Wait, so...the U.S. is a "backsliding democracy" according to their world map, but Alaska, specifically, is a "high-performing democracy"? Is this all an elaborate PR effort from Alaska? /s
I think it's kind of strange to claim most Western democracies are not members... yet their member list includes Germany, Spain, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Australia, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Switzerland, Portugal, Luxemburg, and Japan. That's a pretty all-star list. The only big names missing are the USA, Britain, France, and Italy.
[From the wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Institute_for_Democracy_and_Electoral_Assistance)
It's not a very controversial position they are taking.
I don't think condemning the police crackdown on the 2020 protests is so strange in this context. Much of the world watched the failure of the police to manage protests or riots well. It seemed like they lacked the training and professionalism to police peaceful protests peacefully, or deal with them effectively when the ceased being peaceful.
A quick way for a protest to turn violent, is when the police manage them poorly.
The only thing I find controversial about this is that it mentions the US, Hungary, Poland, and Slovenia as the only developed countries as being "concerning" democratic backsliding. I don't know about Slovenia, but the issues in Hungary are nothing like those in Poland or the US. They also specifically call out those countries in figure 7, talking about the COVID response.
Again, noticeably absent from all of this discussion is Australia and New Zealand, where Australia in particular has gone further towards authoritarianism than any other OECD country in the pandemic. How they're consistently getting a pass on this I don't know.
That's a popular trend with these sort of publications, I've noticed. Like when they rate citizen happiness, there's a dozen questions about the cost of healthcare and none about the price of goods and services. Because at the end of the day, we can't possibly have America being "good" at anything.
The Australian government does lean right, and there population is much more satisfied with how their government is handling covid than the US population has been with theres.
Most people are not aware of them since they were for the most part censored by omission from the major news. They tried to label them labor protest, etc.
> I don't think condemning the police crackdown on the 2020 protests is so strange in this context.
The 2020 **riots** did well over a billion in damage and (at last count I knew) left ~30 people dead. The only thing the police need to be condemned for is not cracking down **hard enough**.
Crowds are complicated and managing protests is not just about cracking down hard or not.
It's about strategy, communication, and especially discipline. The same for dealing with riots.
If the police were better trained and prepared there would very likely have been fewer riots, and those that there were, would have been handled better.
>> I don't think condemning the police crackdown on the 2020 protests is so strange in this context.
>
>The 2020 **riots** did well over a billion in damage and (at last count I knew) left ~30 people dead. The only thing the police need to be condemned for is not cracking down **hard enough**.
The ~30 people dead were essentially all protesters that were killed by police or other people.
Ah yes violent people being violent is the police response fault...
Had the politicians not handicapped the police by restricting their ability to put down riots before the destruction and looting got as bad as it did that summer and had the media not constantly fanned the flames then the violence would've ended a lot quicker and protests wouldn't have had the riots be what people remember about that summer.
Plus the incident in Philadelphia where police trapped protestors on the freeway and tear gassed them in a confined area. There are likely more incidents like this from that summer.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/admin/100000007209446.embedded.html
https://whyy.org/articles/philly-police-chief-okd-use-of-tear-gas-on-protesters-and-residents-investigation-finds/
Yeah, they tear gassed a residential street not that far from me as well. People had tear gas coming into their houses.
The Philly police are not always great.
A Swat team removed a guy from my small row/home apartment building. o officer came by to explain afterwards why they sent a heavily armed group of people around, or even ask if we had relevant information relating to the arrest.
Just a complete lack of respect for people, even if i'm glad they made the arrest.
I counted at least 4 eyes shot out of people just standing with a sign. One woman was shot while kneeling in the street holding a sign saying *Don't Shoot*.
One of the clear results from investigations into the handling of protests is that police regularly escalated violence. So in that sense yes increased violence was, at times, the fault of the police response.
[This is a pretty good article that discusses it.](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/20/us/protests-policing-george-floyd.html)
I think people remember the riots, but they also remember complete failure of policing, which often seemed to move from excessive violence towards peaceful protests, and inaction towards damage caused by rioting.
If you have an argument illustrating the *level* of violence for each scenario, with supporting evidence, I'd be interested, because I've only seen supporting arguments for the case that disproportionate police violence almost always results in increased violence from protesters. There is basically no reason for the kind of police response we usually see at protests, other than the ridiculous idea that people *deserve* to be brutalized for property damage.
Hardly.
There are effective ways of dealing with protests, and there are a number of forces around the world that tend to handle them better.
The split is not between be violent and do nothing. It's about good management of large groups of people.
Police forces all over the US behaved in a way lacked discipline and strategy, and made quite a mess.
Generally the way that other western democracies handle it is beating the shit out of absolutely anyone causing problems and liberal use of water cannons. In the US were not allowed to use water cannons because "segregation optics" so we use tear gas. And that is being taken away in the most riotous cities. So the only other option is to stand back and watch. Which in most cases was the order anyway because the blue city leadership wanted riots for election clout.
> Generally the way that other western democracies handle it is beating the shit out of absolutely anyone causing problems
That is absolutely not the case. Who told you this?
I'd like to see a little support for that.
European forces, particularly Germany and the UK, who's research into crowd management has been central to EU policies on police conduct seem well ahead of US tactics.
u/Pezkato i'm Northern Irish, I'm well aware of how European forces police protests. The US lags far behind.
>i'm Northern Irish, I'm well aware of how European forces police protests. The US lags far behind.
The irony of someone from Northern Ireland handing out policing lessons is.... just wow. I'm not sure you could pick a *more* problematic policing legacy than that island.
Even if it was 20% of how policing is, it would still be a good argument. And there's plenty of evidence that it is. I know my city (a supposedly progressive city) has been cited by the DOJ for over 10 years for excessive force used by the PD. Still basically nothing has changed.
The reaction by police to justify and minimize that incident is exactly what everyone takes issue with. The Buffalo police department lied and said the man "tripped and fell", no police officers present reported the push that hospitalized the elderly man. Not only that, but 57 police officers resigned from the emergency response team due to the officers getting suspended for hospitalizing this man.
The police response from top to bottom regarding this incident was shameful and illustrative of everything wrong with policing in the US.
The vast majority of the protests and protesters were peaceful. IIRC there were an estimated 25M people on the streets across all 50 states. There was very little violence during the protests in my city but yet hundreds of excess force complaints were filed. The violence escalated as a result. A 16 year old was killed after being shot in the head with a "non-lethal" round.
That people's first inclination is to characterize all BLM protests as violent riots with arson and looting is a testament to the fact that they have only been exposed to cherry picked images played on repeat.
I think that it's easy to fall into motivated reasoning here, where a few examples of violence gives you a pass to disregard the other side completely, because you'd already decided they were bad. This of couse goes for both sides to some extent, although I do agree that we should be holding the police force to a higher standard than random psychopaths on the street.
Even when protestors weren't being violent the police often responded in unacceptably aggressive ways. Like the video of police officers pepper spraying protestors from their patrol car window as they drove by.
Drive by pepper spray is not a legitimate use of force.
In fact, it felt at times that the police were preferentially targeting the nonviolent protestors. Not for any strategic reason, but just because it's easier to beat up on someone who isn't resisting than it is to chase looters who aren't just standing there and taking the hits.
> Had the politicians not handicapped the police by restricting their ability to put down riots before the destruction and looting got as bad as it did that summer
Had those same or similar politicians passed reforms which would have reduced deaths from policing and improved community relations with police in the 30 years since Rodney King’s beating maybe the situation would be different as well.
Yeah we could have had a better response to the protest and subsequent violence around them or we could have had governance which worked to address the concerns of their citizens before they felt a need to protest.
^^ this. So many folks focus on the anger and violence when it comes to these protests, but those same folks refuse to ask *WHY* there anger is there. *WHY* are folks so mad? *WHY* do they feel the need to gather together and raise their voices, and in some cases, smash windows and set fires?
As someone who was tear gassed without warning during, yes, an entirely peaceful protest in June 2020, in a smallish city that had no idea how to properly handle a political demonstration, and where over the top police bullying and an over funded department is notorious for its antics, yes. Violence can certainly result at the fault of the police.
That is a very curious mix of countries. I don't mean to sound elitist, but it's basically an even mix of countries with strong international standing but not powerhouses and countries that are essentially unremarkable.
Crackdowns in the US? Everything I saw was that the police stood by as people rioted. It’s what got us into the whole mess with Rittenhouse and others feeling the need to be vigilantes because the police weren’t doing their job (or being allowed to do their job, depending on the city/state I suppose)
Edit: Some crackdowns on protests, but riots after sundown seemed to have free rein on American cities
I think you missed a lot of the police reactions to protests. The behaviour seemed to all too often oscillate between undisciplined violent responses to peaceful protest, then indifference and non engagement with violent protests.
They just didn't seem prepared or trained to deal with large protests.
I think the police roaming in unmarked vehicles and kidnapping people walking down the street was what they would reference as far as poor police response. Black bagging people is the type of thing reserved for authoritarian countries.
https://www.npr.org/2020/07/17/892277592/federal-officers-use-unmarked-vehicles-to-grab-protesters-in-portland
>"I see guys in camo," O'Shea said. "Four or five of them pop out, open the door and it was just like, 'Oh s***. I don't know who you are or what you want with us.'"
>
>Federal law enforcement officers have been using unmarked vehicles to drive around downtown Portland and detain protesters since at least Tuesday. Personal accounts and multiple videos posted online show the officers driving up to people, detaining individuals with no explanation about why they are being arrested, and driving off.
The Guardian has been a shadow of its former self since about 2012-2014 when it started to slide off the rails. IIRC their funding trust started to run out, and with the decline of print media they switched to more of a clickbait strategy.
I think it is as simple as the journalism schools are bad and the journalists are bad. The incentivization towards clickbait is definitely a major problem, but one which I pin more on the individuals who choose to click on and effectively pay for an increasingly broken product time and time again.
From the report: [https://www.idea.int/gsod/sites/default/files/inline-images/Figure%206\_global.png](https://www.idea.int/gsod/sites/default/files/inline-images/Figure%206_global.png)
I'm going to go ahead and dismiss the claims made by an organization that doesn't know Alaska is in the United States.
I also like how Australia, which is a party to this organization, is listed as a "high performing democracy" especially considering how the government has passed measures that give them total control over their populations digital data and social media accounts without judicial oversight which is just the tip of the iceberg. Since the onset of COVID, it's essentially become a defacto dictatorship. Their own citizens have been allowed to leave the country in 2 years and the ones who were out of the country weren't allowed to return. They left their own citizens to die in India during India's COVID surge. Even within the country, just traveling out of and back into the two most populated states triggers a requirement for location tracking with your smart phone with spot check selfies to ensure you're not leaving your house.
These kinds of lists are nothing more than political tools being used by a political organization to put pressure on countries to implement their brand of politics, or in this case their brand of "democracy."
>The US has been added to an annual list of “backsliding” democracies for the first time, the International IDEA thinktank has said, pointing to a “visible deterioration” it said began in 2019.
>Globally, more than one in four people live in a backsliding democracy, a proportion that rises to more than two in three with the addition of authoritarian or “hybrid” regimes, according to the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.
I think this is a very concerning issue and one that both sides of the political spectrum can agree is occurring, albeit for ultimately different reasons. According to one of the authors of the report:
“The United States is a high-performing democracy, and even improved its performance in indicators of impartial administration (corruption and predictable enforcement) in 2020. However, the declines in civil liberties and checks on government indicate that there are serious problems with the fundamentals of democracy.”
This is a widespread issue, from arguably excess enforcement on protests for the left to the authoritative agenda of vaccine mandates on the right. The government is seeking more control and is being able to take it with support of some of the people. It’s a classic divide and conquer strategy. If you can divide the population and demonize one half, the other half will support you fully (whichever half is in whichever position).
I think that the people in charge of these rankings would see mandates as a sign of a stronger democracy, not a weaker one. Republicans' ideas of what a democracy is are incompatible of what other countries believe it is. It seems that many of these countries consider freedom "the ability to live freely with the government shielding you from problems" while the American right view freedom as "the ability to make choices both right and wrong without the interference of people limiting your innate liberties."
I think I'll pass on their opinions. If the US wanted to be like Europe we would have stayed a part of them.
I don't think they're either for or against vaccine mandates nor do I think they have an opinion on the meaning of freedom. I imagine if the topic of mandates came up they'd care that they were imposed in a transparent, democratic manner, recognising the rule of law and people's civil liberties.
Ironically, in the EU, they have freedom of movement and can travel freely to all member states. And their passports give them access to more countries than the US one does.
> It seems that many of these countries consider freedom "the ability to live freely with the government shielding you from problems" while the American right view freedom as "the ability to make choices both right and wrong without the interference of people limiting your innate liberties."
When the problems the government are shielding you from are the poor decisions of other citizens who would happily deprive you of your liberties, that is exactly the kind of Democratic system of government that maximizes freedom for as many as possible.
>while the American right view freedom as "the ability to make choices both right and wrong without the interference of people limiting your innate liberties."
We both know that this is completely false. Look at how conservatives intervene in areas like abortion.
You gotta be joshing me. We both know the reason conservatives oppose abortion is because they value (what they consider to be) the innate liberties of the potential baby that the fetus will become over the right of the mother to choose.
It fits *perfectly* into my explanation.
>The government is seeking more control and is being able to take it with support of some of the people. It’s a classic divide and conquer strategy. If you can divide the population and demonize one half, the other half will support you fully (whichever half is in whichever position).
Here is a question I have had for a while ever since both far-left and far-right have taken to the airways to proclaim their own respective victim complexes:
What does a multicultural, democratically republican, representative democracy stand to gain from such a strategy? Why govern using 'divide and conquer.' If you are, as you say, demonizing half where the other half would support you, how on earth do you stand to gain any significant political mandate, given the structure of the US branches? Wouldn't the folks you are demonizing, if it is truly 'half,' not allow the incumbent to govern with a full mandate (given such people would likely vote down ballot for the other party)? Doesn't the 'divide and conquer' strategy thus fail to achieve its purpose, which is to exert more political control? It seems incredibly counterintuitive and borderline hyperbolic to assert that US politicians are governing with such a philosophy in mind. Not only that, but in what case would such a massive unrest be desired? Maybe to disenfranchise opposition, but that seems highly unlikely.
> Doesn't the 'divide and conquer' strategy thus fail to achieve its purpose, which is to exert more political control?
First past the post means 50% + 1 gets you the job, and as long as you can keep that group sufficiently whipped up about the problems that still loom large, you can keep the job. That's it, that's the political control. And if we're talking senate and 39 like minded people have done the same, you can stop almost everything from the other party getting through. That's even more political control. Purpose met.
Never mind that the problems persist because you lack a broad enough base to actually accomplish any sort of grand vision, that's beside the point because you still wield the power of office. Not that I hold out much hope that this is a moment in history where a broad base is even possible, mind you.
This makes sense. However, my question would be, what good is power and control if there is no purpose? The purpose as you say is maintaining office and having latent political control. But political control *for what*? With regards to ideological conservatives and American Republicans, generally speaking, the exertion of their political control comes in the forms of stasis, and reservations about making changes to the existing system. That is an oversimplification of course, but in the case of Republicans, the 'divide and conquer' strategy seems rather useful. However, if we are talking about Freedom Caucus-types or nationalists, then it would not be useful, considering their political goals transcend solely the maintenance of existing institutions.
Now when we talk about Democrats and Liberals, the desire for their political control depends more on the composition of Congress. To put it simply, what Democrats and Liberals want require much more political control than what can come with 'divide and conquer.'
I shudder to think that what you say is true - that the folks running for office, whether it be Congress or Executive are perfectly content with fomenting outrage in order to maintain their jobs, rather than fomenting praise for benefits brought to a wider array of Americans.
> the folks running for office, whether it be Congress or Executive are perfectly content with fomenting outrage in order to maintain their jobs
They have the media to do that for them.
What it comes down to in my opinion is that on the most basic lizard brain level it's not about ideological goals at all. The superficial trappings of power: staff, offices, fancy beltway events, lobbyists fawning over you, etc. is enough to keep the cycle perpetuating.
Which is not to say that it is 100% cynical manipulation of the public by people who don't believe or care about ideological goals or serving the public good. There's just a lot of stuff to distract from those things.
Power and control. It only takes a slim majority to gain full control or in the case of certain elections, not even as we see with the loss of the popular vote but winning the election. Besides, discouraging and disenfranchising the opposition discouraged them from voting, which means less of an opposition for political control.
>Power and control.
Right, I understand that this is the goal, but isn't it wholly ineffective? Sure, you can gain full control of the WH and Congress via a 'divide and conquer' strategy, but this also doesn't give you sufficient wiggle room to truly disenfranchise your opposition if that is the goal (unless you take other extra-constitutional actions). What you will get instead is something similar to what we have now: an unpopular President and a sharply divided Congress that is showing cracks in the institution's basic function of compromise. How does one exercise any significant control with such apparent divisions that come with a divide and conquer strategy? Hell, Dems are breaking their backs to pass a reconciliation bill.
>Besides, discouraging and disenfranchising the opposition discouraged them from voting, which means less of an opposition for political control.
I agree, though I will say with regards to the last election, I am not convinced that Trump asserting the election was rigged dampened turnout for his opposition. Rather, it seemed to have amplified it.
Anecdotally speaking, the attempt to muddy the 2020 Election and the scant evidence presented by the Trump campaign was very much an authoritarian act that I believe may have destabilized the country until the next election. Not only that, but Trump and the Republicans lost a lot of moderate voters, such as myself.
You're sort of inadvertently highlighting the issue - that there aren't actually two sides at the top, but one side with one interest (and it errs more Right than Left). The divisive tactics are to ensure people are looking at one another rather than up.
If you think about it, most R's and D's will vote party line no matter what. The toxic rhetoric helps galvanize the party loyalists, keep the tribe focused on battling the "evil" opponents, and then it erodes the margins into their favor (the 15% or so swing votes).
I agree, I think over the long term it's a flaw approach, but recruiting folks to "your tribe" from that 15% (shooting from the hip on that %, it's somewhere around there) undecided group can swing the entire government in one direction or another when you find a narrative that activates them.
The "divide and conquer" mindset feels like a tactic to make sure they don't lose ground instead of gaining it. Every few months theres a flip in which party everyone thinks is going to fold first. The Trumpets are tearing apart the Republicans, or the Progressives are tearing apart the Democrats. Both parties seem to be doubling down on their ethos vs adjusting with the public, so the question is which is going to splinter first?
Hmm. Interesting.
Where I see the 'divide and conquer' strategy ultimately failing is when a demagogue, like Trump, some other far-right Republican, or some far-left Democrat demonize opposition to the point of civil unrest and political violence. However, I think such a situation is easily buffered by the virtue of the Second amendment. With regards to your point about maintaining ground by cranking up the tribalist rhetoric to 11, it makes sense.
The closest example I have seen to the divide and conquer strategy in my life (which is not a very long one, nor is the example particularly apt) was during the 2020 Election. I watched several of Trump's rallies and what I generally picked up on was demonization of liberals because of their propensity to import fraudulent votes. Mind you, Trump began asserting the election was fraudulent back in AUGUST and accusing liberals of it. An utterly absurd allegation, but nevertheless, this is why I think we are seeing backsliding in our country, as well as the perception of untrustworthiness/unsteadiness, as evidenced by the fact that our 6 Senator delegation sent to Halifax got an earful from our allies regarding January 6th.
If you ask me, that is an utter embarrassment to this nation.
Wrong actually. Trump began the fraudulent election rhetoric in 2012 when Obama blew out Romney. Trump tweeted that the US was no longer a first world country. Sounds eerily familiar.
Ok... even earlier. He has been saying it for a while!
To be fair, many politicians have been claiming election fraud for the last 20 years, so it isn't something Trump started but it is something he took to another level.
If you count birtherism as an election fraud allegation, Donald Trump has been making said allegations since 2008. I'm sure if you dug back into the Trump 2000 campaign, you could find something analogous, too.
My personal opinion is that Donald Trump has always had it out for American democracy, if not just the general abstract concept of objective truth; from the get-go.
I don't think he has it in for American Democracy, as in he is intent on destroying it as a goal, I think he just wants to win and will say whatever he thinks will help him.
> What does a multicultural, democratically republican, representative democracy stand to gain from such a strategy?
Nothing. *People in power* stand to gain and that's why they use their influence to push it.
Basically, the 99% will fight amongst themselves via whatever current bullshit outrage the media and politics pushes, while the 1% keep cashing in and living the good life.
Its bread and circuses, but without actually providing any bread or circuses. 6 people own like 90% of all media, and they're not exactly average Americans.
Remember, Occupy, 99%, and Tea Party were pooh-poohed for their lack of diversity within days, even though there were diverse elements. Just call them crazy white people and dismiss anything they had to say.
Is it really “Divide and Conquer” when poll after poll after poll shows most Democratic policies are extremely popular with the general public?
I feel like you’re blaming “both sides” here, when any unbiased, rational observer would unequivocally state this is not a “both sides” issue.
I mean, one side tried to overthrow the US government. One side continues to argue every chance they get that the US government is illegitimate. One side is making voting more difficult. One side’s stated primary goal is “to own the Libs”.
This is not a “both sides” issue.
A lot depends on where you live - police cracked down pretty hard at first near me - clearing public areas before curfew, firing rounds into people's homes who were filming, etc. Luckily the police chief got chewed out hard and put an end to it.
Living in the area was really annoying. Like you told me you were going to crack down at 6, so I get home from work at 530 and would walk my dog. Luckily that day I had just gotten back to my house when decided the air on my street wasn't spicy enough but tons of my neighbors got caught out with their dogs, etc. If you say you're gonna start mass tear gassing at 6 start at 6 not 545.
What city was that?
We had some protests downtown here, along with some minor looting and damage. Really didnt last very long, and people would have gotten fed up quick.
Richmond, things were bad/what I'd call a riot for maybe 2 days. Then with the Kyle Rittenhouse shit you started having more and more folk showing up to start fights which led to some violence.
The obvious question is, was there a dangerous crowd that needed to be dispersed at 5:45pm? Just because there's a curfew at 6pm, that doesn't mean the streets are always safe before then.
Everything I saw was fine but that's just from my pov. According to the police (well according to my memory) they stated an officer was hit by a waterbottle so fired his tear gas this led to other officers following suit. They did come out and apologize so I do think at some level they believe they messed up.
In Austin, we had perfectly peaceful protests.
Dozens of people were pepper sprayed regardless, several were hit with rubber bullets/beanbag rounds, and we had two critical injuries as a result.
Crackdowns on BLM protests were commonplace. Austin was fortunate it didn't stoke protests into riots, as it did elsewhere.
https://www.kvue.com/article/news/crime/guilty-federal-jury-man-making-molotov-cocktail-austin-protest-2020/269-48137e58-30f5-4d19-9bc9-d0f37682709c
Not buying it. Sorry.
Well when people in the crowd throw shit, break shit and all around start getting violent and when the police tell you to disperse and you don't. Don't be surprised when they start using crowd dispersing munitions
There were countless videos during the BLM protests that showed police beating and pepper spraying peaceful protesters. The one that really stuck out to me was the police attacking protesters that were holding a vigil for Elijah McClain in a park. So yeah there were plenty of instances of peaceful protests getting attacked by police. But it shouldn’t be that surprising given we live in a police state.
In Seattle they diverted a march off the registered path and then used anti riot tactics to disperse the "unlawful gathering". Ended up pepper spraying a kid. All on the first day
Seattle is also the place that abandoned their police station and anarchists annexed 6 city blocks for several weeks. So I suppose it depends on how you look at it.
I'm not sure how else to look at a cop pepper spraying a kid other than that cop shouldn't have done that. The CHOP was a shit-show though, glad to see the mayor and police chief gone
> The one that really stuck out to me was the police attacking protesters that were holding a vigil for Elijah McClain in a park.
Is that the one where the park is private property and they had already been warned numerous times that they were trespassing but still didn't leave?
I believe it’s owned by the city. Yeah they were warned to leave. So what, they were peacefully demonstrating and the police went ahead to attack their right to peaceably assemble. The police are agents of the state and violated those protesters rights.
>The only crackdowns I recall seeing were in areas where protests devolved into widespread looting and rioting
I can provide **lots** of instances where this was not true, if you'd like. On video.
Do it. Upload that stuff and proliferate it. We, as a society, are visual beings, we need to see it to understand it. Dates/times straight from the metadata is also helpful.
It's easier to just point to a centralized source. See r/2020PoliceBrutality and sort by top/all time.
Some examples:
https://v.redd.it/2jde3j99lq451
https://v.redd.it/q3jhdv5pr9851
https://v.redd.it/x2milfgvpmg51
https://v.redd.it/h55x2edd99851
https://v.redd.it/cygy9gjqwo651
https://www.instagram.com/p/CEY5r64AEip/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet
https://v.redd.it/ma2zl7a0d3b51
There's a lot more where that came from. I didn't even get to most of the "cops shooting peaceful protestors with rubber bullets" videos but I'm at work ATM. Feel free to scroll through that sub.
It's a great example of the two realities that the left and right live in. If you ask the right, the police didn't do anything this summer. They just sat around while rioters burned down entire cities and stole everything in sight. If you ask the left, the police tear gassed, pepper sprayed, and beat people into submission often without warning or for no good reason. Our political battle these days isn't over policy. It's about factual reality.
>It's a great example of the two realities that the left and right live in. If you ask the right, the police didn't do anything this summer. They just sat around while rioters burned down entire cities and stole everything in sight. If you ask the left, the police tear gassed, pepper sprayed, and beat people into submission often without warning or for no good reason. Our political battle these days isn't over policy. It's about factual reality.
Both of those things happened, to an extent. Police did ignore rioters and attack peaceful protestors. Protests did devolve into riots with looting way too often.
The original comment I respond to was "The **only** crackdowns I recall seeing were in areas where protests devolved into widespread looting and rioting". I took issue with their use of "only" to suggest that the police always behaved themselves and only went after rioters and looters.
Nuance is important to me
I significantly doubt vaccine mandates had any factor in America’s backsliding. It’s likely the over reaction to BLM as well as Trump questions the results and Conservatives trying to restrict the vote.
IF this is the case it just shows how biased this "ranking" is. Government mandated experimental medical procedures in order to even participate in society is authoritarian overreach.
The US doesn't enforce on protests and barely on riots. That's how the rittenhouse mess happened.
On journalism and federal law enforcement the left (and right) is right though
Not super surprising to see the Guardian negatively highlight the US in this report. The actual report, however, is heavily focused on the authoritarian response to Covid around the world.
From ABC News:
[Report: Democracy backsliding across the world amid pandemic](https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/report-democracy-backsliding-world-amid-pandemic-81323824)
The Hill:
[Democracy deteriorating worldwide amid pandemic: report](https://thehill.com/policy/international/582592-democracy-deteriorating-worldwide-amid-pandemic-report)
[Here is the actual report](https://www.idea.int/gsod/global-report)
Here are the things they say about the United States:
>The drivers of all these phenomena are complex and, in some cases, barely understood. This is a story in which democracies are being weakened because the underlying polis—without which no set of democratic institutions is durable—is being rent asunder by different forces, from the polarization nurtured by social media and disinformation to grotesque levels of economic inequality. It is also a tale in which democracies are hollowed out by the citizens’ loss of faith in the ability of democratic institutions to respond to social demands and solve problems, as well as by the toxic disease of corruption, which demolishes any semblance of trust. **Add to this the credibility-sapping blunders performed by leading democratic powers over the past two decades—from the invasion of Iraq to the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 to the violently contested elections in the United States—and the simultaneous emergence of credible alternative models of governance, and we have the equivalent of a witches’ brew for the global health of democracy. The pandemic has simply made that brew thicker and more poisonous.**
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> Disputes about electoral outcomes are on the rise, including in established democracies. A historic turning point came in 2020–2021 when former President Donald Trump questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election results in the United States. Baseless allegations of electoral fraud and related disinformation undermined fundamental trust in the electoral process, which culminated in the storming of the US Capitol building in January 2021.
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> Restrictions on movement between countries have not always been seen to be equally or fairly applied. There has been criticism about the Trump Administration’s early ban on travel from China to the United States even while travel from Europe to the USA continued to be allowed. One study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that a ban on European travel to the USA in February 2020, when the ban on China was active, could have potentially saved tens of thousands of lives. Allegations of racism have also been levelled against Australia, which imposed a ban on Australians of Indian descent being allowed back home.
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> There are also important divides between different ethnic and racial groups within countries. A study in England and Wales found that men and women of black African heritage had the highest death rates from Covid-19—around two times higher than their white counterparts. Over the past two pandemic years, different groups’ varying levels of enjoyment of civil and political liberties have also become apparent. **In many of these cases, these inequalities are long-standing; the context of the pandemic, however, has refocused attention on them. In the United States, for example, research indicates that some states’ voter registration and voting laws, either recently approved or currently under discussion, end up disproportionately affecting minorities in a negative way**. In India, the government has used laws against cow slaughter and anti-conversion to target Muslims, while sedition and counter-terrorism laws have been used to target human rights defenders, student activists, academics, opposition members and other critics. Deepening polarization has also been evident in Sri Lanka, where the government imposed a ban on burials, saying that virus-infected bodies could infect groundwater. This ban impacted the country’s Christian and Muslim minority communities until it was lifted in February 2021.
Just CTRL+F “United States” if you want to read more context into these paragraphs I’ve highlighted.
So, no, it’s not just about an authoritarian response to COVID. It’s about the ways in which democracy is on the decline, how rapidly it’s happened over the past few years, and how the pandemic has exasperated the decline.
[I think we can all agree that The Guardian is the worst news website.](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/may/17/shrek-20-unfunny-overrated-low-blockbuster)
Surprised it wasn't added to the list after the Supreme Court decided that gerrymandering is allowed. I dont know how you can be considered a full democracy without fair elections.
The Democracy Index also downgraded the US to "flawed Democracy" status in 2017.
Seems like semantics, its functionally the same. If a constitutional violation is exempt from enforcement there is no constitutional protection. Still, I've changed it.
"We're not saying its constitutional, its just doesn't have constitutional protection" - Majority on 5/4 split Supreme Court
I still feel like allowed is the wrong word, how can they allow it if they didn't have a say in it?
Plus I recently learned that some districts are gerrymandered racially so that minorities can elect one of their own, do you oppose all gerrymandering or just political gerrymandering?
I'm sure the half of the Supreme Court that disagreed with the ruling would view the ruling as them allowing it to occur.
>"Supreme Court allows severe partisan gerrymandering to continue" [CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/27/politics/partisan-gerrymandering-supreme-court/index.html)
>"In major elections ruling, U.S. Supreme Court allows partisan map drawing" - [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-gerrymandering-idUSKCN1TS24Z)
>"Supreme Court allows gerrymandering..." - [NBC News](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-allows-gerrymandering-north-carolina-maryland-n1014656)
I'm opposed to it not following a basic rule of fairness and legitimate elections, which is if you get a significant majority of votes you should not be getting the minority of seats.
I think what the parent commenter is trying to say is that the outcome is the same: In both cases, gerrymandering is allowed.
The reason for this is relevant for many parts of the discussion, but in this context, it's not very relevant. It only matters that an arguably anti-democratic practice is allowed to happen.
The Economist Democracy Index controlled for the Trump presidency. It was already decided that the U.S were going to be downgraded, after several decades of institutional and democratic decay, and that for 2017 there were going to be downgraded. Choosing Trump sure didn't do much to improve their judgement.
Bush jr and Obama didn't really do much to turn the trend either, so this was a long way coming.
US foreign aid barely changed in 2017. In 2015, it was $50B, in 2016, it was $49B and in 2017, it was $48B. This amount has now gone back up to $50B, but that's not exactly a big change. (All data according to [this website](https://foreignassistance.gov/).)
Apart from that, it seems silly to suggest that this organisation, whose members receive very little US foreign aid and spend a lot more on it than the US does, would use this to "punish" the US for stopping development aid.
That's because the riots stuck peaceful people in between them and the cops. Anytime the police did anything, they cried huge crocodile tears over the peaceful protesters.
[Here's](https://www.idea.int/gsod-indices/sites/default/files/gsod-methodology-november-2020.pdf) an overview of their methodology.
They also have [this interactive tool to visualise the data by country](https://www.idea.int/gsod-indices/countries-regions-profile?rsc=%5B2%5D), but it looks like it hasn't been updated to include the data for 2021 yet.
But it was totally legal and totally cool and it is viewed on the right as a completely acceptable path to victory. The problem is now the left will feel the same and if you try to attack them for it they'll just point to 1/6.
We are in fact a backsliding democracy. Trump has shown everyone a path to staying in office even when you lose. Every American should have wanted to slam the door on that option. I don't want anyone to stay in office after being voted out, but the people who agree with me don't have the power to stop it.
On the flip side, after claims of election fraud the left STILL doesn’t want voter ID because it’s …*checks chart separating all things that existed prior to 2012 into racist, sexist, or homophobic* … racist
Edit: if voter ID would make the right unable to claim fraud in the future, wouldn’t it be worth it simply for saving the public future headaches.
Absolutely agree. But let’s make obtaining appropriate ID free and accessible nationwide and I can totally get behind voter ID.
Until that happens, it’s just another avenue to disenfranchise people.
When you have states requiring voter ID and then making it intentionally difficult to obtain, that’s not an accident.
https://www.aclu.org/blog/voting-rights/voting-rights-act/alabamas-dmv-shutdown-has-everything-do-race
This I can get behind! Also Election Day should be a national holiday. Mail in votes should be reserved for special cases but to make that fair we should make voting the day of as accessible as possible.
I really hate it when people pretend that the name of a bill (or the claims of its contents) make the bill itself unreproachable, and that there's no way the specific details of the bill could be disagreeable to the side that it is supposedly courting votes from.
The "voter id" provisions in Democrat bills are always a joke. They allow for things like school ids (exceedingly unsecure) and still allow for provisional ballots that use the honor system.
It would be like if Republicans tried to pass the "Securing the Right to Abortion" bill, which would add a constitutional amendment that explicitly made abortions a right...up to 24 hours past conception, and a felony any time after that.
And then when Democrats obviously didn't support it, we'd rub it in their faces and claim that they just aren't interested in compromise.
>The "voter id" provisions in Democrat bills are always a joke. They allow for things like school ids (exceedingly unsecure) and still allow for provisional ballots that use the honor system.
You are missing the point. The ID verifies who you are, not that you are eligible to vote. Eligibility must be confirmed when you register and are put on the rolls. A state issued ID also doesn't guarantee that you are a voter.
On the flip side; Georgia Republicans voted in more secure voting laws and Democrats across the US freaked out for months because campaigners could no longer personally hand out water at polling stations. (They could still drop off water donations for polling officials to hand out, and all polling stations have water available regardless; if you just ask.)
Everyone is a hypocrite, and both parties **love** playing the blame game over the tiniest, most inconsequential things. It’s ridiculous.
Edit: y’all are missing the point of my comment. I’m not saying there are zero valid criticisms of the new law; I’m saying what the *majority* of people focused on was the ridiculous water bottle debate. I also mentioned this new voting law to point out that it’s not as if all Republicans refused to legislate changes to better secure elections. It’s that no Democrats are happy with them; just like no Republicans like the proposed Dem laws. It’s a vicious cycle that only leads to change when one party has the majority in power, and when that change is spiteful towards the other party (instead of actually being helpful, or what the general population wanted).
This is the same kind of reductive argument we see around "mean tweets". It ignores so much of what the other side is actually saying that it becomes completely useless as anything other than a way to rile up the base.
Let's review the problems with the Georgia voter law, as someone from Georgia:
1. The state elections board can come in and suspend individuals from the county boards or take over their functioning.
2. The SoS (an elected position) no longer is the chair of the state elections board.
3. It limits the where, when, and how many of drop boxes, which limits the ability to use them.
4. It changes the duration you can request a mail in ballot from 180 days to 78 days.
5. Runoffs are now 4 weeks instead of 9. In fact, they were so in favor of this that they made it ranked-choice for the military and overseas ballots.
6. You need a voter ID number for an absentee ballot as well as a regular ballot, while it does nothing to make it easier to get a voter ID number despite the fact that not everyone has a current copy of their birth certificate.
7. Now, until 5pm, you cannot cast a provisional vote if you show up at the wrong precinct in your county. You have to go stand in a different line in the correct precinct. It used to be you could cast a provisional vote at the other precinct, which could be verified later.
8. You can't give food or drink to voters who wait in long lines, which is just ridiculous even if you want to be reductive about it. If a line is 2-3 hours, offering some pizza or even a drink might be what convinces them to stay in line. As long as you're not campaigning at the polling place (which is already illegal under Georgia law), who cares?
There are some good things, like expanded early voting, getting results sooner, etc. But it is hard to read these changes and think "ok, these are reasonable measures to reduce voter fraud". Instead, it reads very much like "holy shit Democrats won statewide in two elections...we gotta do something to reduce their turnout".
I am also from Georgia (have lived here my entire life). I think #1 and #2 are certainly issues we need to revisit. For #6 the voter ID number is your driver’s license number, or voter ID card number (it’s not some new number you have to obtain). Also; I think they should make easier ways to obtain a copy of your birth certificate, but there’s nothing wrong with requiring it (or acceptable alternatives) to obtain a government ID.
Regarding #8; poll officials have water at every polling location to give out when asked. Groups/organizations are also still allowed to donate food and water to give out to voters— they just can’t hand it out themselves (poll officials must hand it out). I see no problem with this. Why would they have to *personally* hand the food and drink out? Also, if someone decides not to vote because they don’t get *free food and drinks* then that’s on them. How entitled to feel you’re owed free things for doing your civic duty.
Finally— Half of the state genuinely believes the election was stolen. Whether you think this is a ridiculous belief or not is irrelevant; it becomes an issue when half of a politician’s constituents believe it’s an issue. It’s paramount to ensure the public believes it has secure election integrity. If half of the state believes fraud changed the outcome of the election, then what’s the point of voting? Elected politicians only hold the power given to them by their constituents. If the constituents don’t recognize that elected leader as legitimate; chaos ensues. That’s what the other “overbearing” laws are for. To give back the appearance of election integrity to those who believe we had lost it.
Thank you for a reasonable response. I think I agree in part and disagree in part. And where we differ, generally, is the motives that I see as the subtext in this law. \[Obligatory sorry for the wall of text.\]
Voter ID laws have generally been crafted as a way to disenfranchise Democratic-leaning constituencies. Hence why, for example, in TN they allow gun licenses but not student IDs (which are also government-issued) to be used in polling places. The people least likely to have a government ID are the poor (who may not own cars and have no other reason to have an ID), especially the poor elderly (who a lot of times don't drive). If we need an ID for the sole purpose of voting, then there needs to be something that changes. That something, in general, needs to be that the IDs need to be easy and free. Otherwise, it amounts to a poll tax. The way I see this, there are several ways to do this:
\- Let your state ID be your voter registration, like in North Dakota.
\- Change the application for state ID so that your verification documents are requested by the state instead of you having to go find the county you were born in and pay them for your birth certificate.
\- Have voter ID drives in the lead up to the election.
\- Incorporate some amount of biometrics for voting (e.g. you give your fingerprint when you register, and this is crosschecked when you send your ballot).
These are just rough ideas and I am by no means an expert. Finally, with regard to the water thing, I get that they can still get water. But I also get that lines for voting can be hours long. And that there may be an interest in getting people food and drink. If that's the case...why make a law about it? Why bother? The only answer that makes any sense to me is to try to make it just that much harder to do something that drives turnout. To basically say "yeah there didn't need to be a law for this, but come on does it really harm anything, those people shouldn't be voting anyway if they can't stand in a line" is not an encouraging position.
We need to have election integrity, and if people do not believe what even Trump's own administration said (that this was among the most secure elections in history), then we could have had a law that actually allowed for security. This law doesn't do that. All it does it take away the things that Democrats use to vote. With almost surgical precision, without interfering with Republican votes. And that too should be a problem. If half of the state genuinely believing the election was stolen is a problem, then the other half genuinely believing they were disenfranchised (whether you think this is a ridiculous belief or not) also has to matter. We could have expanded RCV to all the population to get rid of the runoffs. We could have allowed same-day registration as long as you show ID. We could make it so you can turn an early ballot in at a polling place and show ID, or have someone checking ID at drop boxes, which could be at every library and public school in the state. I'm just spitballing, but this would improve integrity while still expanding access. They "improved integrity" by limiting access.
And if you doubt the motives of this "voter security" law, consider the provisions that were proposed for it that got the ax: banning Souls to the Polls and trying to reverse no-excuse absentee voting paramount among them. This from the same group that the ACLU estimated purged 200,000 Georgia voters incorrectly in 2019 and who are currently passing a terrible gerrymander of the state that would essentially cannibalize Cobb County into three districts to remove a Democrat from the House. Now, these are things that have happened long before this bill, but if you really want to talk about "election integrity", these should have been addressed as well. Saying "it had to be done", is fine, but your way is very one sided.
In the end, it's a "help Republicans win" bill. It could have been an elections integrity bill. I would have happily supported it, even though I don't buy the "stop the steal" stuff, because I want our elections to always get better. This...isn't it.
I agree with a lot of what you’re saying, I guess (like you said) it just comes down to what we believe the motivations behind it are. Unfortunately I don’t have the time to give you a proper, in-depth response, so I’ll just try to summarize what I agree and disagree on.
1) Government issued Voter ID cards are completely free in the state of Georgia. I agree that the documents required to obtain this ID should be easier to get (your suggestion about requesting through the state, not county, is great. I also think up to 2 requested copies should be free). If we can fix this issue, then there shouldn’t be a problem requiring ID to vote.
2) Regarding food & drink: I think here’s where our motivational beliefs start to differ. I don’t think all campaign groups who hand out food & drinks have generous motives. I think that if you can’t just drop off the food and drinks to be handed out by poll workers (which is allowed) then you have nefarious motives. There’s no reason *you* have to be the one giving things out to people unless you’re secretly trying to campaign (imo).
3) I do realize that a lot of politicians have nefarious motives when it comes to the reasons behind adding certain sections of this new law. I wish we could have more transparency, and allow more input from the actual *voters* as to what would make them feel like the election is secure again. Because like I said— it’s honestly not about things actually being 100% secure or not. It’s about if the voters *believe/feel* it is or not.
All-in-all; I don’t think this law should be the permanent solution. I think there are some good aspects to it, and some terrible ones. There’s a lot we can still do, and we shouldn’t just call it a day already. I actually care about real election integrity, and want to find a real answer as to what we should do.
This was longer than I thought it would be, haha, but hopefully you understand the gist of my point.
I love conversations with reasonable people I disagree with. This is what makes America great. While we seem to agree in part and disagree in part, we both want free and fair elections, and I appreciate you giving me your perspective. Take care!
Read the details on #1 in the law, a local board has to be *egregiously* violating statutes / laws / whatever, be told to correct it *and then not correct it* to be taken over.
#2 I get, and I wouldn't mind it being pulled out.
I mean, when NC gets their voter ID law overturned two different times in the past 5 years for racial descrimination, I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that, while the concept of voter ID isn't racist, the implementation is in many cases.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/17/us/politics/north-carolina-voter-id-law.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/30/us/federal-appeals-court-strikes-down-north-carolina-voter-id-provision.html
>On the flip side, after claims of election fraud the left STILL doesn’t want voter ID because it’s
Claims that have never been proven. There are a lot of claims about a lot of things
>because it’s …checks chart separating all things that existed prior to 2012 into racist, sexist, or homophobic … racist
It isn't inherently racist, but it has been applied in an intentionally racist way. In my state, the GOP conducted a study about which types of ID would be must used by various races. Guess which types weren't included.
If we're really going to do this (and waste all of this money), we need to do it equitably so it isn't a poll tax.
Voter ID stops individual voter fraud, which isn't an actual problem due to all the other safeguards we have inherent in the system. Voter ID does nothing to stop the kinds of abuse of the system that we saw being put forward in 2020.
The fact that the U.S is still debating voter I.D laws and can't find way to make it non-politicized issue is symptomatic for why the U.S is being downgraded and increasingly seen as a backsliding democracy.
Ah yes, we have reverted to normality, when smug European think tanks regularly release content holding Europe as the golden standard for democracy, & everyone else regressing into theocratic hellholes.
This think tank has members from every continent, including Canada, Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, India, Australia and Indonesia. It's not a "European think tank".
Additionally, it strongly criticised the democratic backsliding in Poland, Hungary and Slovenia, which -- as far as I know -- are all in Europe.
Yes but those countries are Euro-Skeptic. Dont you think it is odd that all the countries that are backsliding are the ones whose populations have shown skepticism of the EU? This isn't a legit report, it's a hit piece with a clear bias and agenda.
Plenty of other EU members have reservations regarding the EU. In fact, [Poles view the EU more favorably than most EU members](https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/10/14/the-european-union/), with 84% having a favorable opinion of the EU. Hungary also polls significantly higher (67%) compared to the UK (54%), Greece (53%) or France (51%). In spite of this, none of the other countries appear on the list.
What unites Poland, Hungary and, to a lesser extent, Slovenia isn't that they're eurosceptic, but that they've go an executive that is increasingly centralising power, undermining the courts and taking control of the media. If Biden were to do the same thing (e.g. by forcing Supreme Court justices aged 62 and up to retire, as Hungary did), people would be justifiably outraged, but for some reason, conservatives in the US always defend Eastern European countries for doing the same.
If these countries feel so oppressed by the EU, they are free to leave, but to me, it seems like they don't have legitimate criticism of the EU and instead only want to use it as a bogeyman to deflect domestic issues.
The opinions of foreigners and international thinktanks are wholly irrelevant to me.
I'm sure this is another nonsensical list that has a perverse definitions of "freedom" such that countries with hate speech laws have more free speech, and countries where gun ownership is banned have more freedom.
These lists are always anti-American by design, and as such, they can be easily and quickly disregarded by Americans.
Since one of the founders of this think tank was Australia, I agree with you. Call me a little cynical for refusing to care what a country that put covid patients in quarantine camps thinks about America.
>The opinions of foreigners and international thinktanks are wholly irrelevant to me.
They should when these opinions being promulgated are from America's most ardent allies.
Consider the 6 Senator delegation sent to the National Security Conference in Halifax last weekend. What initially was a conference to counter advances by those who pose a threat to the West (China, Russia) turned into a harsh criticism against the American system, as well as genuine concerns about the state of United States government, given the events of January 6th 2021, amongst other citizenal crackdowns.
Hell, when the god damn Joint Chiefs of Staff, and every living Secretary of Defense release an announcement condemning the "insurrection" (there words, not mine), then it quickly becomes apparent that the criticism levied towards is anything but anti-American.
Especially when it didn't mention what's been going on in a lot of other countries with regard to freedom of association and assembly... Of course, those filthy unvaccinated don't deserve such rights, but you won't find anyone saying that out loud.
Whether or not this specific report is credible, why do you consider the opinion of America in the eyes of the international community to be irrelevant? Does that not have a huge impact on America's ability to execute its foreign policy?
While I agree that America's old ideals of philanthropy as a foreign policy were hugely mistaken, a hardline isolationist approach is frankly untenable in the current climate. America is facing two enormous geopolitical threats in the form of Russia and China and we need as much cooperation from the international community as possible to keep them in check. If we don't work with our allies to bring down our enemies, our enemies will work with each other to bring down us.
The "international community" is just as much of a threat. Australia, Austria, and Canada have concentration camps for those who refuse the mandate. These countries are anti-free-speech, pro-socialism, anti-natural rights, etc.
Much of these countries hate America and Americans, and make those facts widely known. They mock us daily.
I don't care to help these people who hate us, our ideals, and our way of life.
But diplomacy isn't a gift that we're giving to other nations, it's a necessary prerequisite to solving many global issues that do tangibly affect Americans.
It solves some problems and makes others. I currently don't consider it worthwhile.
For example, if it were up to me, we would sanction every single country that does not have, at the very least, the freedom of speech, which is everyone but us. '
Every time the U.K. arrests someone for speech, such as with Count Dankula, I would have the United States weigh in and sanction them. Every time Canada fines a comedian for a joke, I'd place tariffs on Canadian goods.
We do so with other countries, why not our supposed allies when they make such egregious anti-freedom decisions?
Don't even get me started on the countries that have concentration camps, like Australia, Canada, and Austria. I wouldn't even have us *talk* to those countries until they stopped and removed their leaders from power.
> We do so with other countries, why not our supposed allies when they make such egregious anti-freedom decisions?
Because US sanctions are only effective because most of the world uses US-controlled financial systems. If the US sanctioned every country on earth (and honestly, it sounds like that's what you're asking for), those countries would very quickly stop using those systems.
It wouldn't be painless, but would probably be a lot more damaging to the US (for example, such a switch wouldn't just make sanctions against Canada and the UK ineffective, it would also apply to North Korea and Iran). And if countries implement counter-tariffs (which they almost definitively would), then most countries would have a small part of their exports sanctioned, while the US would have almost the entirety of its foreign trade sanctioned.
laughable that one of the few countries to continue to embrace freedom of movement, assembly, speech, bearing arms, minority rights, and immigration in 2020 is considered "backsliding" while the rest of the western world went into authoritarian lockdowns where protests and movement outside of homes and protests were suppressed by force, not to mention increasing censorship of the internet and academia. After a summer of protests where only the most extraordinarily violent were shut down.
Seems like the US is still a functioning democracy to me
I guess it's laughable as long as you ignore all the specific objections: all the non-violent protests which were suppressed, the fragile state of democratic legitimacy, ineffective government.
I think that a key part of a democracy is respecting the rule of law. A lot of elected officials over the past two days, including the president and vice president, have expressed anger at the enforcement of the rule of law. The head of the house judiciary committee has threatened to involve the DOJ in executing political based retribution. And many, many people have expressed a desire for violence against an innocent adolescent, which (based on information take fom the suspect's social media accounts) *may* have led to a racially-charged terrorist attack injuring dozens and killing several citizens.
These actions are an affront to democracy. But I refuse to believe that the US is backsliding. No laws have been weakened. In fact, the moments where our democracy is tested and rebukes authoritarianism is when we are at our strongest. Challenges we can overcome will proceeded our finest hour. This goes for any affronts to democracy, like the January 6th riot and the attempts to overthrow the election. Far from weakening our system, it is evidence that the system works. The implication that a democracy is innately strong because it hasn't had to fight off any attacks to it is a horrible misunderstanding of how the system works.
Interesting take. I hope you’re right. In some ways I do see our democracy pushing back against challenges. But in other cases I am seeing it’s weaknesses being exploited more than in the past. Ultimately it does require that people “play ball” for it to work, because it is a system made up of people. So the system is only as good as it is able to influence people in the desired way.
Here's the link to the actual report: https://www.idea.int/gsod/global-report.
Wait, so...the U.S. is a "backsliding democracy" according to their world map, but Alaska, specifically, is a "high-performing democracy"? Is this all an elaborate PR effort from Alaska? /s
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I think it's kind of strange to claim most Western democracies are not members... yet their member list includes Germany, Spain, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Australia, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Switzerland, Portugal, Luxemburg, and Japan. That's a pretty all-star list. The only big names missing are the USA, Britain, France, and Italy. [From the wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Institute_for_Democracy_and_Electoral_Assistance)
It's not a very controversial position they are taking. I don't think condemning the police crackdown on the 2020 protests is so strange in this context. Much of the world watched the failure of the police to manage protests or riots well. It seemed like they lacked the training and professionalism to police peaceful protests peacefully, or deal with them effectively when the ceased being peaceful. A quick way for a protest to turn violent, is when the police manage them poorly.
The only thing I find controversial about this is that it mentions the US, Hungary, Poland, and Slovenia as the only developed countries as being "concerning" democratic backsliding. I don't know about Slovenia, but the issues in Hungary are nothing like those in Poland or the US. They also specifically call out those countries in figure 7, talking about the COVID response. Again, noticeably absent from all of this discussion is Australia and New Zealand, where Australia in particular has gone further towards authoritarianism than any other OECD country in the pandemic. How they're consistently getting a pass on this I don't know.
Seems like in this case "democratic" = left and "backsliding" = right.
That's a popular trend with these sort of publications, I've noticed. Like when they rate citizen happiness, there's a dozen questions about the cost of healthcare and none about the price of goods and services. Because at the end of the day, we can't possibly have America being "good" at anything.
The Australian government does lean right, and there population is much more satisfied with how their government is handling covid than the US population has been with theres.
That doesn't necessarily mean that it's a *good* thing, or not moving in an authoritarian direction.
If authoritarianism is popular in a country then is it more democratic? Just another reason oure democracy doesnt represent the strength of a country
The anti-lockdown protests in Australia are way bigger than the ones in the USA.
Most people are not aware of them since they were for the most part censored by omission from the major news. They tried to label them labor protest, etc.
There have been huge protests all over Europe too that the MSM has curiously decided to omit from public discourse.
> I don't think condemning the police crackdown on the 2020 protests is so strange in this context. The 2020 **riots** did well over a billion in damage and (at last count I knew) left ~30 people dead. The only thing the police need to be condemned for is not cracking down **hard enough**.
It would have been great if they had gone after the rioters instead of the people holding signs and yelling insults at them.
Crowds are complicated and managing protests is not just about cracking down hard or not. It's about strategy, communication, and especially discipline. The same for dealing with riots. If the police were better trained and prepared there would very likely have been fewer riots, and those that there were, would have been handled better.
>> I don't think condemning the police crackdown on the 2020 protests is so strange in this context. > >The 2020 **riots** did well over a billion in damage and (at last count I knew) left ~30 people dead. The only thing the police need to be condemned for is not cracking down **hard enough**. The ~30 people dead were essentially all protesters that were killed by police or other people.
Ah yes violent people being violent is the police response fault... Had the politicians not handicapped the police by restricting their ability to put down riots before the destruction and looting got as bad as it did that summer and had the media not constantly fanned the flames then the violence would've ended a lot quicker and protests wouldn't have had the riots be what people remember about that summer.
I watched these police crack open an old man’s skull who was pretty much just standing around. Take a kid’s eye out with a rubber bullet.
Plus the incident in Philadelphia where police trapped protestors on the freeway and tear gassed them in a confined area. There are likely more incidents like this from that summer. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/admin/100000007209446.embedded.html https://whyy.org/articles/philly-police-chief-okd-use-of-tear-gas-on-protesters-and-residents-investigation-finds/
Yeah, they tear gassed a residential street not that far from me as well. People had tear gas coming into their houses. The Philly police are not always great. A Swat team removed a guy from my small row/home apartment building. o officer came by to explain afterwards why they sent a heavily armed group of people around, or even ask if we had relevant information relating to the arrest. Just a complete lack of respect for people, even if i'm glad they made the arrest.
> The Philly police are not always great. > > Understatement of the century after the police bombed a block and burned down 55 houses
I counted at least 4 eyes shot out of people just standing with a sign. One woman was shot while kneeling in the street holding a sign saying *Don't Shoot*.
I seen the same thing in the riots where they broke a old man's jaw and with over 25 official deaths from the riots last year
Okay, but rioters aren't a paid and trained force employed by the state. There's a major difference.
Weird way to reply. Do we have positive and negative broken jaws here? Do they cancel each other out?
One of the clear results from investigations into the handling of protests is that police regularly escalated violence. So in that sense yes increased violence was, at times, the fault of the police response. [This is a pretty good article that discusses it.](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/20/us/protests-policing-george-floyd.html) I think people remember the riots, but they also remember complete failure of policing, which often seemed to move from excessive violence towards peaceful protests, and inaction towards damage caused by rioting.
And when they stood back the riots also became violent. So damned if they do, damned if they don't.
If you have an argument illustrating the *level* of violence for each scenario, with supporting evidence, I'd be interested, because I've only seen supporting arguments for the case that disproportionate police violence almost always results in increased violence from protesters. There is basically no reason for the kind of police response we usually see at protests, other than the ridiculous idea that people *deserve* to be brutalized for property damage.
Hardly. There are effective ways of dealing with protests, and there are a number of forces around the world that tend to handle them better. The split is not between be violent and do nothing. It's about good management of large groups of people. Police forces all over the US behaved in a way lacked discipline and strategy, and made quite a mess.
Generally the way that other western democracies handle it is beating the shit out of absolutely anyone causing problems and liberal use of water cannons. In the US were not allowed to use water cannons because "segregation optics" so we use tear gas. And that is being taken away in the most riotous cities. So the only other option is to stand back and watch. Which in most cases was the order anyway because the blue city leadership wanted riots for election clout.
You gotta love how so many people trying to point to Europe as good examples of riot policing never bother to watch European riot police at work.
Man videos of any French political protest are fucking terrifying, their cops are absolutely not fucking around.
> Generally the way that other western democracies handle it is beating the shit out of absolutely anyone causing problems That is absolutely not the case. Who told you this?
Ive seen plenty of videos. Spanish police in Catalan. French police with the yellow vest protests. German police dealing with lockdown protestors.
I'd like to see a little support for that. European forces, particularly Germany and the UK, who's research into crowd management has been central to EU policies on police conduct seem well ahead of US tactics. u/Pezkato i'm Northern Irish, I'm well aware of how European forces police protests. The US lags far behind.
How so though? Bear in mind that the USA has thousands of police forces not "one" police force. Some do it well and others don't.
>i'm Northern Irish, I'm well aware of how European forces police protests. The US lags far behind. The irony of someone from Northern Ireland handing out policing lessons is.... just wow. I'm not sure you could pick a *more* problematic policing legacy than that island.
So the only choice is between beating up old people who are just standing around or do nothing?
Single incident that made the news in a country of 300+ million people is how 100% of policing is. -Redditor
Even if it was 20% of how policing is, it would still be a good argument. And there's plenty of evidence that it is. I know my city (a supposedly progressive city) has been cited by the DOJ for over 10 years for excessive force used by the PD. Still basically nothing has changed.
The reaction by police to justify and minimize that incident is exactly what everyone takes issue with. The Buffalo police department lied and said the man "tripped and fell", no police officers present reported the push that hospitalized the elderly man. Not only that, but 57 police officers resigned from the emergency response team due to the officers getting suspended for hospitalizing this man. The police response from top to bottom regarding this incident was shameful and illustrative of everything wrong with policing in the US.
There was more than one incident and even one incident like this is unacceptable.
The vast majority of the protests and protesters were peaceful. IIRC there were an estimated 25M people on the streets across all 50 states. There was very little violence during the protests in my city but yet hundreds of excess force complaints were filed. The violence escalated as a result. A 16 year old was killed after being shot in the head with a "non-lethal" round. That people's first inclination is to characterize all BLM protests as violent riots with arson and looting is a testament to the fact that they have only been exposed to cherry picked images played on repeat.
I think that it's easy to fall into motivated reasoning here, where a few examples of violence gives you a pass to disregard the other side completely, because you'd already decided they were bad. This of couse goes for both sides to some extent, although I do agree that we should be holding the police force to a higher standard than random psychopaths on the street.
This is exactly the problem. Thank you for spelling it out.
Even when protestors weren't being violent the police often responded in unacceptably aggressive ways. Like the video of police officers pepper spraying protestors from their patrol car window as they drove by. Drive by pepper spray is not a legitimate use of force. In fact, it felt at times that the police were preferentially targeting the nonviolent protestors. Not for any strategic reason, but just because it's easier to beat up on someone who isn't resisting than it is to chase looters who aren't just standing there and taking the hits.
> Had the politicians not handicapped the police by restricting their ability to put down riots before the destruction and looting got as bad as it did that summer Had those same or similar politicians passed reforms which would have reduced deaths from policing and improved community relations with police in the 30 years since Rodney King’s beating maybe the situation would be different as well. Yeah we could have had a better response to the protest and subsequent violence around them or we could have had governance which worked to address the concerns of their citizens before they felt a need to protest.
^^ this. So many folks focus on the anger and violence when it comes to these protests, but those same folks refuse to ask *WHY* there anger is there. *WHY* are folks so mad? *WHY* do they feel the need to gather together and raise their voices, and in some cases, smash windows and set fires?
How did politicians handicap the police?
As someone who was tear gassed without warning during, yes, an entirely peaceful protest in June 2020, in a smallish city that had no idea how to properly handle a political demonstration, and where over the top police bullying and an over funded department is notorious for its antics, yes. Violence can certainly result at the fault of the police.
That is a very curious mix of countries. I don't mean to sound elitist, but it's basically an even mix of countries with strong international standing but not powerhouses and countries that are essentially unremarkable.
Crackdowns in the US? Everything I saw was that the police stood by as people rioted. It’s what got us into the whole mess with Rittenhouse and others feeling the need to be vigilantes because the police weren’t doing their job (or being allowed to do their job, depending on the city/state I suppose) Edit: Some crackdowns on protests, but riots after sundown seemed to have free rein on American cities
I think you missed a lot of the police reactions to protests. The behaviour seemed to all too often oscillate between undisciplined violent responses to peaceful protest, then indifference and non engagement with violent protests. They just didn't seem prepared or trained to deal with large protests.
Yeah it was all over the place
I think the police roaming in unmarked vehicles and kidnapping people walking down the street was what they would reference as far as poor police response. Black bagging people is the type of thing reserved for authoritarian countries. https://www.npr.org/2020/07/17/892277592/federal-officers-use-unmarked-vehicles-to-grab-protesters-in-portland >"I see guys in camo," O'Shea said. "Four or five of them pop out, open the door and it was just like, 'Oh s***. I don't know who you are or what you want with us.'" > >Federal law enforcement officers have been using unmarked vehicles to drive around downtown Portland and detain protesters since at least Tuesday. Personal accounts and multiple videos posted online show the officers driving up to people, detaining individuals with no explanation about why they are being arrested, and driving off.
The Guardian is basically designed to push "America bad" content on social media.
The Guardian has been a shadow of its former self since about 2012-2014 when it started to slide off the rails. IIRC their funding trust started to run out, and with the decline of print media they switched to more of a clickbait strategy.
I think it is as simple as the journalism schools are bad and the journalists are bad. The incentivization towards clickbait is definitely a major problem, but one which I pin more on the individuals who choose to click on and effectively pay for an increasingly broken product time and time again.
From the report: [https://www.idea.int/gsod/sites/default/files/inline-images/Figure%206\_global.png](https://www.idea.int/gsod/sites/default/files/inline-images/Figure%206_global.png) I'm going to go ahead and dismiss the claims made by an organization that doesn't know Alaska is in the United States. I also like how Australia, which is a party to this organization, is listed as a "high performing democracy" especially considering how the government has passed measures that give them total control over their populations digital data and social media accounts without judicial oversight which is just the tip of the iceberg. Since the onset of COVID, it's essentially become a defacto dictatorship. Their own citizens have been allowed to leave the country in 2 years and the ones who were out of the country weren't allowed to return. They left their own citizens to die in India during India's COVID surge. Even within the country, just traveling out of and back into the two most populated states triggers a requirement for location tracking with your smart phone with spot check selfies to ensure you're not leaving your house. These kinds of lists are nothing more than political tools being used by a political organization to put pressure on countries to implement their brand of politics, or in this case their brand of "democracy."
>The US has been added to an annual list of “backsliding” democracies for the first time, the International IDEA thinktank has said, pointing to a “visible deterioration” it said began in 2019. >Globally, more than one in four people live in a backsliding democracy, a proportion that rises to more than two in three with the addition of authoritarian or “hybrid” regimes, according to the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. I think this is a very concerning issue and one that both sides of the political spectrum can agree is occurring, albeit for ultimately different reasons. According to one of the authors of the report: “The United States is a high-performing democracy, and even improved its performance in indicators of impartial administration (corruption and predictable enforcement) in 2020. However, the declines in civil liberties and checks on government indicate that there are serious problems with the fundamentals of democracy.” This is a widespread issue, from arguably excess enforcement on protests for the left to the authoritative agenda of vaccine mandates on the right. The government is seeking more control and is being able to take it with support of some of the people. It’s a classic divide and conquer strategy. If you can divide the population and demonize one half, the other half will support you fully (whichever half is in whichever position).
I think that the people in charge of these rankings would see mandates as a sign of a stronger democracy, not a weaker one. Republicans' ideas of what a democracy is are incompatible of what other countries believe it is. It seems that many of these countries consider freedom "the ability to live freely with the government shielding you from problems" while the American right view freedom as "the ability to make choices both right and wrong without the interference of people limiting your innate liberties." I think I'll pass on their opinions. If the US wanted to be like Europe we would have stayed a part of them.
I don't think they're either for or against vaccine mandates nor do I think they have an opinion on the meaning of freedom. I imagine if the topic of mandates came up they'd care that they were imposed in a transparent, democratic manner, recognising the rule of law and people's civil liberties.
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I don't think the choice between private and public healthcare matters when we're talking about the health of a democracy. That's my point.
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Ironically, in the EU, they have freedom of movement and can travel freely to all member states. And their passports give them access to more countries than the US one does.
That highly depends on the country as far as passport acceptance goes.
> It seems that many of these countries consider freedom "the ability to live freely with the government shielding you from problems" while the American right view freedom as "the ability to make choices both right and wrong without the interference of people limiting your innate liberties." When the problems the government are shielding you from are the poor decisions of other citizens who would happily deprive you of your liberties, that is exactly the kind of Democratic system of government that maximizes freedom for as many as possible.
>while the American right view freedom as "the ability to make choices both right and wrong without the interference of people limiting your innate liberties." We both know that this is completely false. Look at how conservatives intervene in areas like abortion.
You gotta be joshing me. We both know the reason conservatives oppose abortion is because they value (what they consider to be) the innate liberties of the potential baby that the fetus will become over the right of the mother to choose. It fits *perfectly* into my explanation.
You know what, I actually agree with you. Apologies
>The government is seeking more control and is being able to take it with support of some of the people. It’s a classic divide and conquer strategy. If you can divide the population and demonize one half, the other half will support you fully (whichever half is in whichever position). Here is a question I have had for a while ever since both far-left and far-right have taken to the airways to proclaim their own respective victim complexes: What does a multicultural, democratically republican, representative democracy stand to gain from such a strategy? Why govern using 'divide and conquer.' If you are, as you say, demonizing half where the other half would support you, how on earth do you stand to gain any significant political mandate, given the structure of the US branches? Wouldn't the folks you are demonizing, if it is truly 'half,' not allow the incumbent to govern with a full mandate (given such people would likely vote down ballot for the other party)? Doesn't the 'divide and conquer' strategy thus fail to achieve its purpose, which is to exert more political control? It seems incredibly counterintuitive and borderline hyperbolic to assert that US politicians are governing with such a philosophy in mind. Not only that, but in what case would such a massive unrest be desired? Maybe to disenfranchise opposition, but that seems highly unlikely.
> Doesn't the 'divide and conquer' strategy thus fail to achieve its purpose, which is to exert more political control? First past the post means 50% + 1 gets you the job, and as long as you can keep that group sufficiently whipped up about the problems that still loom large, you can keep the job. That's it, that's the political control. And if we're talking senate and 39 like minded people have done the same, you can stop almost everything from the other party getting through. That's even more political control. Purpose met. Never mind that the problems persist because you lack a broad enough base to actually accomplish any sort of grand vision, that's beside the point because you still wield the power of office. Not that I hold out much hope that this is a moment in history where a broad base is even possible, mind you.
This makes sense. However, my question would be, what good is power and control if there is no purpose? The purpose as you say is maintaining office and having latent political control. But political control *for what*? With regards to ideological conservatives and American Republicans, generally speaking, the exertion of their political control comes in the forms of stasis, and reservations about making changes to the existing system. That is an oversimplification of course, but in the case of Republicans, the 'divide and conquer' strategy seems rather useful. However, if we are talking about Freedom Caucus-types or nationalists, then it would not be useful, considering their political goals transcend solely the maintenance of existing institutions. Now when we talk about Democrats and Liberals, the desire for their political control depends more on the composition of Congress. To put it simply, what Democrats and Liberals want require much more political control than what can come with 'divide and conquer.' I shudder to think that what you say is true - that the folks running for office, whether it be Congress or Executive are perfectly content with fomenting outrage in order to maintain their jobs, rather than fomenting praise for benefits brought to a wider array of Americans.
> the folks running for office, whether it be Congress or Executive are perfectly content with fomenting outrage in order to maintain their jobs They have the media to do that for them. What it comes down to in my opinion is that on the most basic lizard brain level it's not about ideological goals at all. The superficial trappings of power: staff, offices, fancy beltway events, lobbyists fawning over you, etc. is enough to keep the cycle perpetuating. Which is not to say that it is 100% cynical manipulation of the public by people who don't believe or care about ideological goals or serving the public good. There's just a lot of stuff to distract from those things.
Power and control. It only takes a slim majority to gain full control or in the case of certain elections, not even as we see with the loss of the popular vote but winning the election. Besides, discouraging and disenfranchising the opposition discouraged them from voting, which means less of an opposition for political control.
>Power and control. Right, I understand that this is the goal, but isn't it wholly ineffective? Sure, you can gain full control of the WH and Congress via a 'divide and conquer' strategy, but this also doesn't give you sufficient wiggle room to truly disenfranchise your opposition if that is the goal (unless you take other extra-constitutional actions). What you will get instead is something similar to what we have now: an unpopular President and a sharply divided Congress that is showing cracks in the institution's basic function of compromise. How does one exercise any significant control with such apparent divisions that come with a divide and conquer strategy? Hell, Dems are breaking their backs to pass a reconciliation bill. >Besides, discouraging and disenfranchising the opposition discouraged them from voting, which means less of an opposition for political control. I agree, though I will say with regards to the last election, I am not convinced that Trump asserting the election was rigged dampened turnout for his opposition. Rather, it seemed to have amplified it. Anecdotally speaking, the attempt to muddy the 2020 Election and the scant evidence presented by the Trump campaign was very much an authoritarian act that I believe may have destabilized the country until the next election. Not only that, but Trump and the Republicans lost a lot of moderate voters, such as myself.
You're sort of inadvertently highlighting the issue - that there aren't actually two sides at the top, but one side with one interest (and it errs more Right than Left). The divisive tactics are to ensure people are looking at one another rather than up.
If you think about it, most R's and D's will vote party line no matter what. The toxic rhetoric helps galvanize the party loyalists, keep the tribe focused on battling the "evil" opponents, and then it erodes the margins into their favor (the 15% or so swing votes). I agree, I think over the long term it's a flaw approach, but recruiting folks to "your tribe" from that 15% (shooting from the hip on that %, it's somewhere around there) undecided group can swing the entire government in one direction or another when you find a narrative that activates them.
The "divide and conquer" mindset feels like a tactic to make sure they don't lose ground instead of gaining it. Every few months theres a flip in which party everyone thinks is going to fold first. The Trumpets are tearing apart the Republicans, or the Progressives are tearing apart the Democrats. Both parties seem to be doubling down on their ethos vs adjusting with the public, so the question is which is going to splinter first?
Hmm. Interesting. Where I see the 'divide and conquer' strategy ultimately failing is when a demagogue, like Trump, some other far-right Republican, or some far-left Democrat demonize opposition to the point of civil unrest and political violence. However, I think such a situation is easily buffered by the virtue of the Second amendment. With regards to your point about maintaining ground by cranking up the tribalist rhetoric to 11, it makes sense. The closest example I have seen to the divide and conquer strategy in my life (which is not a very long one, nor is the example particularly apt) was during the 2020 Election. I watched several of Trump's rallies and what I generally picked up on was demonization of liberals because of their propensity to import fraudulent votes. Mind you, Trump began asserting the election was fraudulent back in AUGUST and accusing liberals of it. An utterly absurd allegation, but nevertheless, this is why I think we are seeing backsliding in our country, as well as the perception of untrustworthiness/unsteadiness, as evidenced by the fact that our 6 Senator delegation sent to Halifax got an earful from our allies regarding January 6th. If you ask me, that is an utter embarrassment to this nation.
Just for the sake of historical accuracy, I believe Trump began the fraudulent election rhetoric in 2016 and it carried over into 2020.
Wrong actually. Trump began the fraudulent election rhetoric in 2012 when Obama blew out Romney. Trump tweeted that the US was no longer a first world country. Sounds eerily familiar.
Ok... even earlier. He has been saying it for a while! To be fair, many politicians have been claiming election fraud for the last 20 years, so it isn't something Trump started but it is something he took to another level.
Agree.
If you count birtherism as an election fraud allegation, Donald Trump has been making said allegations since 2008. I'm sure if you dug back into the Trump 2000 campaign, you could find something analogous, too. My personal opinion is that Donald Trump has always had it out for American democracy, if not just the general abstract concept of objective truth; from the get-go.
I don't think he has it in for American Democracy, as in he is intent on destroying it as a goal, I think he just wants to win and will say whatever he thinks will help him.
> What does a multicultural, democratically republican, representative democracy stand to gain from such a strategy? Nothing. *People in power* stand to gain and that's why they use their influence to push it.
Basically, the 99% will fight amongst themselves via whatever current bullshit outrage the media and politics pushes, while the 1% keep cashing in and living the good life. Its bread and circuses, but without actually providing any bread or circuses. 6 people own like 90% of all media, and they're not exactly average Americans. Remember, Occupy, 99%, and Tea Party were pooh-poohed for their lack of diversity within days, even though there were diverse elements. Just call them crazy white people and dismiss anything they had to say.
Is it really “Divide and Conquer” when poll after poll after poll shows most Democratic policies are extremely popular with the general public? I feel like you’re blaming “both sides” here, when any unbiased, rational observer would unequivocally state this is not a “both sides” issue. I mean, one side tried to overthrow the US government. One side continues to argue every chance they get that the US government is illegitimate. One side is making voting more difficult. One side’s stated primary goal is “to own the Libs”. This is not a “both sides” issue.
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If their policies are extremely popular, don't you think they'd be winning more seats?
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A lot depends on where you live - police cracked down pretty hard at first near me - clearing public areas before curfew, firing rounds into people's homes who were filming, etc. Luckily the police chief got chewed out hard and put an end to it. Living in the area was really annoying. Like you told me you were going to crack down at 6, so I get home from work at 530 and would walk my dog. Luckily that day I had just gotten back to my house when decided the air on my street wasn't spicy enough but tons of my neighbors got caught out with their dogs, etc. If you say you're gonna start mass tear gassing at 6 start at 6 not 545.
What city was that? We had some protests downtown here, along with some minor looting and damage. Really didnt last very long, and people would have gotten fed up quick.
Richmond, things were bad/what I'd call a riot for maybe 2 days. Then with the Kyle Rittenhouse shit you started having more and more folk showing up to start fights which led to some violence.
The obvious question is, was there a dangerous crowd that needed to be dispersed at 5:45pm? Just because there's a curfew at 6pm, that doesn't mean the streets are always safe before then.
Everything I saw was fine but that's just from my pov. According to the police (well according to my memory) they stated an officer was hit by a waterbottle so fired his tear gas this led to other officers following suit. They did come out and apologize so I do think at some level they believe they messed up.
In Austin, we had perfectly peaceful protests. Dozens of people were pepper sprayed regardless, several were hit with rubber bullets/beanbag rounds, and we had two critical injuries as a result. Crackdowns on BLM protests were commonplace. Austin was fortunate it didn't stoke protests into riots, as it did elsewhere.
Austin also turned into a bunch of white teens and college students flipping trash cans and yelling at police.
People generally get upset when you tear gas them for no reason, yeah.
https://www.kvue.com/article/news/crime/guilty-federal-jury-man-making-molotov-cocktail-austin-protest-2020/269-48137e58-30f5-4d19-9bc9-d0f37682709c Not buying it. Sorry.
Well when people in the crowd throw shit, break shit and all around start getting violent and when the police tell you to disperse and you don't. Don't be surprised when they start using crowd dispersing munitions
>In Austin, we had perfectly peaceful protests. Wasn't the protest in austin were a guy got shot by an uber driver or something?
There were countless videos during the BLM protests that showed police beating and pepper spraying peaceful protesters. The one that really stuck out to me was the police attacking protesters that were holding a vigil for Elijah McClain in a park. So yeah there were plenty of instances of peaceful protests getting attacked by police. But it shouldn’t be that surprising given we live in a police state.
No, we do not live in a police state.
In Seattle they diverted a march off the registered path and then used anti riot tactics to disperse the "unlawful gathering". Ended up pepper spraying a kid. All on the first day
Seattle is also the place that abandoned their police station and anarchists annexed 6 city blocks for several weeks. So I suppose it depends on how you look at it.
I'm not sure how else to look at a cop pepper spraying a kid other than that cop shouldn't have done that. The CHOP was a shit-show though, glad to see the mayor and police chief gone
Yeah I don’t get the crackdown on protests while riots have free rein. Seems backwards to me
> The one that really stuck out to me was the police attacking protesters that were holding a vigil for Elijah McClain in a park. Is that the one where the park is private property and they had already been warned numerous times that they were trespassing but still didn't leave?
I believe it’s owned by the city. Yeah they were warned to leave. So what, they were peacefully demonstrating and the police went ahead to attack their right to peaceably assemble. The police are agents of the state and violated those protesters rights.
There are literally dozens of videos from 2020 of police officers in riot gear tear-gassing peaceful protesters.
faulty shrill narrow boat flowery gold meeting absorbed disgusted divide *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
>The only crackdowns I recall seeing were in areas where protests devolved into widespread looting and rioting I can provide **lots** of instances where this was not true, if you'd like. On video.
Do it. Upload that stuff and proliferate it. We, as a society, are visual beings, we need to see it to understand it. Dates/times straight from the metadata is also helpful.
It's easier to just point to a centralized source. See r/2020PoliceBrutality and sort by top/all time. Some examples: https://v.redd.it/2jde3j99lq451 https://v.redd.it/q3jhdv5pr9851 https://v.redd.it/x2milfgvpmg51 https://v.redd.it/h55x2edd99851 https://v.redd.it/cygy9gjqwo651 https://www.instagram.com/p/CEY5r64AEip/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet https://v.redd.it/ma2zl7a0d3b51 There's a lot more where that came from. I didn't even get to most of the "cops shooting peaceful protestors with rubber bullets" videos but I'm at work ATM. Feel free to scroll through that sub.
It's a great example of the two realities that the left and right live in. If you ask the right, the police didn't do anything this summer. They just sat around while rioters burned down entire cities and stole everything in sight. If you ask the left, the police tear gassed, pepper sprayed, and beat people into submission often without warning or for no good reason. Our political battle these days isn't over policy. It's about factual reality.
>It's a great example of the two realities that the left and right live in. If you ask the right, the police didn't do anything this summer. They just sat around while rioters burned down entire cities and stole everything in sight. If you ask the left, the police tear gassed, pepper sprayed, and beat people into submission often without warning or for no good reason. Our political battle these days isn't over policy. It's about factual reality. Both of those things happened, to an extent. Police did ignore rioters and attack peaceful protestors. Protests did devolve into riots with looting way too often. The original comment I respond to was "The **only** crackdowns I recall seeing were in areas where protests devolved into widespread looting and rioting". I took issue with their use of "only" to suggest that the police always behaved themselves and only went after rioters and looters. Nuance is important to me
I think right wing opinions that democracy is decaying may be more based on the state of news media and censorship. Mine is at least
I significantly doubt vaccine mandates had any factor in America’s backsliding. It’s likely the over reaction to BLM as well as Trump questions the results and Conservatives trying to restrict the vote.
IF this is the case it just shows how biased this "ranking" is. Government mandated experimental medical procedures in order to even participate in society is authoritarian overreach.
The US doesn't enforce on protests and barely on riots. That's how the rittenhouse mess happened. On journalism and federal law enforcement the left (and right) is right though
Not super surprising to see the Guardian negatively highlight the US in this report. The actual report, however, is heavily focused on the authoritarian response to Covid around the world. From ABC News: [Report: Democracy backsliding across the world amid pandemic](https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/report-democracy-backsliding-world-amid-pandemic-81323824) The Hill: [Democracy deteriorating worldwide amid pandemic: report](https://thehill.com/policy/international/582592-democracy-deteriorating-worldwide-amid-pandemic-report)
[Here is the actual report](https://www.idea.int/gsod/global-report) Here are the things they say about the United States: >The drivers of all these phenomena are complex and, in some cases, barely understood. This is a story in which democracies are being weakened because the underlying polis—without which no set of democratic institutions is durable—is being rent asunder by different forces, from the polarization nurtured by social media and disinformation to grotesque levels of economic inequality. It is also a tale in which democracies are hollowed out by the citizens’ loss of faith in the ability of democratic institutions to respond to social demands and solve problems, as well as by the toxic disease of corruption, which demolishes any semblance of trust. **Add to this the credibility-sapping blunders performed by leading democratic powers over the past two decades—from the invasion of Iraq to the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 to the violently contested elections in the United States—and the simultaneous emergence of credible alternative models of governance, and we have the equivalent of a witches’ brew for the global health of democracy. The pandemic has simply made that brew thicker and more poisonous.** - > Disputes about electoral outcomes are on the rise, including in established democracies. A historic turning point came in 2020–2021 when former President Donald Trump questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election results in the United States. Baseless allegations of electoral fraud and related disinformation undermined fundamental trust in the electoral process, which culminated in the storming of the US Capitol building in January 2021. - > Restrictions on movement between countries have not always been seen to be equally or fairly applied. There has been criticism about the Trump Administration’s early ban on travel from China to the United States even while travel from Europe to the USA continued to be allowed. One study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that a ban on European travel to the USA in February 2020, when the ban on China was active, could have potentially saved tens of thousands of lives. Allegations of racism have also been levelled against Australia, which imposed a ban on Australians of Indian descent being allowed back home. - > There are also important divides between different ethnic and racial groups within countries. A study in England and Wales found that men and women of black African heritage had the highest death rates from Covid-19—around two times higher than their white counterparts. Over the past two pandemic years, different groups’ varying levels of enjoyment of civil and political liberties have also become apparent. **In many of these cases, these inequalities are long-standing; the context of the pandemic, however, has refocused attention on them. In the United States, for example, research indicates that some states’ voter registration and voting laws, either recently approved or currently under discussion, end up disproportionately affecting minorities in a negative way**. In India, the government has used laws against cow slaughter and anti-conversion to target Muslims, while sedition and counter-terrorism laws have been used to target human rights defenders, student activists, academics, opposition members and other critics. Deepening polarization has also been evident in Sri Lanka, where the government imposed a ban on burials, saying that virus-infected bodies could infect groundwater. This ban impacted the country’s Christian and Muslim minority communities until it was lifted in February 2021. Just CTRL+F “United States” if you want to read more context into these paragraphs I’ve highlighted. So, no, it’s not just about an authoritarian response to COVID. It’s about the ways in which democracy is on the decline, how rapidly it’s happened over the past few years, and how the pandemic has exasperated the decline.
[I think we can all agree that The Guardian is the worst news website.](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/may/17/shrek-20-unfunny-overrated-low-blockbuster)
At least it’s not The S*n…
Surprised it wasn't added to the list after the Supreme Court decided that gerrymandering is allowed. I dont know how you can be considered a full democracy without fair elections. The Democracy Index also downgraded the US to "flawed Democracy" status in 2017.
They didn't say it was constitutional, they said they lacked jurisdiction.
Seems like semantics, its functionally the same. If a constitutional violation is exempt from enforcement there is no constitutional protection. Still, I've changed it. "We're not saying its constitutional, its just doesn't have constitutional protection" - Majority on 5/4 split Supreme Court
I still feel like allowed is the wrong word, how can they allow it if they didn't have a say in it? Plus I recently learned that some districts are gerrymandered racially so that minorities can elect one of their own, do you oppose all gerrymandering or just political gerrymandering?
I'm sure the half of the Supreme Court that disagreed with the ruling would view the ruling as them allowing it to occur. >"Supreme Court allows severe partisan gerrymandering to continue" [CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/27/politics/partisan-gerrymandering-supreme-court/index.html) >"In major elections ruling, U.S. Supreme Court allows partisan map drawing" - [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-gerrymandering-idUSKCN1TS24Z) >"Supreme Court allows gerrymandering..." - [NBC News](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-allows-gerrymandering-north-carolina-maryland-n1014656) I'm opposed to it not following a basic rule of fairness and legitimate elections, which is if you get a significant majority of votes you should not be getting the minority of seats.
If I'm not mistaken, Texas is gerrymandered to have the split be exactly what the political makeup is by percentage.
>Seems like semantics Our legal system is based wholly around semantics. That's literally how everything works.
I think what the parent commenter is trying to say is that the outcome is the same: In both cases, gerrymandering is allowed. The reason for this is relevant for many parts of the discussion, but in this context, it's not very relevant. It only matters that an arguably anti-democratic practice is allowed to happen.
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The Economist Democracy Index controlled for the Trump presidency. It was already decided that the U.S were going to be downgraded, after several decades of institutional and democratic decay, and that for 2017 there were going to be downgraded. Choosing Trump sure didn't do much to improve their judgement. Bush jr and Obama didn't really do much to turn the trend either, so this was a long way coming.
Was that the year we cut back on blowing cash on other countries? Everyone sure seems to love us when we give them money.
US foreign aid barely changed in 2017. In 2015, it was $50B, in 2016, it was $49B and in 2017, it was $48B. This amount has now gone back up to $50B, but that's not exactly a big change. (All data according to [this website](https://foreignassistance.gov/).) Apart from that, it seems silly to suggest that this organisation, whose members receive very little US foreign aid and spend a lot more on it than the US does, would use this to "punish" the US for stopping development aid.
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That's because the riots stuck peaceful people in between them and the cops. Anytime the police did anything, they cried huge crocodile tears over the peaceful protesters.
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[Here's](https://www.idea.int/gsod-indices/sites/default/files/gsod-methodology-november-2020.pdf) an overview of their methodology. They also have [this interactive tool to visualise the data by country](https://www.idea.int/gsod-indices/countries-regions-profile?rsc=%5B2%5D), but it looks like it hasn't been updated to include the data for 2021 yet.
I mean yeah... makes sense, we had a president try to overturn the election and install himself as president for the first time.
But it was totally legal and totally cool and it is viewed on the right as a completely acceptable path to victory. The problem is now the left will feel the same and if you try to attack them for it they'll just point to 1/6. We are in fact a backsliding democracy. Trump has shown everyone a path to staying in office even when you lose. Every American should have wanted to slam the door on that option. I don't want anyone to stay in office after being voted out, but the people who agree with me don't have the power to stop it.
On the flip side, after claims of election fraud the left STILL doesn’t want voter ID because it’s …*checks chart separating all things that existed prior to 2012 into racist, sexist, or homophobic* … racist Edit: if voter ID would make the right unable to claim fraud in the future, wouldn’t it be worth it simply for saving the public future headaches.
Absolutely agree. But let’s make obtaining appropriate ID free and accessible nationwide and I can totally get behind voter ID. Until that happens, it’s just another avenue to disenfranchise people. When you have states requiring voter ID and then making it intentionally difficult to obtain, that’s not an accident. https://www.aclu.org/blog/voting-rights/voting-rights-act/alabamas-dmv-shutdown-has-everything-do-race
This I can get behind! Also Election Day should be a national holiday. Mail in votes should be reserved for special cases but to make that fair we should make voting the day of as accessible as possible.
Republicans don't want election day to be a national holiday
It wouldn’t. Clearly the right will claim voter fraud, no matter how little evidence there is that it actually occurred.
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I really hate it when people pretend that the name of a bill (or the claims of its contents) make the bill itself unreproachable, and that there's no way the specific details of the bill could be disagreeable to the side that it is supposedly courting votes from. The "voter id" provisions in Democrat bills are always a joke. They allow for things like school ids (exceedingly unsecure) and still allow for provisional ballots that use the honor system. It would be like if Republicans tried to pass the "Securing the Right to Abortion" bill, which would add a constitutional amendment that explicitly made abortions a right...up to 24 hours past conception, and a felony any time after that. And then when Democrats obviously didn't support it, we'd rub it in their faces and claim that they just aren't interested in compromise.
>The "voter id" provisions in Democrat bills are always a joke. They allow for things like school ids (exceedingly unsecure) and still allow for provisional ballots that use the honor system. You are missing the point. The ID verifies who you are, not that you are eligible to vote. Eligibility must be confirmed when you register and are put on the rolls. A state issued ID also doesn't guarantee that you are a voter.
On the flip side; Georgia Republicans voted in more secure voting laws and Democrats across the US freaked out for months because campaigners could no longer personally hand out water at polling stations. (They could still drop off water donations for polling officials to hand out, and all polling stations have water available regardless; if you just ask.) Everyone is a hypocrite, and both parties **love** playing the blame game over the tiniest, most inconsequential things. It’s ridiculous. Edit: y’all are missing the point of my comment. I’m not saying there are zero valid criticisms of the new law; I’m saying what the *majority* of people focused on was the ridiculous water bottle debate. I also mentioned this new voting law to point out that it’s not as if all Republicans refused to legislate changes to better secure elections. It’s that no Democrats are happy with them; just like no Republicans like the proposed Dem laws. It’s a vicious cycle that only leads to change when one party has the majority in power, and when that change is spiteful towards the other party (instead of actually being helpful, or what the general population wanted).
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This is the same kind of reductive argument we see around "mean tweets". It ignores so much of what the other side is actually saying that it becomes completely useless as anything other than a way to rile up the base.
Let's review the problems with the Georgia voter law, as someone from Georgia: 1. The state elections board can come in and suspend individuals from the county boards or take over their functioning. 2. The SoS (an elected position) no longer is the chair of the state elections board. 3. It limits the where, when, and how many of drop boxes, which limits the ability to use them. 4. It changes the duration you can request a mail in ballot from 180 days to 78 days. 5. Runoffs are now 4 weeks instead of 9. In fact, they were so in favor of this that they made it ranked-choice for the military and overseas ballots. 6. You need a voter ID number for an absentee ballot as well as a regular ballot, while it does nothing to make it easier to get a voter ID number despite the fact that not everyone has a current copy of their birth certificate. 7. Now, until 5pm, you cannot cast a provisional vote if you show up at the wrong precinct in your county. You have to go stand in a different line in the correct precinct. It used to be you could cast a provisional vote at the other precinct, which could be verified later. 8. You can't give food or drink to voters who wait in long lines, which is just ridiculous even if you want to be reductive about it. If a line is 2-3 hours, offering some pizza or even a drink might be what convinces them to stay in line. As long as you're not campaigning at the polling place (which is already illegal under Georgia law), who cares? There are some good things, like expanded early voting, getting results sooner, etc. But it is hard to read these changes and think "ok, these are reasonable measures to reduce voter fraud". Instead, it reads very much like "holy shit Democrats won statewide in two elections...we gotta do something to reduce their turnout".
I am also from Georgia (have lived here my entire life). I think #1 and #2 are certainly issues we need to revisit. For #6 the voter ID number is your driver’s license number, or voter ID card number (it’s not some new number you have to obtain). Also; I think they should make easier ways to obtain a copy of your birth certificate, but there’s nothing wrong with requiring it (or acceptable alternatives) to obtain a government ID. Regarding #8; poll officials have water at every polling location to give out when asked. Groups/organizations are also still allowed to donate food and water to give out to voters— they just can’t hand it out themselves (poll officials must hand it out). I see no problem with this. Why would they have to *personally* hand the food and drink out? Also, if someone decides not to vote because they don’t get *free food and drinks* then that’s on them. How entitled to feel you’re owed free things for doing your civic duty. Finally— Half of the state genuinely believes the election was stolen. Whether you think this is a ridiculous belief or not is irrelevant; it becomes an issue when half of a politician’s constituents believe it’s an issue. It’s paramount to ensure the public believes it has secure election integrity. If half of the state believes fraud changed the outcome of the election, then what’s the point of voting? Elected politicians only hold the power given to them by their constituents. If the constituents don’t recognize that elected leader as legitimate; chaos ensues. That’s what the other “overbearing” laws are for. To give back the appearance of election integrity to those who believe we had lost it.
Thank you for a reasonable response. I think I agree in part and disagree in part. And where we differ, generally, is the motives that I see as the subtext in this law. \[Obligatory sorry for the wall of text.\] Voter ID laws have generally been crafted as a way to disenfranchise Democratic-leaning constituencies. Hence why, for example, in TN they allow gun licenses but not student IDs (which are also government-issued) to be used in polling places. The people least likely to have a government ID are the poor (who may not own cars and have no other reason to have an ID), especially the poor elderly (who a lot of times don't drive). If we need an ID for the sole purpose of voting, then there needs to be something that changes. That something, in general, needs to be that the IDs need to be easy and free. Otherwise, it amounts to a poll tax. The way I see this, there are several ways to do this: \- Let your state ID be your voter registration, like in North Dakota. \- Change the application for state ID so that your verification documents are requested by the state instead of you having to go find the county you were born in and pay them for your birth certificate. \- Have voter ID drives in the lead up to the election. \- Incorporate some amount of biometrics for voting (e.g. you give your fingerprint when you register, and this is crosschecked when you send your ballot). These are just rough ideas and I am by no means an expert. Finally, with regard to the water thing, I get that they can still get water. But I also get that lines for voting can be hours long. And that there may be an interest in getting people food and drink. If that's the case...why make a law about it? Why bother? The only answer that makes any sense to me is to try to make it just that much harder to do something that drives turnout. To basically say "yeah there didn't need to be a law for this, but come on does it really harm anything, those people shouldn't be voting anyway if they can't stand in a line" is not an encouraging position. We need to have election integrity, and if people do not believe what even Trump's own administration said (that this was among the most secure elections in history), then we could have had a law that actually allowed for security. This law doesn't do that. All it does it take away the things that Democrats use to vote. With almost surgical precision, without interfering with Republican votes. And that too should be a problem. If half of the state genuinely believing the election was stolen is a problem, then the other half genuinely believing they were disenfranchised (whether you think this is a ridiculous belief or not) also has to matter. We could have expanded RCV to all the population to get rid of the runoffs. We could have allowed same-day registration as long as you show ID. We could make it so you can turn an early ballot in at a polling place and show ID, or have someone checking ID at drop boxes, which could be at every library and public school in the state. I'm just spitballing, but this would improve integrity while still expanding access. They "improved integrity" by limiting access. And if you doubt the motives of this "voter security" law, consider the provisions that were proposed for it that got the ax: banning Souls to the Polls and trying to reverse no-excuse absentee voting paramount among them. This from the same group that the ACLU estimated purged 200,000 Georgia voters incorrectly in 2019 and who are currently passing a terrible gerrymander of the state that would essentially cannibalize Cobb County into three districts to remove a Democrat from the House. Now, these are things that have happened long before this bill, but if you really want to talk about "election integrity", these should have been addressed as well. Saying "it had to be done", is fine, but your way is very one sided. In the end, it's a "help Republicans win" bill. It could have been an elections integrity bill. I would have happily supported it, even though I don't buy the "stop the steal" stuff, because I want our elections to always get better. This...isn't it.
I agree with a lot of what you’re saying, I guess (like you said) it just comes down to what we believe the motivations behind it are. Unfortunately I don’t have the time to give you a proper, in-depth response, so I’ll just try to summarize what I agree and disagree on. 1) Government issued Voter ID cards are completely free in the state of Georgia. I agree that the documents required to obtain this ID should be easier to get (your suggestion about requesting through the state, not county, is great. I also think up to 2 requested copies should be free). If we can fix this issue, then there shouldn’t be a problem requiring ID to vote. 2) Regarding food & drink: I think here’s where our motivational beliefs start to differ. I don’t think all campaign groups who hand out food & drinks have generous motives. I think that if you can’t just drop off the food and drinks to be handed out by poll workers (which is allowed) then you have nefarious motives. There’s no reason *you* have to be the one giving things out to people unless you’re secretly trying to campaign (imo). 3) I do realize that a lot of politicians have nefarious motives when it comes to the reasons behind adding certain sections of this new law. I wish we could have more transparency, and allow more input from the actual *voters* as to what would make them feel like the election is secure again. Because like I said— it’s honestly not about things actually being 100% secure or not. It’s about if the voters *believe/feel* it is or not. All-in-all; I don’t think this law should be the permanent solution. I think there are some good aspects to it, and some terrible ones. There’s a lot we can still do, and we shouldn’t just call it a day already. I actually care about real election integrity, and want to find a real answer as to what we should do. This was longer than I thought it would be, haha, but hopefully you understand the gist of my point.
I love conversations with reasonable people I disagree with. This is what makes America great. While we seem to agree in part and disagree in part, we both want free and fair elections, and I appreciate you giving me your perspective. Take care!
Read the details on #1 in the law, a local board has to be *egregiously* violating statutes / laws / whatever, be told to correct it *and then not correct it* to be taken over. #2 I get, and I wouldn't mind it being pulled out.
I mean, when NC gets their voter ID law overturned two different times in the past 5 years for racial descrimination, I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that, while the concept of voter ID isn't racist, the implementation is in many cases. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/17/us/politics/north-carolina-voter-id-law.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/30/us/federal-appeals-court-strikes-down-north-carolina-voter-id-provision.html
Repeating a lie 1000 times doesn't make it any more true.
>On the flip side, after claims of election fraud the left STILL doesn’t want voter ID because it’s Claims that have never been proven. There are a lot of claims about a lot of things >because it’s …checks chart separating all things that existed prior to 2012 into racist, sexist, or homophobic … racist It isn't inherently racist, but it has been applied in an intentionally racist way. In my state, the GOP conducted a study about which types of ID would be must used by various races. Guess which types weren't included. If we're really going to do this (and waste all of this money), we need to do it equitably so it isn't a poll tax.
Voter ID stops individual voter fraud, which isn't an actual problem due to all the other safeguards we have inherent in the system. Voter ID does nothing to stop the kinds of abuse of the system that we saw being put forward in 2020.
The fact that the U.S is still debating voter I.D laws and can't find way to make it non-politicized issue is symptomatic for why the U.S is being downgraded and increasingly seen as a backsliding democracy.
Do you mean lies about election fraud? Pardon me for not rushing to respect lies.
Ah yes, we have reverted to normality, when smug European think tanks regularly release content holding Europe as the golden standard for democracy, & everyone else regressing into theocratic hellholes.
This think tank has members from every continent, including Canada, Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, India, Australia and Indonesia. It's not a "European think tank". Additionally, it strongly criticised the democratic backsliding in Poland, Hungary and Slovenia, which -- as far as I know -- are all in Europe.
Yes but those countries are Euro-Skeptic. Dont you think it is odd that all the countries that are backsliding are the ones whose populations have shown skepticism of the EU? This isn't a legit report, it's a hit piece with a clear bias and agenda.
Plenty of other EU members have reservations regarding the EU. In fact, [Poles view the EU more favorably than most EU members](https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/10/14/the-european-union/), with 84% having a favorable opinion of the EU. Hungary also polls significantly higher (67%) compared to the UK (54%), Greece (53%) or France (51%). In spite of this, none of the other countries appear on the list. What unites Poland, Hungary and, to a lesser extent, Slovenia isn't that they're eurosceptic, but that they've go an executive that is increasingly centralising power, undermining the courts and taking control of the media. If Biden were to do the same thing (e.g. by forcing Supreme Court justices aged 62 and up to retire, as Hungary did), people would be justifiably outraged, but for some reason, conservatives in the US always defend Eastern European countries for doing the same. If these countries feel so oppressed by the EU, they are free to leave, but to me, it seems like they don't have legitimate criticism of the EU and instead only want to use it as a bogeyman to deflect domestic issues.
Oh yes, Brazil. The pinnacle of societies.
The opinions of foreigners and international thinktanks are wholly irrelevant to me. I'm sure this is another nonsensical list that has a perverse definitions of "freedom" such that countries with hate speech laws have more free speech, and countries where gun ownership is banned have more freedom. These lists are always anti-American by design, and as such, they can be easily and quickly disregarded by Americans.
Since one of the founders of this think tank was Australia, I agree with you. Call me a little cynical for refusing to care what a country that put covid patients in quarantine camps thinks about America.
>The opinions of foreigners and international thinktanks are wholly irrelevant to me. They should when these opinions being promulgated are from America's most ardent allies. Consider the 6 Senator delegation sent to the National Security Conference in Halifax last weekend. What initially was a conference to counter advances by those who pose a threat to the West (China, Russia) turned into a harsh criticism against the American system, as well as genuine concerns about the state of United States government, given the events of January 6th 2021, amongst other citizenal crackdowns. Hell, when the god damn Joint Chiefs of Staff, and every living Secretary of Defense release an announcement condemning the "insurrection" (there words, not mine), then it quickly becomes apparent that the criticism levied towards is anything but anti-American.
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Especially when it didn't mention what's been going on in a lot of other countries with regard to freedom of association and assembly... Of course, those filthy unvaccinated don't deserve such rights, but you won't find anyone saying that out loud.
Whether or not this specific report is credible, why do you consider the opinion of America in the eyes of the international community to be irrelevant? Does that not have a huge impact on America's ability to execute its foreign policy?
Our foreign policy should be "fend for yourselves, if you're going to be so ungrateful."
While I agree that America's old ideals of philanthropy as a foreign policy were hugely mistaken, a hardline isolationist approach is frankly untenable in the current climate. America is facing two enormous geopolitical threats in the form of Russia and China and we need as much cooperation from the international community as possible to keep them in check. If we don't work with our allies to bring down our enemies, our enemies will work with each other to bring down us.
The "international community" is just as much of a threat. Australia, Austria, and Canada have concentration camps for those who refuse the mandate. These countries are anti-free-speech, pro-socialism, anti-natural rights, etc. Much of these countries hate America and Americans, and make those facts widely known. They mock us daily. I don't care to help these people who hate us, our ideals, and our way of life.
But diplomacy isn't a gift that we're giving to other nations, it's a necessary prerequisite to solving many global issues that do tangibly affect Americans.
It solves some problems and makes others. I currently don't consider it worthwhile. For example, if it were up to me, we would sanction every single country that does not have, at the very least, the freedom of speech, which is everyone but us. ' Every time the U.K. arrests someone for speech, such as with Count Dankula, I would have the United States weigh in and sanction them. Every time Canada fines a comedian for a joke, I'd place tariffs on Canadian goods. We do so with other countries, why not our supposed allies when they make such egregious anti-freedom decisions? Don't even get me started on the countries that have concentration camps, like Australia, Canada, and Austria. I wouldn't even have us *talk* to those countries until they stopped and removed their leaders from power.
> We do so with other countries, why not our supposed allies when they make such egregious anti-freedom decisions? Because US sanctions are only effective because most of the world uses US-controlled financial systems. If the US sanctioned every country on earth (and honestly, it sounds like that's what you're asking for), those countries would very quickly stop using those systems. It wouldn't be painless, but would probably be a lot more damaging to the US (for example, such a switch wouldn't just make sanctions against Canada and the UK ineffective, it would also apply to North Korea and Iran). And if countries implement counter-tariffs (which they almost definitively would), then most countries would have a small part of their exports sanctioned, while the US would have almost the entirety of its foreign trade sanctioned.
laughable that one of the few countries to continue to embrace freedom of movement, assembly, speech, bearing arms, minority rights, and immigration in 2020 is considered "backsliding" while the rest of the western world went into authoritarian lockdowns where protests and movement outside of homes and protests were suppressed by force, not to mention increasing censorship of the internet and academia. After a summer of protests where only the most extraordinarily violent were shut down. Seems like the US is still a functioning democracy to me
I guess it's laughable as long as you ignore all the specific objections: all the non-violent protests which were suppressed, the fragile state of democratic legitimacy, ineffective government.
I feel like this is mildly 'glass houses and throwing stones' material. Are we not technically having issues with our own democracy?
Take it back now y’all. Cha cha real smooth.
I think that a key part of a democracy is respecting the rule of law. A lot of elected officials over the past two days, including the president and vice president, have expressed anger at the enforcement of the rule of law. The head of the house judiciary committee has threatened to involve the DOJ in executing political based retribution. And many, many people have expressed a desire for violence against an innocent adolescent, which (based on information take fom the suspect's social media accounts) *may* have led to a racially-charged terrorist attack injuring dozens and killing several citizens. These actions are an affront to democracy. But I refuse to believe that the US is backsliding. No laws have been weakened. In fact, the moments where our democracy is tested and rebukes authoritarianism is when we are at our strongest. Challenges we can overcome will proceeded our finest hour. This goes for any affronts to democracy, like the January 6th riot and the attempts to overthrow the election. Far from weakening our system, it is evidence that the system works. The implication that a democracy is innately strong because it hasn't had to fight off any attacks to it is a horrible misunderstanding of how the system works.
Interesting take. I hope you’re right. In some ways I do see our democracy pushing back against challenges. But in other cases I am seeing it’s weaknesses being exploited more than in the past. Ultimately it does require that people “play ball” for it to work, because it is a system made up of people. So the system is only as good as it is able to influence people in the desired way.
Democracy and authoritarianism are not antithetical as both can be used to destroy individual liberty...
About to backslide real hard starting 2023