I've noticed that the loudest the politicians in a country rant about how great a Democracy that country has, the less of a Democracy it is.

In Europe, for example, you get British Politicians going on an one about how the country has the "Oldest Democracy in The World" (this in a country with a King who a few years ago - well, his mother - was found to actually have some power over what legislation gets passed, an unlected second chamber with members who inherit their seat from their parents and First Past The Post for Parliament) all the while in The Netherlands (who, IMHO, have probably the most Democratic system in the World, including Proportional Vote, though with a powerless King) politians pretty much never rant about the quality of their Democracy.

At least in the West, the most loud and relentless proclaimers of how great their Democracy is by a large margin are American politicians.

The American voting system is not Proportional Vote and instead is massivelly Mathematically rigged with (for Congress) huge single representative electoral circles which in some cases have borders designed exactly to make it near impossible to defeat incumbents (aka Gerrymandering), with (for the Senate) even larger electoral circles (literally, each state) with 2 representatives, and something somewhat similar for Presidential elections (though worse since ultimatelly it all adds up to a single representative electoral circle with 300 million voters for a position with lots of power, unlike most European countries - with some notable exceptions like France - which either don't have a President or have one which is mainly symbolic and has little power).

Further, the very nature of the system will, beyond the Mathematical rigging, push the people who would otherwise go for a 3rd party to instead go for the "useful vote" (i.e. chose an electable candidate instead of the one they want) - it's not by chance that the heaviest argument of the Biden campaign was "vote Biden to defeat Trump".

Since new parties take various electoral cycles to grow, it's pretty impossible for them to do so because it's Mathematically near impossible for them to even establish a foothold that shows its earlier supporters they do have a chance to one day influence what laws are made in the US and how the country is ruled, so new parties invariable lose steam after the first or second election they go through.

You can see something similar to this in the UK, were for example the Green Party gets 1 million votes out of 40 million (2.5% of votes) but only 1 member of parliament out of 300 (0.33%), and remember this is with lots of people chosing electable candidates from other parties, so the Green Party natural vote would likely be larger in a different system

This stands in marked contrast with, for example, The Netherlands, were vote is Proportional and there are 15 parties in their Parliament (Tweede Kamer).

Please don't become the thing you likely abhor (Trumpists and alike) by reacting in a knee jerk fashing to things that "insult" your tribalist morals with a variant of the Fascist take "If you're not with us, you're against us".

It's perfectly rational and reasonable to think that Biden is not a "guy with good intentions" whilst also thinking that Trump is no better, whilst it's irrational and unreasonable to think that just because one doesn't like Person A, one must like Person B.

By any human being standards anybody who supports somebody mass murdering children with weapons is a shit person, hence Biden is a shit person. That doesn't mean Trump is any less shit.

Even by American President Moral standards (which, sadly are way lower than Normal Person Moral standars, when they should be higher), activelly supporting with weapons a nation committing Genocide is pretty bad, though far from novel.

The point being that trying to pass that specific sandwish as "gourmet" doesn't make this less of a contest of shit-sandwish vs double-shit-sandwish.

The take of top poster of this thread - that Biden is an "old man with good intentions" - is quite a different and far more tribalist and propagandistic take than your "the one that’s a bit less enthusiastic genocide supporter".

Your take is perfectly reasonable, whilst the original take is, as the previous poster pointed out, complete total bollocks for anybody but a complete total sociopath (who would be ok with mass murder) or ultra-tribalist numpty (who is ok with whatever their tribe's leader supports, no matter how inhumane).

A guy that supports a Genocidal ethno-Fascist regime doesn't have "good intentions", not even by the lousy standard of the subset of politicians that climb their way into the position of "leader of a major country" - normal human beings don't give guns to people purposefully murdering tens of thousands of children, starving 2 million people and targetting journalists and medical personnel.

"Not quite as extremelly bad intentions as the other guy" would be a more correct take.

Trying to spin this as a "good guy vs bad guy" is quite a tribalist take on a plague vs pestilence contest.

Clearly the profound racism never disappeared, otherwise the German power elites wouldn't "unwaveringly support" a nation because of the ethnicity of the majority of its people and its leaders: the more visible artifacts of ancient germanic symbols, goose stepping and the brown shirts might be gone but the thinking that some people are more worthy than others purelly because of their ethnicity is still just as strong.

Additionally, that the German authorities are now going so far as shown in this and other news in support of the ethno-Fascists of a specific ethnicity, also indicates that the authoritarian tendencies too are alive and well in the mindset of the German power elites.

It looks a lot like the foundations of Nazism are alive, well and returning to prominence, with a different symbology and façade, but still the same view of humans as ethnics and the same authoritarian forceful imposition of a race-based view of the worth of human beings on others.

It's actually quite scary to watch from the outside as Germany goes back to overtly using force to suppress dissent on its power elite's racial supremacist views for the benefit of an extreme form of ethno-Fascism, even if this time around it's not the Arian Race that's being "supported".

Democracy requires its 3 pillars - the Judicial, the Press and the Political - to be independent.

In the US all three are tied, some even Constitutionally.

It's thus not surprised that the country only ever got close to being governed for the Many rather than the Few at times when other Civil Society movements (such as Unions) were strong and healthy. Certainly that's not the case nowadays, not even close.

You were supposed to have an antenna.

Belgium has an unusual constitution that lets its regions have veto power over some of its decisions in the international stage and adding a member to the EU is actually a change to a major Treaty that Belgium is part of.

For most EU member countries, there is no such thing, though I believe some (Luxemburg, Malta?) are actually smaller than Walonia in terms of population.

Extreme behaviours such as exhibitionism and a very high concern with one's public image are actually quite consistent with not growing up in a good and well-balanced environment.

Well balanced people aren't overly concerned with being seen as stylish and heaving fun all the time, unless they're in a profession that requires managing the image one projects to the outside world (influencer, performing artist).

Even without the whole Religion angle, racists the world over just love ethno-nationalism: each ethnicity living in their own corner, separate from the rest, is exactly what these people want.

The antisemitism is the linking of a specific nation state and its disgusting actions to an entire ethnicity even when members of that ethnicity very overtly and explicitly disavow that link.

Germany's actions have all the hallmarks of German "tradition": assuming that Jews are all the same, telling Jews what Jewishness is, implying there are good Jews (who follow Germany's definition of Jewishness) and bad Jews (who don't).

Clearly Nazi thinking was never eliminated amongst the German elites, it just got its lists of "good races" and "bad races" updated.