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.
Yeah I think this is critical. It gets you to a point where you can actually think seriously about other systems and what they actually do, rather than an instinctive comparison to bourgeois electoralism that we are accustomed to. There's plenty of room to question how open and responsive and democratic other states are, I think, but it has to be done from a position where you aren't just asking how closely they resemble Parliament or Congress or whatever.