At least they were kind enough to point out the source
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).
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
Yeah cool South Korea is a full democracy not like it's owned by Samsung and cultists or anything
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"
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
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.
Lol they couldn't even suspend their anti-communism for long enough to put Russia at the bottom of the list. After two years of what these same people have been framing as the most evil invasion in history.
Edit: Lol at the down votes. I'd love to know what y'all think I'm saying.
Yeah, they gave Russia its lowest score since the index began in 2006 and dropped it by almost a full point since 2021, so I’m sure it’s because of the “most evil invasion”
Edit: They themselves confirmed this
I’d love to know
If you really want to know, look at the lemm.ee version of this post
Saudi Arabia is more democratic than Laos, China, or Korea L毛.
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?
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.
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.
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.
I actually really want to know whats going on with Portugal. From where i'm sitting Portugal is one of the better functioning countries in Western europe.
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.
No, that's where you got it mixed up, tankie, lower participation = freedom
Terrible color scale. Can't even make fun of this because I literally can't read it.
You can see the data on Wikipedia
Direct link because I’m not a lib, but you’d have to give your info to The Economist
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...
The U.S. was demoted from full to flawed in 2016 if that helps you decide.
I think they genuinely believe these rankings
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.
It also gives them plausible deniability. If you pint out an inconsistency they can say that they’re “unbiased”
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.
