[foldr]

I think you’d have a hard time arguing that the political situation is worse almost anywhere else. There’s a long list of democratic countries where things continue to chug along more or less as usual, without a total collapse of norms.

[indiangenz]

You need to travel a bit more or understand current events with more depth. No, the list of "democratic" countries where political situation is better is not long. Only a few authoritarian states such as China, Singapore etc are arguably doing better.

[aristofun]

It depends on what exact period of time you look at. And how deep you look for all hidden tensions and unresolved conflicts of interests waiting its time (in europe for example).

Also you will have hard time arguing about _total collapse_ in US

[foldr]

We are talking about the present, aren’t we? If so, it’s honestly quite a wild take to suggest that the US is doing better politically than almost anywhere else. This is not a partisan point. US politics is broken in ways that people of all political stripes can easily appreciate.

A number of political norms have totally collapsed in the US, by the way. For example, the President is now openly corrupt. In the UK, there was a mid-sized scandal when someone gave the Prime Minister some glasses for free.

[aristofun]

No, not specific timestamp. My point is that on average within a single generation lifespan all things considered US has always been at least in top 10, often leading the list.

And that is not an easy achievement that so many tiktok-minded take for granted these days.

And you must be blind or too focused on US problems to not see how many politicians and leaders all over the world are obviously corrupt and/or dumb.

[foldr]

Sure, the US has been in a better political situation in the past than it’s in at present. No argument there. The title of the post we’re commenting on contains the words “in 2026”, though.

The open corruption of the current US administration is in fact something quite unprecedented in a stable democracy. Corruption obviously exists everywhere, to varying extents. In most democratic countries, leaders try to hide it, and the media reports on it as a scandal when it’s discovered. Trump, meanwhile, is making huge amounts of money through a wide variety of corrupt schemes while making no attempt to cover any of the corruption up. This is simply accepted as the new normal.