Imagine counting the first four score and seven years as democratic.
this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2025
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we count ancient Greece as a democracy, don't we?
Last I checked, democracy didn't mean "fair," it ment that the leaders were voted into power.
we count ancient Greece as a democracy, don’t we?
In the same way we count the Wright Flyer as the first airplane, sure.
democracy didn’t mean “fair”
I have heard more than a few people discount the existence of democracies in US adversary states - such as Cuba and Venezuela and Russia - precisely on the grounds that their democracies aren't "fair".
Broadly speaking, "democracy but its a rigged election" is just dictatorship with extra steps.
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By this standard, the US is still a democracy. Leaders are still voted into power and that isn't going to change.
Will they let everyone vote? Obviously not, but you seem to think it's democracy when only white men can vote so...
It's not a good democracy, no. The fact that Trump is not following the rules suggests that it isn't a democracy at all, since we are voting for stick figures, not leaders. But he was elected fair and square, at least until we find evidence otherwise.
And again, "democracy" doesn't mean "good," or "fair" or "virtuous." We are none of those things right now, weather we are a democracy or not.
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By contrast to literally every other country. Yes very much in that time period. Believe it or not, most monarchies were also completely fine with slavery and plantations. And their citizens had even less political power.
By contrast to literally every other country.
One of the proximate causes of the American Revolution was British abolitionism leaking into colonial politics.
You had ex-military ultra-wealth planation owners defecting to the revolution in drovers following Dunmore's Proclamation.
most monarchies were also completely fine with slavery and plantations
They were completely fine with collecting rents off their subjects - slave or free. But quite a few of them had strong reservations against chattel slavery (the Spanish Catholics, most notably). And more simply could not stomach the expense of policing transatlantic trade from piracy.
That is what ultimately lead to the outlawing of the practice across Europe.
Democracy isn't defined relative to other countries. Only property-owners could vote, and only white men could own property, so that means the vast majority of the population couldn't vote. That doesn't sound like a democracy to me, that sounds like an aristocracy. I will grant you it was more democratic than monarchies and such, but even some of them (like the UK) had a parliamentary system so the king's power wasn't universal. They were deeply unequal, of course, but that's just the pot calling the kettle black, because so was (and is) the US.
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Only recently has everyone above the 18 had the ability to vote, excluding those who are slaves as per the 13th amendment. For most of American history, women couldn't vote. Black people weren't considered people. We kicked out anyone Chinese. We locked away Japanese Americans because they were ethnically Japanese.
America was maybe a democracy for 56 years, since the Voting Rights Act of 1968. That's a stretch at best, as the country never healed for being an Apartheid for 200 years.
Right? Someone clearly hasn't read Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.
In a couple thousand years historians will call us the Merkin Empire
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Yep... it was good run, but we need to renew the plant of freedom with the blood of tyrants
Inch by inch, in play at little games.