[tim-tday]

I’m not ashamed.

Because this is democracy. I didn’t want this, I didn’t vote for it. But democracy is not just electing the people you want. The last presidential election was by all accounts a free and fair election.

As terrible as the current insanity might be, this is the president the majority voted for.

It may destroy the world economy, he might commit war crimes (attacking water infrastructure might be a war crime) and crimes against humanity (tbd). Those crimes may be prosecuted following due process, but until that happens this is the president the people elected.

Condemn the people who voted for him all you want, propose rules changes to prevent it from happening again, but he was democratically elected and I can’t be ashamed of democracy.

[ben_w]

> I can’t be ashamed of democracy.

Shame, in a democratic system, is good for exactly the same reason it is good for individuals to be able to feel it.

Every system of government has a failure mode. There are no exceptions: anarchy fails to strong men with big sticks, democracy fails to demagogues, hereditary aristocracy to literal inbreeding, dictatorships to sycophantic courtiers, etc.

A democracy that one cannot be ashamed of is simply one in which the same demagogues can keep trying as many times as it takes.

[jacquesm]

That's all fine and good as long as you keep your trash indoors. Iran is halfway around the world and the title here should make anybody feel ashamed, not just those from the country that proposes this. It's a failure of humanity, not just of democracy that we let things get this far.

[lawn]

The democracy in the US is faulty in many ways. Democracy isn't a black or white kind of thing, so of course you can be ashamed of the lack of democracy that ended up with this person in charge.

[ndsipa_pomu]

I'm not convinced that the last election was free and fair. There's the strange comment that Trump made about Musk fixing the election machines and all the GOP comments about fixing elections sounds to me like projection

[croes]

The US aren’t a democracy. You need a hell lot of money to even be a candidate, you can become president even if the majority didn’t vote for you.

The US are an oligarchy disguised as a democracy.

[nradov]

How much money did Barack Obama have when he started his political career?

[croes]

How much did he have when he became a presidential candidate?

[Zigurd]

Balderdash. Russia has elections. There are plenty of places with elected governments that don't rise to the definition of democracy. We can't really claim to be a democracy without citing the caveats that our elections are bought by the Epstein class, and that we have a nearly overt fascist movement, with some tech industry leaders in that movement, among other ways in which democracy is degraded in the US.

Not maintaining and cultivating our democracy reduces our legitimacy, and when our acts affect the whole planet, that legitimacy matters.