[mstank]

The pendulum is swinging back slightly, but I wouldn’t pronounce it dead just yet.

We are seeing a decline of American hegemony, accelerated by this current regime. And the ascendancy of a non-democratic superpower.

However, the largest chunk of GDP and growth still sits firmly in democratic countries and very consequential American elections are happening this year, and in 2028.

The real question is, will Europe find its spine?

[idibiks]

That so many people still think we're in a recoverable state for a near- or even mid-term return to "normal" is part of why we're definitely not. The fundamental fixes we need to make, and even awareness of what those problems are that need to be fixed, remain nerd-shit that normal people aren't even aware of, let alone pushing their representatives to achieve.

If you want a primer on where we're already moving into, and likely to remain for some time, this wikipedia article is the place to start:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_regime

In a decade, the year most scholars of political science will say the US slipped fully into this will likely be either 2025 or 2026.

But yes, we'll probably still have elections. Functionally nobody's talking about what those elections would need to be laser-focused on achieving to turn us from this path, though. Court reform, eliminating much of the post-9/11 security apparatus, revoking a great deal of authority congress has ceded to the president. Even the democrats won't have the votes to get a majority on most of that, even if they didn't have to worry about a veto and if they took a slim majority in both chambers. They won't get more than 90% of their own members on board with any of that, in many cases, probably not even 50%. We're toast. The very best we might get is a little push-back on tariff power and, if we're very lucky, a substantial reduction in ICE funding. No restructuring the absurd and dangerous under-the-executive(?!) immigration courts to fall under the judiciary instead. No court reform. No undoing large parts of the USA PATRIOT Act. No full abolition of our paramilitary domestic police force. We'll relieve a few symptoms, maybe, in the very best case, but not treat any part of the disease. And that's the best plausible outcome.

[latexr]

> very consequential American elections are happening this year, and in 2028.

Let’s hope they are (happening).

[tdb7893]

There's no way to stop them federally without a full coup since they are administered by the states. The US has a long history of not cancelling election but suppressing votes (e.g. literacy tests, gerrymandering, closing polling locations, etc).

I would look more for voting place shenanigans, voter ID laws with only a weird subset of IDs allowed, radical gerrymandering, and stuff like that. Some of it will be blatantly partisan but also people are using justifications like "restoring trust in elections" to advocate for things that reduce the general franchise. They don't need to do a lot since a few percent is enough to swing the general balance of things.

[tcb678]

Your contention only works in a functioning democracy.

Republicans currently control ~55% of all state legislative seats nationally and hold governing majorities in most states. In some of these states, they are incredibly partisan and just don't care - they will burn it all down to stay in power (MO, TX, etc.) Congress is required to certify the results of presidential elections, but state and congressional elections are a different matter. Those are certified at the state level, by state officials.

So what happens if Republican led states simply decide to declare, "We certify that the incumbent representative has been reelected," regardless of the actual vote count, or play other games e.g. discarding votes, eligibility, etc? It would be wildly illegal, of course. It would almost certainly trigger lawsuits, protests, and significant political repercussions within each state.

But here's the problem: in many of these jurisdictions, the federal district courts are controlled by Republican-appointed judges. The circuit courts are too. If the state officials certifying the results are Republican, the state courts and legislatures are friendly, and the federal courts that would hear any challenge are also sympathetic, how exactly would anyone stop them? Who enforces the ruling if the courts themselves are part of the alignment? The U.S. DOJ will not take up these cases on anyone's behalf. And in such a circumstance, you're unlikely to find a Congress willing to impeach the officials failing to do that.

More importantly, the National Guard and/or the Army gets activated under the Insurrection Act. So. That's the ballgame.

[tdb7893]

I'm expecting shenanigans at the state level. I'm not saying there won't be malfeasance, it's just that the "no election happening" is not really a possibility at this point without a full coup.

People keep saying "if" the election happens and it's definitely happening, it's just whether it's free and fair (the US has never had incredibly fair elections even in modern times, highly gerrymandered two party elections are really stupid, but substantially less fair than even the somewhat low bar the US traditionally sets for our democracy).

[AnimalMuppet]

A few percent may not be enough to swing 2026.

What there are also going to be are allegations, claims of cheating, lawsuits...

[idibiks]

They are happening. Polling places in districts with close races will even have ICE stopping suspiciously foreign-seeming people to make sure non-citizens don't vote, since that's a real, actual, pressing problem and not made-up bullshit. Since Democrats are the ones committing these (mysteriously un-investigated) criminal conspiracies to let illegal immigrants vote, naturally ICE's limited resources will focus on polling places where the demographics lean heavily democratic.

They'll be the most free and fair elections we've had since 2016, and maybe ever!

[burnerzzzzz]

cant tell if this is sarcasm or you’re a maga nut

[idibiks]

Sarcasm. Though I do think that’s a highly-likely scenario in November.

[alephnerd]

Hungary isn't the only illiberal democracy within the EU - France, Italy, Slovakia, Romania, Poland, Cyprus, Malta, Slovenia, Latvia, Belgium, Lithuania, Croatia, and Bulgaria are all either Illiberal/Flawed Democracies or Hybrid Regimes according to the EIU ranking [0].

Now that Babis is back in power with the backing of SPD and AUTO, it will also revert back into an Illiberal/Flawed Democracy.

Furthermore, all states on the cusp of EU membership (Albania, Montenegro) are also Illiberal/Flawed Democracies.

> largest chunk of GDP and growth still sits firmly in democratic countries

The only Full Democracies in the 10 largest GDPs are Germany, Japan, and the UK. Japan under Takaichi Sanae is pro-Trump and Germany is likely to see the AfD break it's cordon sanitare by 2029.

[0] - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/democracy-index-eiu

[inglor_cz]

Don't rely on these magic figures too much. Some of the parameters judged by the EUI are very soft and prone to subjectivism/manipulation.

Is Greek government really more functional than Polish/Czech one? My personal experience would say "nope".

[alephnerd]

Functional doesn't mean "more democratic". What matters is institutions, jurisprudence, and norms.

And after having dealt with the experience of opening a large foreign office in Czechia, there absolutely is a democratic deficit (sure it's extremely efficient, but we just needed to keep a handful of decisionmakers and "phone a (now deceased) friend" in a non-democratic manner).

[inglor_cz]

The index you just cited is calculated out of five sub-numbers, one of whom is literally "functional government", and Czechia for some reason gets rather low 6.4 on this, less than Greece.

First, this is not my experience, and second, much like you I don't think that this is particularly relevant to the democratic character of the country.

I also would like to hear more about the democratic deficit you describe. Most problems around opening anything are caused by bureaucracy, which is obliged to follow norms produced by the lawmakers. Some of these norms are stupid, but that does not mean that they are undemocratic. Voters have the right to be stupid and to elect stupid representatives who produce stupid norms.

[alephnerd]

> democratic character of the country

The core crux of "democratic character" is providing an even playing field as much as possible institutionally, organizationally, and politically. If functioning is subpar or requires "hacks" or misaligned institutions, it undermines democratic character itself.

Chest-thumping while ignoring the real degradation of institutions in a large portion of Europe is only going to put you back in the same position as the US.

> I also would like to hear more about the democratic deficit you describe

I'd rather not given the incumbent in power and how small the Cybersecurity FDI community in Czechia is. Maybe Vsquare, just not you.

[inglor_cz]

OK, you prophesied that Czechia will lose its current EUI number under the incoming government.

Which of the five numbers that, averaged together, result in the total score, do you expect to lower and why?

[anon291]

Reminder that in the full democracy of the UK , you can be prosecuted for social media posts questioning the governments immigration policy.

[pjc50]

No, you can't. You can be prosecuted for encouraging people to burn down a hotel though.

[pydry]

There are hundreds of elderly people in prison right now in the UK charged with supporting terrorism because they opposed a racism inspired nazi-style genocide. Greta was among them.

0 have ever threatened or supported any kind of violence against any person ever.

Social media posts on this topic are treated the same way as holding up a poster in public.

[1718627440]

Why does that always need to be told like it's an either or thing? Why can't the stance that the Hamas are a terrorist organization, that is ultimately also screwing the local population and that Israel is committing war crimes, be accepted by "internet posters". I would say that is the position, that a lot of governments and people have.

[pydry]

Not one of those people expressed sympathy for Hamas. They were imprisoned exclusively for protesting racism inspired genocide that mirrors the holocaust.

They supported a group that spray painted some planes. That was the extent of the "terrorism".

Most of the people who think they deserve to be in prison are racists.

[pjc50]

Yeah, the proscription of support for Palestine Action was extremely indefensible. Different goalpost to your original post, though.

[pydry]

The Economist (who runs the EIU) celebrated the Romanian democratic vote being canceled: https://www.economist.com/europe/2025/05/18/maga-misses-the-...

When they refer to liberalism or democratic values they mean neither. These are bywords for western hegemony, which is what they really care about.

This is what was under threat when they celebrated Romania's democratic first choice of president being denied.

[mjanx123]

The European countries leaderships were each put in place by its responsible CIA compartment supporting liberal candidates/parties and undermining the competition. With the current conservative US admin they are supposed to interact with they don't know what to do and likely will do nothing.

[pyuser583]

CIA is fanatical about following the State Department's foreign policy. Aside from gathering intelligence, they just take the State Department's lead.

A lot "CIA influence" isn't the CIA at all, but the US Government, usually State or DoD, projecting soft power.

I know this sounds pendantic. But whenever someone starts talking about the CIA like it's responsible for "supporting liberal candidates" - all seriousness leaves the room.

[alephnerd]

> CIA is fanatical about following the State Department's foreign policy

From past personal experience, inter-service autonomy over policymaking is tightly guarded, and arguments always end up with the NSA (advisor, not the agency) where the president essentially becomes the tiebreaker.

Under the current administration, this rivalry has gotten much more intense due to the relatively hands-off management style that has been adopted.

[pyuser583]

I'm sure fights happen all the time over inter-service autonomy. There was a book written recently about very nasty fighting between the CIA and DEA over whether to support a group of anti-communist guerillas who financed by running drugs.

The CIA and DEA switched positions repeatedly: one day the CIA wanted to support them to fight communism, and the DEA wanted to cut them off to stop the supply of drugs. When communism fell, the CIA saw the group as a liability who knew too much, while the the DEA wanted to pay them to destroy their drug labs and plant licit crops.

The group ended up destroying their drug labs, and focusing on money laundering, ransomware, and crypto-scams, which neither the CIA nor DEA cared about.

But the CIA is very consistent in following state department policies. They jealously guard their ability to delivery intelligence that conflicts with State Department priorities, but they don't have any strong priorities that conflict with those of State.

I'm sure things need to be ironed about by the NSA/NSC. That's normal. But the CIA isn't going fight the State department like they fight the DEA.

I'm open to correction on this. Maybe I'm just not understanding the situation.

[alephnerd]

> I'm open to correction on this. Maybe I'm just not understanding the situation

It's much more gray simply because there are multiple agencies per department that can interpret and conduct intelligence operations.

The current administration also decided to adopt the private sector practice of letting "middle managers" conduct and implement what they want on their own and only disturb "upper management" if there are irreconcilable differences.

This is why policies change on a dime in the current administration.

[igleria]

> But whenever someone starts talking about the CIA like it's responsible for "supporting liberal candidates" - all seriousness leaves the room.

Nobody likes to admit their vote (or lack of) has consequences outside their little bubble.

[1718627440]

Do they? Isn't that kind of the point of voting to influence things that are far outside of your direct reach?

[kreetx]

Where would you say the "CIA influence" is the strongest, so I could see better what you mean?

I've observed that it's the messy process of democracy that has put the people in power. Sure, big countries (i.e, mostly Russia) would like to tilt governments their way, but it isn't succeeding. I can tell you though that local Facebook pages for newspapers are full of strange comments, seemingly Russian trolls (but I have no proof).