U.S. could lose democracy status, says global watchdog

Could? ....should.

America deserves to be recognized as a Third World Country. I say this as an American, it's deplorable how the citizens are treated.
- The cold war is over, they are called developing countries now. Your point still stands, the US has lots of developing to do, especially on the social/society front.
  
  It doesn't meet the definition of "developing nation" either.
- To be clear- this is just your personal "vibe" and not an actual fact, because the term "third world country" literally means a country that is not aligned with the US or USSR. If you meant "developing nation" that term also has a definition the US does not meet.
- South Sudan is a third world country. America isnt third world, it's heading into authoritarianism.
- I think the term is "A third world country with a Gucci belt"
- We've been a third world country for a several decades already. Just because we use to change out guys in the office every 4-8 years, doesnt mean it was ever all that good here.

It lost that status a long time ago. We keep the veneer of it intact, though.
- Most of the "Democracy" status countries are bull shit anyway. They are heavily weighed on "Economic Freedom" which is a fancy way of saying the freedom for which Imperialist nations corporations are able to exploit third world countries resources.
  Nationalize your oil system and have the profits of it go directly back to your people for the improvement of social programs? Damn, that sounds like Communism!
  Sell oil drilling rights to Shell to "bring jobs" to your country that pay poverty wages, destroy local ecosystems, and extract all your resources with no benefits to the local population? Well, that's "Economic Freedom" baby!
  
  First of all, that's not what "Economic Freedom" means in the context of democracy, but more importantly "economic freedom" is not even a factor in the methodology used by the group this article is citing.
- Is this just your vibes or do you have a source? Because I just checked the website of the organization this article is referencing and it says no such thing.

Has lost*
- Probably won’t get it back

"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…"
Winston S Churchill, 11 November 1947

We should have never had the status given we still use slaves.
- Land of the free founded on slaves. America really is just a big pile of hypocrisy under the hood of vain surface level patriotism.
- Having a for-profit prison system was a bad choice.
  Who could have seen it coming ?
  
  And a pay to win political candidate system, and a heavily monetized educational system. Who is surprised about the decline of the man who steps on his dick and machineguns his own foot?

And a few days after that, PragerU releases a video titled "Why democracies will fail eventually", which tells its viewers that democracy creates "moral decadence", and now a "strong leader" is needed to fix the issue, who might have told some noble lies like a parent tells their kid the stork brings the children when they're not ready for reality. And the video ends with a "Roman salute" over "God Bless America".
- People tell their kids the stork brings babies because the parent is the one not ready to have the conversation.
  The parent is avoiding their own humiliation. Telling kids how babies are made is not embarassing for kids. Kids have no reason to feel shame or judgement about these kinds of things….
  Just pointing this out to show that the metaphor here is deeply flawed.
  
  3-4 year olds don’t need to know about birds and the bees
- I hate that I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or if this really happened

Oh, but were not a democracy, were a constitutional republic hardy har har har har
my republican friends.
- we're a constitutional federal republic, with democratically elected representatives, but a plutocracy, in practice
  me, a political science pedant of highest/worst order
  
  I'd like to subscribe to more political pedantry
  
  As a political science pedant, can you explain to me the difference between a democracy and a constitutional republic? I tried to Google "constitutional republic" but I just got a Wikipedia page that said they were the same thing.
  Which I guess would fit, since republicans are absolute dumbfucks, but if there's actually some nuance there, I'm curious to know.
  Thanks!
  
  "me, a political science pedant of highest/worst order"
  Yo you single
  
  Unsubscribe!!!!
- constitutional republic
  So we're going to follow the constitution?
  ohh
  It's like talking to MAGA about Christianity So you're going to follow the bible?
  ohh
  
  I wish I could award this comment. It follows my occasional and unfulfilling conversations with Republicans extremely closely. If the conversation doesn't end with wanting to pull my hair out and put my head through the nearest available drywall, did I really talk to Republican?
- Do your friends not understand that Republics are a small subset of Democracies?
  
  Yes, though in all fairness, they were acquaintances. I unfriended them.
- Oh, we are? Is that why everyone other than hetero white males is getting mentions removed or protections gutted and/or removed? What part of the constitution that provides rights to all Americans is in play when this is happening? Go ahead, I’ll wait…
  That would be my response.
  
  My response is to click that “unfriend” button and never see them on social media again.

We haven't had a vote on the shape or priorities of our economy since 1980. This is an economic dictatorship, and has been longer than most of us here have been alive.
We just get a vote on how/if to address the social wedge symptoms that economy either causes or exacerbates.
And only IF addressing them won't meaningfully harm quarterly earnings expectations for our sociopath class. Example: you know what would drastically reduce the number of abortions without any kind of ban? A living wage that can support a family. But that would cut into corporate metastasis and is therefore a non-starter by either party in anything more than rhetoric.
You can have scapegoating(R) or affirmation ribbons(D), so long as you vote for for profit prisons, legal murder for profit, millions of Americans dying of exposure on the streets, crumbling commons, public education in utter ruin.... Freedom!

The US is one of the most watered down democracies, even for a liberal democracy (which is severely watered down). Its a system where the needs of the many are filtered through the needs of the few. We dont need to "fix" liberal democracy, we need workers democracy (syndicalism).
- What are you even talking about, lol?
  
  I think what they mean is, in theory in Democracy the majority decides about political actions by electing their representatives who in turn act on their behalf. In the US this is heavily manipulated by e.g. only giving a very limited number of choices which dont represent most peoples opinions. Not everyones opinion is worth the same, you buy influence with money.

Anyone surprised by this? Anyone? Because I’m not.

- Really? Seems like we had a peaceful transition of power just this year.
  
  We peacefully transitioned into a technocracy with a wanna-be dictator idiot at the helm.
  As an exercise for anyone reading this who doesn't already know: How did Hitler got into a position of power? Look that up, don't use AI, actually check up on that yourself.
  
  Optical illusion. Plutocrats sharing power among themselves is not democracy, friend.
  
  'Bloodless coup" comes to mind...
  
  I would assume most monarchies transitioned just as peaceful. What does that prove?
  
  The only party willing to accept defeat and not cry foul until their cult riots lost. It will never happen the other way around are you'd have be to a deeply vastly empty head to not know that.
  
  Democracy isn't defined solely by peaceful transfer of power. Our government is completely captured by monied interests. Public opinion has a near zero influence on policy.
  
  That makes one in a row now.
  
  Degree of democracy has more to do with the size of the ruling coalition relative to the size of the pool of the interchangeables. When power is shared within a large ruling coalition, there tends to be a louder and more influential voice by the interchangeables, leading to more democracy and better living conditions for everyone, including those in the losing coalition. Autocracies on the ruling spectrum tend to have tiny ruling coalitions.
  Source: my memory of reading The Dictator's Handbook by Bueno de Mesquita and Smith. Highly recommended reading.
  If the ruling coalition of the US is much smaller than it appears to be, then yeah, it's at risk of losing its foothold as a democracy.
  
  That's not the only quality of a democracy.
  
  How many eligible voters abstained?

"Could lose"? We are long past this point. When you can chose between two parties and they try to manipulate the election as hard as they can, then that's a zombie democracy at best. And now? The president stands above the law. He can fire people illegally. He can disable law enforcement. Democracy in the US is gone. Hopefully only temporarily. Now it's up to people to act, take their rogue government down and repair what can be repaired.
- To be fair they did explicitly say that this report includes no data from 2025.
  
  Oh fuck ..

Could? Lmao. Don't you need laws and elected officials to count as a democracy to begin with?

"You’ve only been a democracy for only 50 years. Not unless you don't count black people... you are nearly as mature democracy as Botswana." - Lukas Matsson (Swedish guy) on Succession

Damn. When Sweden (or any Nordic country) says it, it really hits hard.

New banana republic just dropped!
- It's not exactly new, it's just that we're seeing clarification of changes that have been in the works for the last 20 years or longer, depending if you want to go back to Reagan.
  And not surprisingly, he has to try to grab power as quickly as possible. If things collapse slowly then the people will still have the ability to rise up against him.
  
  Old banana Republic just dropped!

America is lost. Do not let Elon near your country.

Trump's approval rating us TOO DAMN HIGH!

Just publish an addendum and yank it. The great experiment failed. We’re cooked, chat.

Could? Do it now.

sorry for derailing a little:
why is there multiple links to choose from as a source? What exactly created that choosable format - are they automated, is this some system like groundnews or something?
- Idk, don't have that on my client (Eternity) but that's dope

- Have you read the US Constitution? How is this misinformation?
  
  I'm pretty impressed by that mod action frankly. In a bad way.

Democracy isn't a status given by some watchdog.
Democracy is shit
- Anything else than democracy is shittier
  
  "Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…"
  Winston S Churchill, 11 November 1947
  
  Demonstrably false.
- Oooh edgy.
  
  I'll guess they are a college freshman or younger.
- So you're all for dictatorships then?
  
  Democracy and dictatorship is not a dichotomy.
- What do you mean by that?
  Do you mean electoral politics is fundamentally flawed?
  Do you mean direct action by the working class (workers democracy) is better than liberalism?
  Or are you just begging to have the orange tyrants foot deep down your throat?
  
  Yes. Obviously.
  No. Both are shit.
  No.