I think Bremmer and Fukuyama need to brush up on Latin American History before being so glib with the Bukele government's legal excess. Peru, Colombia, El Salvador (and others) and now Ecuador have suffered through the take over of parts of the governments by moneyed interests, largely drug backed. Like in the US, money worms its way in to the government to champion oligarchic interests over middle class interests. We are seeing repeated instances of democratic institutions being captured by oligarchs, and it is a problem that we need to SERIOUSLY address in the US (and in Latin America).
I do not dispute that wealthy individuals do have oversized influence in administrations in US, however the key constituency that suffers is the low middle class and specially the poor, not really the “middle class”. The countries where oligarchs become prevalent is mainly in Eastern Europe: Russia, Belarus to some extent Hungary, but in those cases the most important oligarch is the leader of government, the other oligarchs are subordinates to the leader. The latin America countries are not all the same (specially Peru) but criminal induced corruption play a part.
There is an increasing disconnect between the ruling elites and the masses in the US. And the widening wealth gap between them certainly does not help. Most people are tired of the cultural wars that are waged to divide us and cover up issues that are truly important. I am worried about our democracy.
We don't have a democracy. In France over 70% of the public wants much stricter immigration policies. What just happened? The "constitutional court" pretty much threw out Macron's new immigration proposals, which was most likely his intend anyway. His proposals weren't even that strict, but the message is clear, liberal courts trump the will of the majority. This is why the populist right will keep growing until they take over. People are sick and tired of this "checks and balances" bs.
Healthcare reform, breaking up too big to fail organizations, and ending favoritism towards corporates and capital in law, taxation and economic policy. Everyone knows what the popular program is. On critical issues popular opinion has been ignored for far too long, at the detriment of the economy at large, and of the legitimacy of governing elites. NEITHER party has a popular program or a popular mandate, because both parties have decided they're against it.
The American economy is delivering. The problem is income inequality. All the gains have gone to the richest people. Real wages have not increased in fifty years.
Depends on how you measure the economy. The healthcare industry, for example, does a spectacular job generating GDP compared to similar healthcare systems. It also does a spectacularly inefficient job of delivering healthcare. The way GDP and economic growth is currently being measured leads you to full corporate Maoism. You do actually have to wonder about delivering a real social good at some point in the analysis! How's the infrastructure investment? LOL! We're too busy spending money on insurance executives.
12:17 "A great power that's past it's peak and see that it is going into a long term decline may actually become more aggressive" It's interesting that I can't be sure whether he's talking about China or the US.
America is divided and America is falling. The fundamental problem: democracy is a method/system just like autocracy, king or meritocracy. Democracy is not your goal, democracy does not guarantee good results. Democracy is particularly in competition and war.
The question that comes in one mind 'is there something wrong with democracy or if the American Constitution could not keep up with change in time. ' In Britain, everyone knew Brexit was bad, and yet the British voted for it shooting themselves in the foot, if we look retrospectively. Many Americans know Trump is bad for democracy and yet he has a large popular support among his people. This election is about Trump. Biden is old and increasingly becoming insignificant. So either the analysts need to tune up 😂😂 or the people.
It is more than that, Trump stands more for democracy than anyone else running for president. His policies during his presidency for out stand what the Biden administration has done, especially on economy, border, and energy. He is also a better foreign policy leader not because he is better at it, but because people like Putin never know what he will do next. Dictators hate leaders they can't predict and Trump fits that category. Putin sees Biden as weak and has zero fear of him.
If these two are to be believed, America is undergoing a reset. When Trump came to power in 2016 in the US, clearly it seemed like it was a popular event - and during his 4 year tenure we saw some good things like ISIS getting beaten up, and the Europeans being asked to take their security seriously, and the lack of gang violence like in the aftermath of the George Floyd protests. Trump even got the middle eastern nations to fight among themselves which was quite a feat for America's policy. Despite his close relations with Russia he did prevent them from getting into a war. And he supported Israel and prevented them from becoming complacent perhaps avoiding the Hamas showdown we now see. I think Biden has been a disaster for the US any way you look at it, and the US should elect someone super smart and capable - in the absence of that, Trump is an effective candidate.
Yes, authoritarian strongmen are effective. They may even do some generally popular things as you described. However, the study of government systems in authoritarian regimes like the one Trump proposes shows us that such regimes always lead to internal rot in ways democratic systems never do because true democratic systems are constrained by self imposed guardrails and Authoritarian strongmen do not adhere to such principles. We've seen this time and time again throughout history. When a strongman comes into power, first goes the media, then the military, then the judiciary. The people who are subject to that regime have no way of then holding the strongman accountable when he commits himself to actions we don't like. Consider that the greatest acts of mass violence throughout human history have occurred under authoritarian regimes. Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Moussalini, Putin, the list goes on. Democracies less so. If we're trading our liberties and freedom for supposed safety and security, we'll be heading down a path well traveled by men whose contributions to history were not well received.
I would see the events very differently from you. The invasion of Ukraine is mostly a decision outside US control but the only hope for Putin to progress further is for trump to have a second term. That should tell us a lot about if trump prevented or incentivized Putin’s decision. The same with Israel, the decisions of the Israel’s government that were supported by the trump administration divided the country and made them unaware of the dangers outside. The same is applicable to US, the candidate that runs on the basis that the enemy are other Americans, is trump, not other Republican candidates or Biden. That makes America weaker, if not from an economic and military perspective (in those areas America is doing much better or is stronger than any other developed country), at least from the image it shows to the rest of the world. I you should not forget the key inheritance from the trump administration, the understanding that America was no longer based on the constitution ideas and that it was now a transactional partner, we could not take the word of any American leader and believe it.
Isis was already a lost cause by 2016, Russian aggression led to European military buildup, the Middle East has always been fighting amongst itself (Look how that went), gang violence peaks at random at best, and if anything, Trump is the best thing to ever happen to China and Russia by giving them a nice 4 years to prepare and expand their influence, lost the trade war. Hamas was given political ammunition by America having such a racist, nationalistic leader. Biden has been cleaning up after Trump, like Obama and FDR cleaned up the financial crisis left by Bush and Hoover in 2009 and the 1930’s, the Hamas war is the fault of all parties especially Israel.
democracy is a group of people coming together and voting for things that politician must deliver. As long as people are voting for something, and politicians deliver what is voted for. I dont understand whats the 'recession' about? If the recession the author of these videos believe that as long as the public votes for something, there must be good outcome, then they are wrong. democracy does not guarantee good governance. In fact there is no relationship between the two. Crowd wisdom CAN be wrong, but as far as democracy is concerned , it doesnt matter. It IS democratic as long as majority's will is respected.
Democracy allows you to penalize bad government and to incentivize good governments. It requires you to understand the issues being discussed and the impact of policies. Autocratic system do not allow you to have a say, good or bad, its out of your control
@@ladagol what you are refering to is a constitutional republic that has certain basic rights embedded in their constitution. Democracy doesnt necessarily need those to be considered as a democracy
@@thewolfofswingthat2035 No I meant what I wrote. My comment follows your comment regarding that democracy does not assures good governance. It is true, but I wanted to emphasise that democracy has self correcting mechanisms. Republics select typically their “people” representatives through democratic means, the concepts are not the same but they go hand in hand. The opposition to democracy is autocracy, like the opposition to a Republic is a different political system like a Monarchy. You also have representatives of the people in some modern Monarchies but you still have power granted to a non elected person.
10:57 why I like Marianne Williamson- she has become clear on how things relate. I think she’s firm and a decent civil human being that cares and genuinely wants to spread some good will around globally. I think even the dick leaders will respect her and they can count on her for the same. I think she can pull off bipartisan votes. I think they hate her because she’s a new age spiritual practitioner. Deepak Chopra like her 😊
