[raverbashing]

Cynical "both-sideism" is good for nothing.

"Loss of trust" is reductionism. Funny how most people who call about "loss of trust" somehow trust the comedic channel called Fox News. Reasonable people can trust but verify and question channels

Of course this is not one sided politically, we have people like Chomsky that make a sport of saying how the US is "the worse country in the world" while living in probably one of the few countries where such discourse would be tolerated.

While the US has several problems most people don't know how good they have in living in a democracy. A flawed one for sure, but a democracy

[nebulous_two]

The cynicism is fueled by opinions like yours that present a false dichotomy of "western democracy (implied as the gold standard) or anything else (implied as garbage)". This is pure western exceptionalism. The only reason you think your "flawed democracy" bubble is as good as it is is due to the fact that your foreign policy espouses anything BUT democracy, and in its continual aggressions is able to sustain this garden of eden illusion on its citizens. When you see other countries' foreign policies as barbaric and backwards, you get the impression that your country is great. But you do not get to experience your own foreign policy. That is the force of propaganda at work.

Cynics perhaps understand this and think instead outside of the dichotomy. Maybe we can do much better, and the forces in the way of that are powerful --hence the cynicism.

[raverbashing]

> yours that present a false dichotomy of "western democracy... or anything else"

You won't find that in what I wrote. Especially since there are many different ways of government.

But I won't support sham elections, biased systems (add a special note for gerrymandering and the electoral college here)