I’m not skeptical per se. I’ve just been propagandized so fucking much—I grew up watching those propagandocumentaries on the National Geographic Channel about the DPRK, etc., fr that was what I watched instead of cartoons lol.
Pretend I’m a lib who you’re trying to convince, or something. In addition to calming this feeling in my gut like something isn’t making sense, I want to be able to make this argument, myself.
To be honest, I struggle to see how most countries aren’t more democratic than the US. The two-party state ensures that the same very small clique of people, often even the very same bloodline, maintain dictatorial political power. The vast majority of voters don’t have the option of voting for anything even remotely aligning with their desires, hence why most don’t at all. Meanwhile the house and senate just play silly buggers with peoples’ lives for the spectacle and illusion of doing anything, occasionally throwing the odd breadcrumb at most. It’s closer to a monarchy than a republic.
Both Lenin and Marx noted these fundamental issues over a century ago, and especially in the US’ and UK’s cases, nothing has ever been done to address them. That doesn’t sound like the barest minimum kind of a free democracy to me.