[benjaminbrodie]

There's a legitimate point to view according to which democracy and the right to vote don't really matter that much. At the end of the day people want to live meaningful, fulfilling lives, and there's little reason to think that living under an authoritarian regime per se has any impact on your life's meaning or affects one's ability to pursue intrinsically rewarding activities (unlike, say, poverty, which does pose a genuine obstacle, because it forces one to become someone else's machine for a big portion of one's life). If anything it may have a salutary effect by discouraging people from pursuing politics or engaging in political conversations (which is the unmeaningful activity par excellence, as additive as video games, while at the same time carrying far more danger because one tends not to feel guilty about wasting one's time on it).