And they want to teach us about democracy?

I don't think they care about you tbh

Is this "renew europe" as in the "liberal" EU group Renew who let the Swedish "liberal" party stay even though they started working with the far right?
- Thanks, hadn't seen that. edited.

Didn't they also bar AP, that's another free speech 101.

If they are so busy being better than I'd just keep our name out your mouth. They claim they don't need us but post 20x a day about us.

Counter-argument since I'm in a contrary mood. A scene like this is only possible in a democracy. In a genuinely authoritarian state, there are no protests on this scale. And certainly none where the protesters have uncovered faces and openly carry guns. And absolutely certainly none where those protesters are allowed by the police to enter the parliament building in order to avoid bloodshed, which is what happened here. In China this would have been either a revolution or, much more likely, a massacre, i.e. Tiananmen Square.
It's cold comfort, but the way this day played out was in fact a demonstration of how resilient US democracy is. The challenge is to stop the system being tested like this again.
- Oh, yeah, like the protests in their universities. They were tolerated too, right?
- A similar interpretation was made of that photo in Europe these four years, now we have understood that it represents something different.
  In the photo there are people who do not want more democracy (stop the count they shouted) and now we see that they are the majority, they were in 2016 and in 2020 only the shock of covid made them not be. The US population no longer wants democracy and this photo represents them.
  
  Counterpoint: reports suggest that most of them earnestly believe that the election was stolen. They themselves think - they really think - that they were trying to save democracy. Obviously something has really failed here. But it might not be democracy.
  
  *Plurality
  More people decided to just not show up than voted for either candidate.
  Not saying that's better, it's honestly decidedly worse... but presenting it as though they represent the Majority of Americans is wildly inaccurate.
  The majority of Americans would rather sit on their ass and wait for someone else to fix the problem... or for the entire thing to collapse in on itself... than actually fight for a better future.
- To me, the background story is ofc that Trump & friends riled the protester during Biden's rule, and never acknowleged their defeat. Then this month, Trump's admin arrive at the (AI Paris summit and later in the München Security Summit and lecture us. This "picture " could await similar fate as the Tiananmansquere picture, which was deleted in the Chinese internet. The current reality is that their democracy, has become a parody of itself, unfortunately. Their checks and balances failing, suggests the fragility of democracy. This is ofc exactly the US claim, while it's something Europe is advocating for and trying to defend.
  Don't know if this make any sense?!
  Never posted a meme before, and I stole this one because I liked it.
  
  Well personally I'm not completely convinced. After all, if not America, who? There are very few countries that can credibly "teach us about democracy". Germany? Sure! Well, certainly for a few decades at least, until a few years ago.
  Because, deep down, I think JD Vance is on to something. It's not healthy in a democracy when 20% of the voters are being systematically excluded. At the very least we need to ask why those voters feel the way they do, and try to find a way of including them. That's what democracy means: allowing the people into the room where decisions are made. The firewall is not a success of German democracy, it's an admission of Germany democracy's failure.
  But I do agree that the smug tone of Vance's lecture was infuriating.
- counter-counter-argument: how long before this isn't possible in the US anymore?
  
  Sure, that's fair. I'm just trying to counter vibes with some uncomfortable facts, because vibes alone I personally find pretty boring.
  The USA has been democratic for quite a while, depending on definitions. Since either the 1960s (the Civil Rights Act), the 1920s (female suffrage), or the 1860s (male suffrage). It's had the same constitution, based on checks and balances, since the 1780s. Fully 240 years.
  During that period, most of America's peers have gone through all kinds of completely non-democratic experiences: revolutions, civils wars, uprisings, communism, fascism.
  Stepping back and looking at the big picture, I say that yes, America still does have something to teach us about democracy.