this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2025
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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 week ago

To fact check the fact check: There doesn't seem to be a list of "dictatorships" on the Freedom house website. Interesting that they're missing a link to that source isn't it? Their point hinges on a listing from some website I've never heard of and they don't link to it? A little sus.

Freedom house does have a listing of countries that are "free", "not free", and "partly free" here: https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom-world/scores

Note that Israel is considered a free country, and Gaza and the West Bank are listed as "not free". So the methodology of used by the fact checker would consider providing aid to countries like Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey would count against the US while giving aid to Israel would be a positive. Providing aid to Palestine would be a double negative as the West Bank and Gaza are counted separately.

Also note that Ukraine is listed as "Partly Free" so I'm not sure whether the fact-checker is labeling Ukraine as a "dicatorship". Trump called Zelenskyy a dictator, so who knows?

Seems to me the fact checker was just cooking the books to promote a narrative that what Trump is doing is the status quo. Trump is surrendering to a dictatorship that's a threat to a great many democracies. It's not at all comparable to providing aid to a country that has shitty leaders, but shitty leaders that will fight against ISIS and/or al Qadea. If those groups were successful it would not increase freedom in they countries they exist in.

And who knows who the fact-checker is? Elon Musk controls everything on that site.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

He just said it supported democracy, not that it didn't ALSO support dictatorships!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The same people would assert that we shouldn't be meddling in other countries affairs to promote democracy.

I'm not defending our history here - some of it is pretty reprehensible.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

A lot of it is pretty reprehensible. That being said, in the last 150 years, every single time that the US goes isolationist, we've had a world war.....

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago (2 children)

The good thing about all this is that once Trump is done, and one day he will be done, the next guy who follows can finally build something good from the ground up

Chabging how American elections work, for example, has always been impossible. After this shit show, the pieces that are left will be broken enough to rebuild something good

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Americans will NEVER accept more than two parties.

Sadly it’s what you need so that the whole country won’t flip-flop every 4 years. One 10-15 congressman party who the major parties need to make concessions to

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (2 children)

With ranked choice voting, they would.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I think no more than two parties would dominate, even in a ranked choice system. But they would evolve more representatively: party platforms are shaped by issue polling, with the ballot box being both the ultimate poll but also obscure on what exactly the detailed driving issues are.

Ranked choice voting would give single-issue parties a real seat at the ballot box, and enable the two big parties to more accurately adjust their platforms to target voters who first-choiced a little party and second-choiced one of the big ones.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Right now they don't have more than two parties not because they don't want to but basically because they can't.

Once that would be possible watch everyone vote for who they actually want to vote for. Within no time you'd be seeing dozens of parties pop up

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Australia has had ranked choice voting for decades. Wikipedia describes their system as a "mild" two-party system. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_Australia

I don't see any reason the US would have a different outcome. But I believe transitioning from our current "hard" two-party system to a "mild" one would be a huge positive.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The Netherlands always had 10-20 parties.

Maybe Australia should simply push for more parties..more choice is always better

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

The Netherlands has party-list proportional representation. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party-list_proportional_representation

Instant run-off / ranked choice voting is a different system, and where implemented I'm not aware of it leading to many parties. I believe it will make the two parties better, which is still a good and beneficial outcome.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Which is why the two major parties will never support it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

It got through in Maine and Alaska. I am very disappointed on the loss in Nevada, but hopeful the current two-state foothold gets people more comfortable with the idea enough to support it, or at least not spend energy fighting it, in their state.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

The good thing about all this is that once Trump is done, and one day he will be done, the next guy who follows can finally build something good from the ground up

Will they though? Maybe, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago

Yea, it’s true we suck. We should probably stop sucking so bad.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

This kind of rhetoric is why peDon won. americans are useless, don't count on any of them to stop fascism.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago (2 children)

It’s obviously unclear who actually fact checked Sanders here, but assuming it is indeed in good faith, this is why it’s so hard to mount a resistance to the fascism the US now has in power. There’s countless examples, but more or less they all revolve around (insert name) not being left enough or not being good enough, or in this case, not being honest enough. I don’t even disagree with the countless replies here that are rightfully pointing out that the US has propped up many non-democratic governments all over the world for its own moneyed and geopolitical interests - no shit. And I for one don’t defend it. But as an American myself who’s on the left, I’d gladly take Sanders for all his flaws compared to the bullshit fascist regime my country now has. I just don’t see how shitting on Sanders in this way is truly constructive in any capacity. I should add the caveat- by all means critique him, correct anything false he says- but to totally disregard him as this negative force? To my mind though, this is the so-called Internet left’s favorite pastime- shit talk people actually doing stuff, all while offering zero concrete proposals or actions themselves to make the country better. It’s very easy to sit and post to Lemmy about your self proclaimed radical leftist views, but your views mean fuck all if they never get implemented. Perhaps just sitting in your online echo chamber is all you really want though, so you can feel good about your personal political and social beliefs.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Yes, the difference being that the fascists want to use the counter-arguments to do even shittier things. “We’re a shitty country, so you libs don’t get to tell us we do good things sometimes, we’re the greatest country ever! Get out of the way so we can do objectively shittier things!”

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I should add the caveat- by all means critique him, correct anything false he says

Great, that's what we're doing here, so no problem.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You did leave out the part connected to that where I added, “but to totally disregard him…”. A number of comments here are just essentially “Bernie sucks and is a Dem shill” in so many words. If that’s a genuine opinion of Bernie, so be it, and I know I won’t sway any opinions on Lemmy. But my sincere ask is, how can we channel our general leftist / progressive agreements into something tangible rather than political philosophy debates online? Again, be it Bernie or DSA or Working Families Party or whatever- you name it- there’s always voices on the farther left who want to tear them all down, claiming they’re not good enough, but these same critics typically don’t present real world alternatives or proposals. And if this wasn’t obvious enough, as a person who respects Bernie and appreciates him, I find it frustrating that people can so easily throw away all of his positives and focus only on his negatives.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Maybe you should respond to the specific comments you take issue with? The OP and most of the comments are more focused on the fact-checking.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Well this thread is ample proof on why you can't trust American "leftists"/"progressives"/etc.

The jingoism runs deep and there is no low they want drop to to defend their country and their golden idols.

You could just admit that Sanders can be wrong, but so many just chose to go "actually, he is not wrong, the US sometimes supports democracies instead of dictators."

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

Bless this old man's heart, I only wish it were true

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