Democracy, illiteracy, and manipulation

[Ganelon]

Many modern democracies are beset by a corrupt political class. This is especially the case in states lacking a long-standing democratic tradition (e.g. the post-Soviet republics, many African countries, etc).

Something I've noticed is that usually, corruption in the media (especially, shall we say, "political" corruption) and corruption in the government run hand in hand. I suspect that this means that the government in "flawed democracies" usually owns the (private) media, at least in part.

Now, I don't want to get into politics too much, as I hate discussing it, but I'll just drop this: The media *really* doesn't like Trump. And yet he still got elected. You tell me what that means. (I know this is just like one example so it may not be statistically relevant).

[Marshmallow Marshall]

Many modern democracies are beset by a corrupt political class. This is especially the case in states lacking a long-standing democratic tradition (e.g. the post-Soviet republics, many African countries, etc).

Something I've noticed is that usually, corruption in the media (especially, shall we say, "political" corruption) and corruption in the government run hand in hand. I suspect that this means that the government in "flawed democracies" usually owns the (private) media, at least in part.

Now, I don't want to get into politics too much, as I hate discussing it, but I'll just drop this: The media *really* doesn't like Trump. And yet he still got elected. You tell me what that means. (I know this is just like one example so it may not be statistically relevant).

The news channels hate Trump. He used them (and social media) to be HEARD, so people would see his name. Manipulation. He has the money to be heard and to have a campaign. Hitler did the same to raise to power (disclaimer: Not saying Trump = Hitler, but that very, very similar tactics were used by both of them). It's really similar, and it works. The majority just doesn't have the necessary insight to go past that, and since the majority has the voting power, well... it's all about who knows how to manipulate it, and who already has enough power to do it.

As Helz said, and that is true in "highly capitalist" countries even more than in others, the USA are a "corpocracy" lol. It's obvious that "pure democracy" isn't really something in USA, but now, I'm wondering if it can ever be a thing anywhere anytime. If most people can't see past the "Trump spam" and the big, played, acted speeches, over ideas, then is there really a democracy anywhere? USA have a quite high literacy rate and higher education rate, I believe. Better than probably all of Africa and a good part of Asia, so in theory, people should be more able to run an actual democracy than in most other countries, right?


The same can be said of France, but maybe with less "corpocracy", because of a little bit more socialism.


Also, Rufus, "democracies" at the east of the Iron Curtain are a whole new type of regimes, which don't really fit with the Western democracies; the thread didn't really address them. They were influenced by the USSR for a long time.

[RufusPL]

You can't really call Poland not a democracy, it's definitely not typical eastern oligarchy. Poland has really long democratic history dating back to XV/XVI century. The problem doesn't lie here in Russian influence, everyone hates Russia and old PRL regime. Poland is mostly based on Western countries. Actually you could call it more democratic than countries like US or France since they have more of a presidential system, in Poland President can't do much.

[Marshmallow Marshall]

You can't really call Poland not a democracy, it's definitely not typical eastern oligarchy. Poland has really long democratic history dating back to XV/XVI century. The problem doesn't lie here in Russian influence, everyone hates Russia and old PRL regime. Poland is mostly based on Western countries. Actually you could call it more democratic than countries like US or France since they have more of a presidential system, in Poland President can't do much.

This is going off topic, but wasn't the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth a fake monarchy controlled by nobles?

Also, people vote for the president lol, that's the idea of representative democracy you know.