[sneed_chucker]

I agree with your general point, but the comparisons to Russia don't work.

Russia was barely a functioning democracy in the 1990s and had no democratic tradition before that, just different flavors of authoritarianism for centuries.

[bcrosby95]

The problem is the US only really has traditions. We were hardly a democracy at our founding in the modern sense of the word and as such the guard rails are fairly weak. The electoral college wasn't established in some brilliant attempt to moderate the votes of states, it was so rich land owners could control who ran the country.

[sneed_chucker]

Yeah, ok? I'm not sure what your point is.

At the time of founding the USA was probably still the most liberal and democratic government in history of the world.