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- Russian Federation is technically a democracy.

- Belarus, same thing.

- Ukraine, same thing.

They're all in Europe, too.

- Israel, where the Netanyahu's trial is commonly seen (by both sides!) as a way to prevent Netanyahu from serving as the PM.

- Arguably, US with the Trump conviction.

These are the ones I'm personally aware of, it's more than likely there are better examples.

(In a "no true scotsman" way of thinking, it's easy to debunk any such cases by saying they're bad examples of a democracy. Then again, it's the same argument with any political system — proponents of communism will say that communism was never implemented properly, for example.)




> technically

I don't know what that means, but Russia is not a democracy - the people don't have self-determination to choose their government. Nor is Belarus.

Anyway, what are these examples of? When in a real democracy has a court corrupted the democratic process? Not in Ukraine either - their laws just push off elections during wartime IIRC. And was that done by the courts? Have they jailed the opposition?

> Arguably, US with the Trump conviction

Trump was elected after that!


> Russia is not a democracy

How do you determine this though? There are candidates. Majority of the people vote. The one voted for the most wins.

Sure, _some_ candidates are in jail (or dead) — but that's strictly because they were convicted in a fair trial, they're criminals, you see.

I argue that there are similarities between two regimes blacklisting political candidates from the democratic process.

> When in a real democracy

If we cherry-pick the ones we like to be "real", and the ones we dislike to be "fake", then by definition the "real" ones are the good ones.

> Not in Ukraine either

E.g. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/20/ukraine-suspen...

Sure, not a court per se — it was apparently the country's national security and defense council that took the decision to ban the parties from any political activity.

But I agree, it's whatever.

> Trump was elected after that!

Yep, despite well-documented efforts to block him from running. The outcome is I think a win for democracy. That democrats think of this as a defeat is amusing to me. (I'm an foreigner and don't live or vote in the US, so no horse in the race either way.)


>> Russia is not a democracy

> How do you determine this though?

By not wasting time on intentional time-wasting arguments.

> That democrats think of this as a defeat is amusing to me.

Not most Democrats that I've seen - they wanted the law followed (for future reference: Democratic party members are Democrats, those who favor democracy are democrats).


Thanks! I totally forgot about case-sensitivity of Democrats, and sure, I meant the big D.




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