct to say he won the popular vote.
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Trump received 77.3M votes while Kamala received 75M. Since the total was 156.7M it was barely a plurality instead of a majority (just under 50%).
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.
It's actually a bit more complicated than that. And unlike the US during the 20th century, Europe has actually had to contend with the far right abolishing democracy and committing genocide on its own population before. It is understandable that Europe doesn't want to repeat that mistake.
As for your assertion that anyone who opposes unlimited unrestricted immigration is somehow far right: you are simply wrong.
If you want to find out how wrong you are I would encourage you to try moving to Norway. Then tell me if the process feels "unrestricted".
I would suggest knowing things before you express strong opinions.
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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.
But people do treat sites such as reddit as a source of truth. That's part of the problem.
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.
The goal isn't to help one coherent team win, but rather to foment division that undermines cohesive action. This is also an attractor for anybody interested in neutralizing democratic governments, be it Russia or simply corporations that don't want to be regulated as they gradually form more and more of their own government.
It doesn't seem far fetched to me for Russia to further drive a wedge between the US and Europe.
I don't partake in that subreddit so I have no clue as to the content or if this claim is true or false but it doesn't seem like a crazy idea for Russia to do. Sure there's plenty of content Trump gives Russia to potentially amplify, but there could still be bots amplifying things and making some opinions or takes on a story be more popular than reality.
I have no issue with critique of him and his admin, but r/europe is on a whole different “dismantle usa” level lol
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.
> If it were then the rest of the world would take a dim view of Americans.
I have news for you...
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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.
They made their choice. It's damning for the Democrats that they couldn't engage more of them.
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Multiple polls have found that Trump would have won by an even larger margin if those people had voted.
https://www.npr.org/2025/06/26/nx-s1-5447450/trump-2024-elec...
https://data.blueroseresearch.org/hubfs/2024%20Blue%20Rose%2...
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Well, then I'd first have to ask how you define "communist" or "quasi-communist" to understand what you mean. The term "communist" means different things depending on the context of the person who uses that term.
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Show me a politician who hasn't lied.
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There's Option 3: Trump built a campaign on lies, a significant minority of the American public were gullible enough to believe him, and many of those people regret it.
Option 3 is consistent with national polls. This fact is not flattering to the American public, but it's also not damning. Unfortunately, our electoral system has a slow cycle rate so we're stuck with the consequences for a while.
Assuming you are European, I can only offer these small words of consolation: I feel confident that a significant factor Trump's plummeting approval ratings is his anti-Europe and pro-Russian rhetoric. Everyone was pretty aghast when Trump declared the new public enemies (Canada and Greenland) on his first day in office.
Americans generally have very positive feelings towards Europe. We all just need to make it through the next three years.
But #1 is so poorly framed, you would think it would be written by someone who only knows America via the corporate media.
> 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.
> False
Trump won the popular vote in 2024. He lost it in 2016
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_elections
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_elections
Oh, so we’re just making up our reality now? Biden and Trump each won the popular vote and to suggest otherwise would require a belief in a colossal conspiracy theory.
trump was ineligible due to his attempted insurrection on Jan 6th, end of story
Evidently the country's people, and government, disagree with you.
Maybe the president of the USA can do something about the president of the USA being authoritarian
The problem is they elect a different president and their opinion of authoritarian changes.
ding ding ding, we have a winner!
Hi, here in America we also know this is true. :) Just riding it out til the regime of crazy falls over. When it happens, there will be much rejoicing.
That's the story many Europeans are hearing from their hand rectangles.
> Among my European friends, no one considers the USA to be a legitimate democracy
Sure is a bold statement considering Spain was a dictatorship as recently as 1975.
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.
Same friends who believe there is genocide in Gaza?
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.
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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.
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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
I asked why, not how. In any democracy that question is easy to answer. You can look at the candidates platform or poll the voters to find out why someone won. You can't answer the question I asked, because nobody knows why she got the job. The vote in the Europarl had a single candidate choice (her) and nobody else. Literally a rubber stamp.
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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.
Nothing about democracy implies minority rights, the rule of law, or the separation of powers. Indeed these things are in greater or lesser degrees anti democratic.
None of those things are characteristics of “democracy.” Many of those are exactly the opposite: they are anti-democratic checks on democratic government. They empower a privileged class of lawyers and judges to overrule majorities based on supposed “rights.”
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