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7 votes
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Why conservative intellectuals like Viktor Orbán
6 votes -
A series of articles on the state of American democracy from early 2015 by Vox
American democracy is doomed ('constitutional hardball' is a great way to describe the 'modus operandi' of the Trump-McConnell GOP.) This is how the American system of government will die I found...
American democracy is doomed ('constitutional hardball' is a great way to describe the 'modus operandi' of the Trump-McConnell GOP.)
This is how the American system of government will die
I found their predictions to be kinda interesting (and clearly minimal)
The best-case scenario is that we wind up with an elective dictator but retain peaceful transitions of power. This is where I'd place my bet. Pure parliamentary systems, especially unicameral ones, give high levels of power to the prime minister and his cabinet, and manage to have peaceful transitions nonetheless. The same is true in Brazil, where the presidency is considerably more powerful than it is in the US.
But parliamentary systems also feature parties that are stronger than their leaders, which serve to prevent single individuals from garnering too much power. America's parties are getting more polarized, but they still aren't as strong as those of most other developed nations.
The worst-case scenario is if the presidency attains these powers and someone elected to the office decides to use them to punish political enemies, interfere with elections, suppress dissent, and so forth. Retaining an independent enough judiciary is a guard against this, but only if norms around obeying its rulings are strong. And, unusually, America allows for true independents, undisciplined by their parties, to become heads of government.
The US political system is not gonna collapse. It's gonna muddle though (A pretty interesting take. There are problems but people won't try to fix them but instead become disengaged and kinda forget about it.)
I think one of the things the authors missed while writing these this is how news became partidarized in the same manner, thus allowing outlets like Fox News to just consume the Republican electorate. They also missed how voting has been targeted too, and underestimated how willing the public was to act and how would the public react to this, which was by electing someone who didn't care about said broken Congress (or any sort of constitutionality), which is what became of Trump.
3 votes -
America’s largest media labor union launches historic advocacy campaign to save industry: "having robust news operations at the local and state level is fundamentally good for democratic stability."
12 votes -
A few articles on the Polish elections' breakdown
Poland 'holds' ghost election with 0% turnout (mostly explains what and who led up to this.) Opposition 'slams' presidential election by post (citing lack of preparation, mostly.) Polish election...
Poland 'holds' ghost election with 0% turnout (mostly explains what and who led up to this.)
Opposition 'slams' presidential election by post (citing lack of preparation, mostly.)
Polish election delayed indefinitely with just 4 days to go (mostly the same as the first article, but also cites how the later these elections are held, the worse Duda (current Polish president) 's chances unsurprisingly become.)
Race to the bottom: all Polish election outcomes are bad [opinion article] (a short analysis on the possibility routes the election could have taken. Admittedly somewhat outdated given the elections have clearly been postponed.
Related article: Poland's ruling party just made it's anti-democratic intention radically clear (tl;dr they're really invested in 'illiberal democracy', not too unlike the Republican party.)
6 votes -
#DemocracyRIP: What the Russian government did to the 2016 elections in the US was just the beginning
9 votes -
Norway's social-democratic compromise doesn't owe to some eternal national character – it was a product of the revolutionary struggles of the interwar period
7 votes -
Hungary no longer a democracy, Freedom House says
17 votes -
Why the two-party system is the root of the problems in the US's constitutional democracy
9 votes -
How China sees the world - And how the world should see China
11 votes -
Could Donald Trump delay the US presidential election?
10 votes -
Republicans are trying to kick thousands of voters off the US electoral rolls during a pandemic
12 votes -
The death of the Liberal class
3 votes -
If the postal service dies, so does democracy — Republicans are now trying to kill the post office and mail-in voting
4 votes -
Modern Venezuela shows the eerie conclusion of illiberal politics
5 votes -
2020 elections: an expert on why you should be worried about your vote in 2020
4 votes -
How Americans discussed democracy in the 1930's
10 votes -
The alarming scope of Presidential power during an emergency
4 votes -
The rules for rulers
10 votes -
How the US has changed to become gradually more democratic over time
4 votes -
France turns to citizen-legislators to craft climate reforms
4 votes -
Revolt, populism, and reaction
5 votes -
Why the Republican party turned undemocratic
3 votes -
“Flood the zone with shit”: How misinformation overwhelmed our democracy
13 votes -
Do hierarchies lead to a stronger society?
7 votes -
Pack the union: A proposal to admit new states for the purpose of amending the constitution to ensure equal representation
11 votes -
How to fail at democracy 101: The Weimar Republic
6 votes -
Rhode Island lawsuit: Students sue for the right to learn civics
16 votes -
The law that helped the internet flourish now undermines democracy
8 votes -
Australia’s democracy has been downgraded from ‘open’ to ‘narrowed’ in the 2019 CIVICUS Monitor report
9 votes -
Hong Kong protests: Trump signs Human Rights and Democracy Act into law
18 votes -
Former British Columbia lawmaker and deputy speaker of the BC government says he was detained by China in 2015, had his government phone searched, and was accused of "endangering national security".
6 votes -
The Chinese military helped clean up Hong Kong's streets after protests. Some pro-democracy politicians are upset.
6 votes -
Facebook's former Head of Global Elections Integrity Ops on how Facebook's policies towards political advertising are harming democracy
6 votes -
How a social network could save democracy from deadlock
4 votes -
Climate breakdown, capatalism and democracy
8 votes -
The global protest wave, explained
8 votes -
How a social network could save democracy from deadlock
13 votes -
Catalonia has created a new kind of online activism leveraging social media and peer-to-peer technology to orchestrate massive protests
15 votes -
‘We fear Hong Kong will become just another Chinese city’: An interview with Martin Lee, grandfather of democracy
8 votes -
Millions of the comments posted during public debates like the FCC's net neutrality repeal process have been faked by political operatives using false identities
18 votes -
Why rigged capitalism is damaging liberal democracy
5 votes -
Democracy devouring itself: The paper predicting the end of democracy
20 votes -
How Viktor Orban hollowed out Hungary’s democracy
6 votes -
India rising: Can a giant democracy become an economic colossus?
9 votes -
The corrupting of democracy
5 votes -
Mapmaker: The Gerrymandering game that puts the fun in undermining democracy
6 votes -
The weaponisation of information is mutating at alarming speed
11 votes -
Democracy is a puzzle
7 votes -
Should the voting age be lowered to sixteen?
19 votes