At least they were kind enough to point out the source

    • redtea
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      9 months ago

      It’s so two-faced. Imagine the nerve it takes to sit in a meeting with representatives of these ‘hybrid regimes’ and ‘authoritarians’. At least the writers have the humility to call the US a flawed democracy (their freedom and democracy cheerleaders aren’t going to like that lol; the rivalry between the limeys and yanks is still alive).

      The Anglo-Europeans are lucky the rest of the world is so much more civilised and willing to be the better person in the room. If I was an official for Mexico or Turkey I’d start every meeting with a recent news story and ask for an explanation to watch my democratic counterpart squirm.

      I have the feeling that this is how China is starting to respond to this shit. Glorious to see. Unfortunately, it assumes that Angleuros are capable of shame (Angloeuros? – I’m coining a new word).

      • 新星 [they/them/🏳️‍⚧️]OP
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        9 months ago

        humility to call the US a flawed democracy

        They’re Bri*ish, so they can afford a jab at their former colonies who have been pretending “their own democratic institutions succeed, whilst those of other countries fail” since the country began (Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville, p. 457)

        China is starting to respond to this shit. Glorious to see.

        Uncritical support for more of this

    • olgas_husband
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      9 months ago

      not like it’s a foreign military occupation or anything

      • redtea
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        9 months ago

        Move along move along nothing to see here

  • Valbrandur
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    9 months ago

    Cuba: starts a countrywide voting referendum for the entire island to decide to push LGBTQ rights further than the US and many EU countries.

    Saudi Arabia: is a literal absolute monarchy

    The Economist: “These are literally the same”

    • ImmortanStalin
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      9 months ago

      It’s like a sort of heat map of liberal capitalism. The bluer the color the more aligned you are with the leading imperialist powers lol

  • Pili
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    9 months ago

    France is somehow a full democracy, even though in the past 6 years every protest has been blasted by the police, and laws with 20% popular support have been adopted without letting the national assembly vote them.

  • hexi [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    9 months ago

    Thailand elected a PM, and the military just vetoed his election and won’t let him serve. Two days ago he resigned from politics as a result.

    Despite the military having veto power, this index considers Thailand a “flawed democracy”, instead of “hybrid” or “authoritarian”.

    How is that a democracy in any way?

    • Alaskaball [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      because the capitalists can democratically use their labor for fractions of a penny to manufacture goods to then sell to the rest of the world at inflated rates.

    • redtea
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      They had an election, after all. It’s not the military’a fault the people chose wrong. The flawed bit is that it was the military with the veto power, rather than an electoral college or unelected legislators and unelected cabinet ministers/advisers/PMs making the big decisions; i.e. unlike the US and Britain, there’s slightly less pretence of democracy.

    • lorty
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      9 months ago

      Democracy is when you vote and it doesn’t mean anything.

    • cfgaussian
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      The reason that Thailand gets a better “democracy score” is because it is more closely aligned with the US and has a more liberal (read: more open to corruption and to being bought off by western monopolies) economic system than its ASEAN neighbors.

      You should never take the rhetoric about “democracy” at face value, because in almost every single case whenever a party or a movement in the global south brands itself as “pro-democracy” that is just code for “pro-western” and likely receiving NED (CIA) funding.

      I have not heard anything about this veto by the military in Thailand (last i heard the PM was sworn into office earlier this month) but i can tell you that things are not always that simple. It depends strongly on the orientation of the military establishment whether what they are doing when they interfere helps to protect or impede democracy.

      For instance if the military intervened to prevent a western backed puppet from taking power, that is in the interest of the people and helps preserve democracy in the long run by preventing a loss of sovereignty. You cannot have democracy when your government is a puppet of the West.

      Whether or not someone “won” elections does not tell us much without looking deeper into how the political and electoral system works and more importantly what the media environment was like leading up to the elections. If the media is overwhelmingly dominated by pro-Western liberals, owned by pro-Western oligarchs or outright controlled by the West, then they can disseminate a huge amount of propaganda and brainwash the population into voting against their own best interest.

  • KiwiProle
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    9 months ago

    Lol took into account political participation, gives Aotearoa New Zealand full democracy status. Our voter turn out is in the toilet, the select committee process and public submissions are only accessible to the bourgeoisie not the working class.

  • CicadaSpectre
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    Trying to figure out if they recognize the US is so bad it finally warrants as a flawed democracy by their own warped metrics, or if there’s a party bias and they’re calling the US flawed because they don’t like how much power the other side has in their country…

      • CicadaSpectre
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        Oh they do. Even funnier, I bet some of them realize the “authoritarian” countries happen to be ones not under the economic control of Europe or the US, but as soon as they show a trickle of self-awareness I bet they shut it down.

        That one meme of Principal Skinner.

    • ComradeSalad
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      It also gives them plausible deniability. If you pint out an inconsistency they can say that they’re “unbiased”

      • CicadaSpectre
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        9 months ago

        True. Though, considering Europe - and especially Scandinavia - is deepest blue, I wonder if the source is just European.

        Actually just looked it up. Statista is German, lmao.