Americans scream and spit on Chinese democracy while they cling to electoral colleges and governor appointed senators and the fight to disenfranchise minority voters en mass.

I just don't know how to take any of it seriously. China's a dictatorship because it's ruled by a single, seemingly insurmountable communist party. But Texas and Florida can elect Republicans to a bulletproof supermajority for 40 years and that's just the Will Of The People.

A Congress with a 20% approval rating enjoys a Lockean Mandate, while a Parliament with 50-70% approval is a tyrannical regime of brutal oppression.

And don't even get me started on prison population...

How are we even defining democracy anymore? It just seems like American Exceptionalism.

[–] ForceTen@lemmy.zip 0 points 2 hours ago

Chinese democracy is an oxymoron. Not saying American is one at this point either (especially after Trump is finished decimating everything from his 2020 temper tantrum). But let’s not prop up one as better than the other. The CCP strait up sucks too. Better if both governments failed and a better system was put in place for the benefit of both the Chinese and Americans.

[–] huppakee@lemmy.world 5 points 16 hours ago

How are we even defining democracy anymore?

There are multiple organisations invested in rating democracies worldwide, the main one is from The Economist EIU ,(https://www.eiu.com/n/campaigns/democracy-index-2025/, there are numerous places where the raw data is published more accessible such as here: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/democracy-index-eiu).

I personally prefer the index made by Freedom House (https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world) because it includes what a regular citizen experiences:

For each country and territory, Freedom in the World analyzes the electoral process, political pluralism and participation, the functioning of the government, freedom of expression and of belief, associational and organizational rights, the rule of law, and personal autonomy and individual rights.

Their assessment of the US democracy:

EIU (2024): 7.85/10, "flawed democracy" Freedom in the world score (2025): 81/100

These scores obviously are not about other things that matter, like economic stability or access to healthcare.

[–] impairedimperator@lemmy.zip 0 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Damn, you can't even use China as the positive comparison here without some random tankie getting pissed I didn't adequately glaze China.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 7 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

you can’t even use China as the positive comparison here

tankie

Yeah, the comparison is positive, but also anyone who disagrees with you wants you murdered by a tank.

FFS, can you people take any level of criticism?

[–] treesapx@lemmy.world 1 points 14 hours ago

I read your comment as largely, if not entirely, supportive of the guy you responded to. What am I missing?

[–] Dojan@pawb.social -2 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

murdered by a tank.

Oh! All this time and I hadn't clocked that tankie was referencing the Tiananmen Square massacre. That makes a lot of sense.

I thought it was something related to think-tanks or something, some kind of weird way of saying "brainiac" or having "big-brained ideas" in a derogatory manner.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 4 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

All this time and I hadn’t clocked that tankie was referencing the Tiananmen Square massacre.

It's not. It's referencing the Hungarian Revolt of '56.

I thought it was something related to think-tanks or something

Hahaha.

Well, in my heart of hearts, this is who it's really talking about.

[–] Dojan@pawb.social 1 points 5 hours ago

See, now I’m even more confused!

[–] Cricket@lemmy.zip 3 points 11 hours ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie