[pranau]

This happens in North Indian states as well where the state governments have gotten extremely trigger happy with cutting off internet access for trivial reasons like student exams. It’s extremely frustrating and makes me wonder how people keep voting the same morons (I’m sorry but I do not have a charitable word for them) back into power.

[908B64B197]

The best vote of confidence is the brain gain/drain ratio.

Are smart, educated and highly motivated professionals going to North India or are they leaving it?

[HenryKissinger]

I generally agree, but this doesn't work in countries that restrict cross border movement of their own citizens.

North Korea neither gains talent from abroad nor loses talent to other countries. Europe loses talent to the United States. It's a flawed comparison, but North Korea is not a better place to work and do business than Europe, which this comparison would imply.

[908B64B197]

> North Korea neither gains talent from abroad nor loses talent to other countries.

It does. Nobody defects to North Korea, but there are thousands of North Korean refugees in the west. That should tell us something. Same thing for Cuba. Their inflow to outflow ratio is 0 (nobody wants in).

> Europe loses talent to the United States.

Net loss, but looking at the ratio it's still > 0 (some people move from the US to EU, just less than the other way around). So something like 1/4 (one person moving into the EU for 4 moving to the US).

[bagacrap]

if I wanted to rule without opposition I might take steps to drive away or suppress the intelligentsia, so I'm not sure what your metric is really measuring, maybe effectiveness of my tyranny?

[unmole]

Because the other set of morons are not necessarily any better.

[nindalf]

Ah yes, the evergreen complaint in Indian politics. No matter how bad the current government is, it’s supporters will claim the alternative is worse. Even when tens of thousands of people were dying because of COVID, people like this would say “abe librandu (hey libtard), if not Modiji then who?”

Such people missed the obvious answer - the other side might not be perfect but anyone is better than someone who boasted about hosting the largest crowds he had ever seen … during a pandemic.

[ChrisRR]

That's the issue in many (or most?) countries' politics.

Rather than focus on the issues, just keep shouting about how bad the other side would've been if they had been in power.

Somehow, UK tories always found a way to make it Corbyn's fault. Trump ads showed pictures of Trump's america, claiming that's what would happen under Biden.

[Loughla]

It's literally the easiest scare piece you can write.

Yes, it's bad, but IMAGINE HOW BAD IT WOULD BE IF THEY WERE IN CHARGE.

Regardless of who THEY is, the people who will respond to those ads will do the actual legwork of filling in all the awful gaps in what could be happening.

It's ridiculous that it works, but it really seems to be effective.

[buran77]

Creating an enemy is politics 101 and routinely used by people of all walks of life. It's the easiest way not only to excuse your low performance, which is suddenly made to look good by comparison, but will also keep the people busy with worrying about that "larger evil" while you do your thing. Sets a low bar and distracts you from real issues.

The opposition would have crippled the country even worse, that other country violates human rights far more egregiously, and that other plumber would have needed even more attempts to get that "paranormal" leak fixed.

[vmception]

These are valid criticisms though

Nobody else will run, because by not being a career politician it means you didn't curate your life to be devoid of different random criticism from people just looking to derail your ambitions and character on the inter/national spotlight.

[unmole]

I'm not even remotely a BJP supporter, as my comment history will attest to.

The union government's Covid response has been spectacularly bad, anyone who argues otherwise is a brainwashed idiot.

If INC was in government some of the more megalomaniacal screwups might have been avoided. Lockdown wouldn't have been announced just hours before it went into effect for example.

However, I don't see the overall results being much better. Be it Sanghis, Commies, Congressis or any flavour of regional satraps, I can't think of a single state government that actually did a halfway decent job.

[lucian1900]

Kerala did much better than other states in terms of a rational and effective response to covid.

[yunohn]

This was a narrative, but not necessarily true?

Early 2020: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-53431672

Late 2020: https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/compelling-que...

[lucian1900]

The failure narrative is not necessarily true either. Are we to trust British state propaganda of all things?

[MeinBlutIstBlau]

Because they aren't being "voted" in.