[mmooss]

The US has been a 'democratic republic' for almost 250 years, so many generations have learned.

Such government has thrived in every culture and place, from East Asia to South Asia to almost all the Americas, many parts of Africa, Europe of course. Somehow, democracy works exceptionally well - far better than any alternative ever has - and is resilient.

... unless the people are somehow convinced that it is not, that it is not important, and they despair and give up.

[koolba]

Representative democracy only works when the people of the nation actually drive the formation of said government. The last 70+ years have shown that it explicitly does not work when imposed by third parties. Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, China, and Vietnam are all examples of this failure.

It’s not that those people should not have a say in their government. It’s that they clearly don’t have the coordinated will to organize it sustainably.

Maybe the rest of us just lucked out to have society form at just the right sweet spot of information spread without information control. But there’s clearly something different about all those places that it didn’t quite end up the way the rest of us would consider acceptable.

[mmooss]

> Afghanistan, Iraq

Afghanistan never had an effective democratic government; Iraq may have one now.

> ... Iran, China, and Vietnam are all examples of this failure.

China, and Vietnam never had democratic governments or anything like them. Iran has had some semblence of one, but on a limited basis (ultimate power lies with religious leaders, who can even ban people from running in elections).

But parts of China have had very successful democratic governments - in Taiwan currently and formerly in Hong Kong.

> there’s clearly something different about all those places that it didn’t quite end up the way the rest of us would consider acceptable.

Why is there something 'clearly different'? There are many explanations. All the evidence we have is that people in China love and preserve democracy whenver they can.

[yibg]

Yet seemingly a large part of the population has forgotten the lessons from even 8 or 9 decades ago, the sequence of events that have led to events of the 30s and 40s.

Democracy is also not that old as far as human history goes. Empires and kingdoms have lasted longer, even individual ones.

[eszed]

Indeed. However, parliamentary democracies have a better track record of stability than federal structures (modeled after that of the US). Adjust for cultural and historical differences as you see fit, but the US has heretofore been an outlier.

[klooney]

Matt Yglesias wrote a great summary of this awhile back- https://www.vox.com/2015/3/2/8120063/american-democracy-doom...

[rv3392]

Very interesting read as an Australian. Helped me with understanding why US politics feels so different to Australia despite the cultural similarities.

[eszed]

That's the very article I remembered, but couldn't find, when I wrote my comment.Your google-fu is better than mine!

[piva00]

Thanks for sharing, that was a great and prescient article.