USA democracy decline speed

[ionelv]

Non-paywall archive.is link

PS (2/2): The below 1975-2024 V-dem.net chart shows that US democracy has regressed by 50 years (before Trump took over in his second term):

Comments

[ioplokon]

Yikes. It does make sense, tho. Like, the only reason Nixon resigned was because he personally was capable of feeling extreme shame and anxiety (not that this made him a good man, quite the opposite).

Also that Russian graph confirms something I was thinking about the 2010s being like, a decade-long "Death of Hope" era for civil society & esp LGBT people ("especially" more bc these are the people I know and have talked to from Russia). I'm sure it shows up in a lot of ways, but outside of anecdotes, I'm mainly thinking of the consolidation of control over the internet (documented in the book Genèse d'un autoritarisme numérique).

Russia democracy

[ionelv]

Russia has been experiencing democratic decline for much much longer than 2010s. I have a concrete example: in 1995, my Russian college roommate told me that he could not go back to Russia to visit family because he would be immediately conscripted and sent to the Chechen frontline. More generally, since the Berlin wall fell, Russia's long-term autocratic tendencies experienced a very short thawing which peaked in 1992: . It's been all downhill for over 30 years now, with its democracy being lower on 3 of 5 measured VDEM indexes than in 1983 (before Gorbachev's perestroika).

Re: Russia democracy

[ioplokon]

My impression from the people I talked to is they thought the internet would be a more powerful tool than it was & they could actually halt or reverse the decline, then were disappointed. But maybe its just a generational phenomenon of young people trying very hard and failing.

Re: Russia democracy

[ionelv]

I am quite sure that the internet and all electronic communications by extension are actually a surveillance state's wet dream in ALL circumstances. There is no safe encryption from prying eyes and electronic communication actually makes it much easier to spy on and round up dissenters that are a threat to the power structures. The West does it (Five Eyes), Russia does it, China does it, India does it. There is no escaping it.