Historically, democracy only allowed free males who were land owners to vote. A minority.
In the last few generations the wealthy have come up with clever ideas to hold onto power while expanding the vote to the majority.
So, I think Democracy is defined by periodically changing some of the government by the voting of some people. And the votes must be counted in front of witnesses.
This is my definition of democracy only; and not me arguing for it, personally I don’t think it works well enough
Yes: As long as people can vote, kick the other government out, and replace it with worse, maybe better.
I think where the confusion lies at, is the very definition of democracy. Democracy does not mean good governance or even particularly fair treatment. It had nothing to do with socialism or helping the disadvantaged. It simply means it can be replaced using voting.
I think the democracies of the west are overhyped oligarchies; but they are democracies
It could have been worse. Could a Trump delegation actually be productive and not sabotage the summit?
The USA was not going to help after the orange menace gained power. It could have been worse other than non participation.
I’m grateful he did not send a delegation headed by the someone who doubts carbon dioxide exits. Or one who thinks climate change helps bring the second coming of Christ.
Trump is terrible. His family is horrible no good people, and using politics to enrich family and friends is unethical.
That said, the only thing I see different from other presidents is less hiding and less being clever about the enrichment.
Which is a huge issue; because in my experience one can tell the level of graft in a government by using the visible crimes, usually small things. The actual crimes can be ten times more than the scandals. Like an iceberg
So when we see public crimes that are more often and more serious: that is a lot of new graft.. tens of billions of USD at least
It’s like watching a very elaborate game of good cop, bad cop.
But, they will be elected again, soon, to be the good cop that rescues Americans. And will do enough good to setup the working class for more loss during the next bad cop cycle.
Their superpower is to allow centralists to sleep well half the nights during a decade.
I design systems similar to this; in my mindset the competency and privacy are the same.
There is simply no way anyone competent or knowledgeable would have made this series of mistakes in good faith. And it’s very hard for someone not knowledgeable about the tech to understand the magnitude.
It’s rather like designing and selling car with bad breaks, and your car gets into an accident which could have been avoided had the breaks worked. But nobody could test the breaks fully?
Historically, democracy only allowed free males who were land owners to vote. A minority.
In the last few generations the wealthy have come up with clever ideas to hold onto power while expanding the vote to the majority.
So, I think Democracy is defined by periodically changing some of the government by the voting of some people. And the votes must be counted in front of witnesses.
This is my definition of democracy only; and not me arguing for it, personally I don’t think it works well enough