• Rapidcreek@lemmy.world
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    27 days ago

    There’s a sign you can see in many shops that sell beautiful but fragile items: LOVELY TO LOOK AT, DELIGHTFUL TO HOLD, BUT ONCE YOU BREAK IT, THEN IT’S SOLD. You can say the same about democracy.

          • Skiluros@sh.itjust.works
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            27 days ago

            That’s not necessarily true. Russia holds elections as well, doesn’t mean they are free and fair.

            It’s pretty naive to think that the US cannot become a de facto non-democratic state.

            • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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              27 days ago

              Like the last couple of elections were free and democratic.

              I guess counting of the votes was.

              But the system is sufficiently rigged already, Russians just don’t bother with such complex mechanisms. Why, when you can just steal. After all, a different kind of people.

              • Skiluros@sh.itjust.works
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                27 days ago

                I guess counting of the votes was.

                The 2000 and 2004 elections in russia are generally considered free and fair (2004 perhaps less so, but I digress). That didn’t really have an impact later on.

                But the system is sufficiently rigged already, Russians just don’t bother with such complex mechanisms. Why, when you can just steal. After all, a different kind of people.

                While I agree in general, having lived in North America for a decade (including US) and russia for over a decade, you’d be surprised about the similarities in certain (emphasis on certain, not even close to all or even many) elements of “national thinking” in the US and russia. That being said, historically US has had a positive impact in the world. I can’t think of a single thing that russia has done that has had a positive effect (even their much fetishized celebration of WW2 victory is a ruse as the USSR initially sided with the Nazis to split up Europe).

                • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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                  27 days ago

                  The 2000 and 2004 elections in russia are generally considered free and fair (2004 perhaps less so, but I digress). That didn’t really have an impact later on.

                  I meant 1996. Wide protests, the first election in independent Russia widely put in doubt, but in the West - lots of enthusiasm that the bad thing didn’t happen and those communists didn’t win.

                  even their much fetishized celebration of WW2 victory is a ruse as the USSR initially sided with the Nazis to split up Europe

                  I disagree. (Sorry for the very long elaboration that follows, but it’s needed, I think. Stalin’s USSR wasn’t nice, but what you said is usually part of the narrative most of which is plainly not true.)

                  The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was a temporary (and very abrupt) change of policy and not what some common narratives make it seem. Soviet propaganda almost since 20s and till that short period actually portrayed Germans in some form as the main potential enemy.

                  Those Baltic countries USSR swallowed were typical fascist regimes, just small. Military aggression is not nice, but the narrative people from the Baltics love now, about how USSR was “worse than the Nazis” - well, very few Baltic Jews survived, I guess that makes their position consistent with reality, but doesn’t sell it very well to me.

                  Parts of Poland annexed were Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, and Wilno which is now part of Lithuania. And no, Polish Republic of that time wasn’t very minority-friendly. Again, not as clear-cut. There Soviet troops were really welcomed in 1939.

                  Even the Winter War was preceded by repeated offers of similar or bigger amount of territory given to Finland by USSR in exchange for what it asked, and what it asked was the really necessary territory to make Leningrad defensible from the Finnish side. It was not as barbaric and aggressive as the common narratives say as well. Karl Gustav Mannerheim, if you know who that is, not only supported accepting the deal, but was in favor of some concessions more than the minimum that USSR demanded. And after the war, forcing its victory, USSR took no more than that.

                  And Soviet Union did pay the biggest human cost of those fighting in Europe.

                  The fetish is disgusting, of course, and also anachronistic - there were no regular parades initially in celebration of that war ending, only those on November 7, and of course nobody was enthusiastic about an opportunity to “repeat it”. It was a hungry ruined country with disabled veterans in poverty, gangs of orphans, years of darkness and despair, one can say. The years between end of the war and Stalin’s death are not really remembered for anything other than that.

                  Actually for all the Cold War the USSR’s propaganda position was that it wants only peace and united humanity, and the people who want to “repeat” something are on the other side. I’d say that during the first Indochina war and even later this was, well, true.

              • Skiluros@sh.itjust.works
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                27 days ago

                I think your confidence in this is exactly why it can happen.

                This is not some sort of secret knowledge, the topic of democracies sliding into de facto authoritarianism is a well researched topic.

                And the mode by which this happens is often slow and steady, largely driven by complacency and corruption.

                • The first step towards authoritarian is the revocation of free speach. The only people trying to control that as of present are the left. Ill start listening to what u have to say the second trump bans people speaking their minds in public or puts american citizens people in concentration camps.

      • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
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        27 days ago

        Maybe not about elections, per se, but I think you forgot what happened between 2016 to 2020. Almost every day news headlines were like “Trump tweets dumb thing”, “Trump announces dumb thing”, “Trump does dumb thing”. This election period was quieter on the scale of things compared to then, and we’re headed right back for it.

    • BestBouclettes@jlai.lu
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      27 days ago

      The US has a massive political and cultural influence all over the world. Trump’s victory will open a whole new Pandora’s box when it comes to geopolitics, climate (in)action, and support of racist, sexist and xenophobic policies. His campaign strategy will probably be used by politicians all over the world, and will embolden them to try more and more unhinged bullshit.

      I don’t know how it will personally affect you, but it probably will in many many direct and indirect ways.

  • Linktank@lemmy.today
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    27 days ago

    He cheated, Russia literally ran interference campaigns. How are people accepting this?

    • WraithGear@lemmy.world
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      27 days ago

      Because even if they did, it doesn’t matter. Welcome to the other side of the conspiracy believer coin

    • Decipher0771@lemmy.ca
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      27 days ago

      Between the gerrymandering, electoral college, stacked courts in case it was close, the whole thing was rigged already. All the land outvoted the people.

      • testfactor@lemmy.world
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        27 days ago

        I mean, he’s also going to win the popular vote as well. This isn’t a land outvoting people thing. He just won out-and-out.

        All the gerrymandering and EC fixes in the world wouldn’t have changed the outcome if he just got more votes.

    • nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca
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      27 days ago

      Because regardless of Russian interference he won by people actually voting him . This is who the US is.