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"If anything, that proves we are more democratic because at least we aren't afraid to question our government."
God I hate that argument. So what they're basically saying is a government's only legitimate if people hate its guts?
You know your government is democratic when everyone is miserable and sad all the time, because that's what compromise looks like.
It’s the enlightened centrist mindset. The only correct position is the one that everyone hates the most
No. If the Chinese hated their government, that would be proof that they're tired of their illegitimate government. :parenti:
No matter what they say or do, the propaganda machine will spin it into something worth condemning.
Yes. When you're so infused with Capitalist Realism and American Exceptionalism, any possible alternative is simply non-existent.
No, you see the fact that public opinion has no correlation with policy outcome means that the checks and balances are working
Most Westerners are drilled from a young age to only ever think of democracy as an outcome, and to never question its outcomes so long as the process looks okay.
And for good reason. All across the Western world people are facing the same problems of housing crises, incredible inequality, real wages stagnating, homelessness, and erosion of social services due to austerity. If any non-indoctrinated person looked at these outcomes only to see the same neoliberal technocrats playing with fractions of percentage points as "solutions", they would likely conclude that the political system as a whole is broken.
Most Westerners are drilled from a young age to only ever think of democracy as an outcome
Not even. We're taught to recognize correlates of democracy and then think dogmatically about those.
Yeah. It's bewildering. One example is how "democracy" and "multiple parties" are considered synonymous, since they exist in wholesome liberal democracies (pls ignore dominant party states like Japan and Malaysia). We here know what load of rot that is but Redditors are always ready to bust it out as a thought-cancelling cliche against any notions of Chinese/Cuban/Soviet Democracy. Which is odd since another common sentiment I see on Reddit is "George Washington was right, partisan fighting is going to destroy us".
It's always funny to me when Westerners can't even conceive of why anyone would support the Chinese government. Imagine being a middle-aged Chinese person who watched all this happen. Within living memory, you went from the tail end of the century of humiliation, emerging from under the heel of Western hegemony, and now you're a world superpower of unprecedented independence from that hegemony. For the first time in the history of the colonial world, a country of the oppressed has risen up by its own power to challenge the oppressors that have spent the past 400 years immiserating every non-white country on earth. They went from ox carts to high speed rail in one lifetime. From colonial humiliation, to unprecedented pride and dignity for the first counterhegemonic force outside the West in the history of capitalism. They can look around themselves and see several examples of countries like India and Myanmar that didn't choose communism, couldn't challenge the West, didn't have a cultural revolution (it was a mixed bag of very good and very bad) and they can see, clear as day, where their path led them vs the path the West would have preferred for them. Vassalage. Poverty. Exploitation. Rural idiocy, as Lenin put it. The path the West still wants to put them back on.
https://np.reddit.com/r/AcidMarxism/comments/tic2ol/school_enrollment_in_a_rural_chinese_county/i1dcoff/
Real democracy is when 20% of the population chooses the leader of your country because they live in states where there's fewer people
And when less than 1% of the population (Iowa) chooses which candidates everyone gets to pick from! (Because, um, they...set their date earlier than everyone else?)
Gotta get that vote out of the way, make more room for harvesting corn don'tcha know? :corn-man-khrush:
Iowa has not demonstrated a great track record of picking winning nominees in the last few cycles.
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Bernie / Buttigieg in 2020
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Ted Cruz in 2016
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Ron Paul / Rick Santorum in 2012
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Mike Huckabee in 2008
If they're gatekeeping the Presidential election, they're doing a terrible job. I'd be more concerned with South Carolina, Florida, and Michigan.
It's funny, because they want to accuse the Chinese of "groupthink", but the US presidential primaries are the perfect example of going along with the herd. There aren't enough delegates in play on "Super Tuesday" to secure the nomination for anyone, but if a candidate is behind on delegates when it comes, even significantly behind, and wins that day, that candidate is the presumed nominee. Even in states that are basically guaranteed to net zero electoral votes for one of the two parties, Texas for the D team, California for the R team. Least insane political system.
The primary system is completely fucked, without a doubt.
But the real problem is ultimately winner take all electoral college. I wouldn't begrudge a state like Texas throwing its voice behind the nominee if the 40/60 vote split yielded equivalent electoral votes for each nominee.
Sure, but you left out Hillary in 2016 and Obama in 2008, and the 2020 result was too ambiguous and overshadowed by the disastrous result-gathering process that year to give either candidate the typical post-Iowa boost. I'll admit it doesn't seem to matter that much on the GOP side, but I do think Trump's second-place finish there in 2016 did a lot to legitimize him as a candidate in the eyes of later GOP primary voters that year.
More important is the fact that the political class views Iowa as a crucial state, which gives Iowans far greater pull on policy than many other states. (Remember ethanol?)
Sure, but you left out Hillary in 2016 and Obama in 2008
Points to Iowa for not nominating John Edwards, I guess. But both Hillary and Obama were the front-runners nationally long before the Iowa caucuses were decided.
the 2020 result was too ambiguous and overshadowed by the disastrous result-gathering process
Nothing was ambiguous about how badly Biden performed.
More important is the fact that the political class views Iowa as a crucial state
Iowa is important in so far as it demonstrates whether you have any meaningful base of support. I agree that sequential state voting is dumb and the caucus model is dumb and generally speaking Presidential politics is a fucking farce. But asking the basic question of whether you can do the physical act of politicking in a relatively small state is very meaningful. Kamala Harris basically failed to show up in Iowa and it illustrated her overall weakness as a national candidate. Michael Bloomberg skipped the state entirely, only to place a meager 4th in his states of primary focus.
There's a lot of bullshit that goes on in Iowa, but one thing that isn't bullshit is proving you have the simple ability to organize a large group of people to show up in a single location and say "I want that guy to be my President".
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Real democracy is when the law of the land is subject to decisions by a panel of 9 people, who are appointed instead of elected, and the appointors of 5 out of those 9 were presidents who did not win the popular vote.
People starving to death? Obviously a terrible thing. Anyway super cool no one has to starve in freedom capitalist good America
Assuming the same per capita deaths, that would mean well over 4 million dead in China had they handled it like the US did, and the victims of communism foundation would be
cheeringscreaming bloody murderFor real though, the Victims of Communism Memorial Fund is actually counting every single COVID death globally in their count; their rationale is China is communist and the virus came from there.
I actually got caught out making this argument against a lib friend of mine. It turns out that there is actually basically no one actually starving in the USA, thanks to food stamps. Malnutrition and food insecurity are still major problems, though.
(And of course the "starvation" referenced in the OP has to be bullshit--I don't think anyone in China starved to death because of lockdowns; that's ridiculous.)
Something like 1 in 5 Americans are malnourished or experiencing regular food insecurity. I think dying from lack of calorie intake is rare in America, but that hardly matters when 1 in 5 people develop any number of illnesses like iron deficiency or experience seemingly unrelated things like car accidents caused by fatigue.
lol that is basically the exact same take the China expert from Human Rights Watch had on Democracy Now the other day.
ofc it is, these galaxy brain redditors do not have ideas of their own.
"Those Chinese are propagandized. So glad I live in the US of A where there is no propaganda."
"I saw that some people..."
That statement is doing a colossal, Herculean amount of lifting in that entire post.
I know several close friends with relatives who died of COVID. I've yet to hear of a single actual person who has starved to death in lockdown.
During lockdowns, Chinese police went around passing out groceries (while wearing PPE ofc). Every county implemented it a bit differently (and some fucked it up), but damn imagine having a society that could successfully coordinate that.
If they farted out some stupid figure like 45% approval, everyone would be fine because that feeds the Western narrative that all Chinese hate their government (like the West, where we all know everything is done the best!)
Thanks OP I was concerned I wouldn't get to hand out my "dumbest take I've read" award this week
They said the same thing about the Soviet Union and look how much they love Democratic Russia now.
A horrible dystopia that... checks notes
Prevented millions of deaths
lol, how badly do you have to misspell 'British' to get it to auto-correct to 'Chinese'. Which is what I assume happened since it is the only way for their post to reflect reality in any way...
