To be fair, they’re (understandably) under martial law which has been extended in 90 day increments since 2022 with parliamentary approval. Elections aren’t to be held under martial law per Ukranian law, and there have been
referendavotes held among the Rada to determine if elections should be held, which failed.Edit: referendum would entail direct democracy. That isn’t what happened - it was just a vote by the legislature.
Genuine questions:
Was he seemingly fairly elected originally, and did he hold elections previously? (I don’t know how Ukrainian elections work or how long he was in office before 2022)
How “in control” is he of the parliament / the referenda determining elections? Is it a Trump situation where all his buddies are in position to say, “sure! give him all the power!”, or is there more separation?
I’m admittedly relatively uninformed in the conflict, but I will say it was interesting seeing the general opinion of Lemmy go from “Slava Ukraini, fuck Russian Nazis, here’s some footage of Russian teenagers getting blown up with drones, Trump bad for not wanting to give aid” to “Zelensky is a fascist war criminal and also a Nazi and dumb American liberals are bad for siding with them” seemingly overnight. The switch happened a while ago but it was apparently unanimous.
the general opinion of Lemmy go from “Slava Ukraini, fuck Russian Nazis, here’s some footage of Russian teenagers getting blown up with drones, Trump bad for not wanting to give aid” to “Zelensky is a fascist war criminal and also a Nazi and dumb American liberals are bad for siding with them” seemingly overnight. The switch happened a while ago but it was apparently unanimous.
Lemmy has always had people who took the second position, and still has people who take the first position. There has been a general shift, but it was neither sudden nor unanimous.
When I first joined Lemmy, those that held the second opinion were down voted en masse and we’re always lambasted as Russian trolls and Nazi sympathizers. I never saw a pro Russia / anti Ukraine post or comment with positive votes. Nowadays I don’t think I see many explicitly “pro Russia” posts but there’s a good number of anti Ukraine posts that are relatively high on the front page, and most pro Ukraine comments have at least one upvoted reply calling them a liberal or pro-fascist.
I didn’t necessarily mean unanimous as in, “everyone now has this opinion”, so much as “the hive mind has decided that we now upvote this opinion and down vote that one”. Like, there’s Trump supporters on Lemmy, whenever they comment anything pro-Trump it’s kind of a given (not necessarily saying a good one) that it’s going to get downvoted, and most things critical of him will get upvoted even if it’s not the most accurate or ingenuous criticism. To me, it very much seemed like one week it was “upvote Ukraine, downvote Russia!”, and the next it was “downvote Ukraine, Russia…🤷🏽♂️!”. Somewhere around the Iran shitshow.
Might just be a matter of what coms you’re reading
Was he seemingly fairly elected originally, and did he hold elections previously? (I don’t know how Ukrainian elections work or how long he was in office before 2022)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Ukrainian_presidential_election
Zelensky was elected with a fairly overwhelming majority of nearly 75%. He was particularly supported in the east of Ukraine. He hasn’t held elections himself because Russia invaded the country.
Ukrainian electoral law prohibits elections during wartime. If it’s too unsafe, one can even argue that the security situation prevents free and fair elections, thus making an election under such circumstances unconstitutional. Zelensky wields significant authority in the country, but it’s not because he seized it, it’s because the country is politically fairly united due to the war. The Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies have taken aim at some high-level allies of Zelensky (though not the man himself, not that there are credible allegations or something), and thus far Zelensky has allowed the investigations and prosecutions.
The whole “Zelensky is a Nazi” thing is part of the Russian propaganda narrative. Ukraine’s history contains a fair few attempts at independence, and in more recent times against the Soviet Union. Back in the day, Ukrainian independence groups were ideologically aligned with the main enemy of the Soviets, which was Nazi Germany. This is the whole “Banderite” term being flung around: fascist groups who fought against the Soviets for Ukrainian independence.
Ukraine still regards these people as heroes for fighting against the Soviets. Their fascist ideology is mostly ignored, even by Zelensky (a Jewish man himself). Even today there are far-right groups in Ukraine. Zelensky has essentially recruited these people in the fight against Russia since they are fervent nationalists. Putin uses this as “evidence” that Ukraine is a fascist state, and that the Russian attack on Ukraine is as virtuous as the Soviet defense against the Nazis.
In reality, actual fascist ideology isn’t a widely held belief in Ukraine, and the parties that tried to run in the election espousing far-right views did not do well. The largest far-right party, Svoboda, received a mere 1.65% of the vote for their presidential candidate.
Sorry but I got the hick.
The whole “Zelensky is a Nazi” thing is part of the Russian propaganda narrative.
I would personally disagree, not completely but I feel it’s incorrect. I would ask, is Zelensky leading a country with fascist ideology? Let’s see…
Ukrainian independence groups were ideologically aligned with the main enemy of the Soviets, which was Nazi Germany.
Well, that’s concerning, no?
This is the whole “Banderite” term being flung around: fascist groups who fought against the Soviets for Ukrainian independence
The “Banderite” term refers to Stepan Bandera.
Bandera remains a highly controversial figure in Ukraine. Many Ukrainians hail him as an example, or as a martyred liberation fighter, while other Ukrainians, particular in the south and east, condemn him as a fascist or Nazi collaborator whose followers, called Banderites, were responsible for massacres of Polish and Jewish civilians during World War II.
Bandera in 2010 was awarded as “Hero of Ukraine”. He is in traditional folk Ukrainian music. In October 2007, the city of Lviv erected a statue dedicated to Bandera. On 1 January 2014, Bandera’s 105th birthday was celebrated by a torchlight procession of 15,000 people in the centre of Kyiv and thousands more rallied near his statue in Lviv. In 2021, the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory under the authority of the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture, included Bandera, among other Ukrainian nationalist figures, in Virtual Necropolis, a project intended to commemorate historical figures important for Ukraine.
Ukraine still regards these people as heroes for fighting against the Soviets.
Well, that’s concerning pt.2
Their fascist ideology is mostly ignored, even by Zelensky (a Jewish man himself).
Bibi looking at your comment like 👀
Even today there are far-right groups in Ukraine. Zelensky has essentially recruited these people in the fight against Russia since they are fervent nationalists.
Well, that’s concerning pt.3
In reality, actual fascist ideology isn’t a widely held belief in Ukraine
How the U.S. Has Empowered and Armed Neo-Nazis in Ukraine
Nazi Symbols on Ukraine’s Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of History
Nazis in Ukraine: Seeing through the fog of the information war
In reality, actual fascist ideology isn’t a widely held belief in Ukraine
The Azor group tied party got about 1% in popular election.
Is 1% a widely held belief?
It’s a metric to gauge the feelings towards fascists ideology. Yes, 1% for a strictly confirmed military Nazi battalion? Yes it is a lot.
It’s a metric to gauge the feelings towards fascists ideology.
What country are you from? Or alternatively, which government/organisation do you feel is doing the good work? Let’s check if that country/org has a far righters and what is the feeling of other citizens towards their far righters.
Yes, 1% for a strictly confirmed military Nazi battalion? 1% for far right group, not for the battalion. And having ONLY 1% of far righters or nationalists in any country is frankly better than I expected.
Oh, sorry, my bad, I wrote that to agree with you. My bad for not being clear enough
Do you think Ukraine should allow the invasion and surrender, if a large portion of their support comes from Nazi sympathizers? I’m not trying to rage bait or or pull a “So yOu thInK thIS tHEn?!” I’m genuinely trying to understand the other side of the argument.
Like, I agree with you, it’s obviously not “good” to have those fucks on your side. But it’s really easy for me to say that while I’m sitting on my ass in my comfortable house thousands of miles away from conflict. If I were the leader of a country being invaded by a much larger force, and I had essentially a militia in my country ready to fight and defend it, and my options were “use the militia or watch your nation burn”, I’d probably be in the same position…
And I will try to reply in a normal way, I promise. I already got this same question discussing the same topic (not saying someone is repeating a propaganda they did not understand, but you know… here we are again.)
Do you think Ukraine should allow the invasion and surrender, if a large portion of their support comes from Nazi sympathizers?
This question makes a big assumption that it’s hard to ignore. Because “if a large portion of their support comes from Nazi” we have only two options: either you don’t have people fit for combat that are not nazi in your entire country (so you are a leader of a nazi country) or they are not all nazi and you are picking the bad ones for… reasons?
we are also ignoring that we are discussing an “if” questions. So yes, we can make up any reality we want.
Like image asking: “what man? Hitler either had no choice but to create the SS or his country would be destroyed!”
??? I mean, okay good… what do you want me to tell you…
@[email protected] the nazi thing is not propaganda; the united states congress literally banned weapons sales to ukraine because of heir nazis proclivities. their first attempt to do so was back in 2015 – ask yourself how are you 11 years slower than congress in recognizing this?
Thank you for the good faith response, promise I’m not a parrot for anyone lol.
In my (uninformed) view, it isn’t so much that, “Ukraine only has Nazis capable of fighting”, so much as it’s, “Russia is a way bigger country with a larger army, we need literally everyone we’ve got, even the Nazis”.
Like if the entire country was rallying behind a Nazi flag and they were tossing people in concentration camps and making plans to genocide another group it’d obviously be a different story, but they’re trying to kick people out of their own land, and as far as I know (again, not terribly far) they don’t have plans to keep going afterwards. If that were the case… Yeah, maybe Russia should just take em all out. Not a fan of Russia, but less of a fan of Nazis.
The Hitler analogy isn’t a fair one because Germany was an aggressor. The argument can’t be made that they were in the same situation that Ukraine is in.
Like if the entire country was rallying behind a Nazi flag and they were tossing people in concentration camps and making plans to genocide another group it’d obviously be a different story
I’ll just point that the rallying behind a Nazi flag is not exactly how things go in reality. MAGAs use the USA flag for the majority, the Brazilian far right tried to stole the Brazilian soccer uniform as a their symbol(which is the country flag colors), the Ukraine banderites was using the Ukraine flag(with the nazi spin).
it’s, “Russia is a way bigger country with a larger army, we need literally everyone we’ve got, even the Nazis”.
That’s a lot of fascists tho. Also, what a depressing and shitty situation to be in. If that was the case and we want to be shiny warriors of justice, we should at least talk about it.
Like if the entire country was rallying behind a Nazi flag and they were tossing people in concentration camps and making plans to genocide another group it’d obviously be a different story
Ukraine has always been a very divided country (east/west) and the central government has been hostile towards Russian majority oblasts (and there are since Russia is a neighbour). There is whole wiki page about Ukrainization which itself it’s a strange concept, no? Ukraine and the Ukrainian language come from Russian, it was the most beloved region during the URSS, little Russia was called. Why all this hostility, why the ukrainization? It’s like doing an irlandization of British people living in Irland. That sounds insane no?
The argument can’t be made that they were in the same situation that Ukraine is in.
But look now how far we went, from “Putin is crazy dictator who just wants war” to “he might be right about the de-nazification of Ukraine”. Also this is almost literally the meme where the guy tattoos a swastika to prove he’s not a Nazi.
I’m not saying he’s right, but if my next door neighbour calls my dead mother a whore everyday and one day I punch him in the face, that’s still violence but he deserves it. You won’t catch me crying for nazis, that’s all.
My two cents as a western European: several things can be true at once. Russia is still the agressor, starting with the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Zelenskyy was elected shortly after that, replacing a puppet regime that was in place for quite some time (although that’s just what we’ve been told, again I’m not Ukrainian so I haven’t followed a lot of it).
Zelenskyy does have some folks in government that are his unconditional allies but that’s uniform in politics. His current role is that of a caricature he’s become since he was painted as some sort of hero in 2022, where he made some correct PR decisions. Now that he shares a stage with the US’s odd characters, his job has become somewhat bizarre so he’s fully aware he needs to be looking more at the EU. He’s always been pro-EU and wanted to join as soon as he took power.
This shift you speak of came from lemmy.ml or lemmygrad, but their users also spill over into world since those instances have mostly been defederated because of the baseless accusations towards Ukraine. What is based in reality is that there in extremists in Ukrainian ranks that have, let’s say, unorthodox views, but their main objective is still to just fight Russia out of Ukraine.
I think that for most of lemmy, people are just getting more or less bored of voicing their support, making it easier for pro-Russian voices to prevail. But it’s usually pretty much troll-ey ragebait and I think a lot of lemmings just downvote and move on. Plus, lemmy and piefed have pretty decent filtering options making it easier to just block content you’re tired of seeing.
starting with the annexation of Crimea in 2014
That is the ukrainian october 7
My assumption is that the Russian psyops teams discovered Lemmy and have been influencing opinions, the same as they have previously on Facebook.
The communists have been on Lemmy since the beginning.
My assumption is that the NATO/nafo psyops teams utilize reddit and communities like .world and have been influencing opinions, the same as they have previously on Facebook.
Of course it is, liberal vanity and solipsism means you cannot possibly countenance the prospect of an actual person disagreeing with you unless money has changed hands.
Yes, because you’re an extremist who can’t imagine anyone genuinely disagreeing with you
Hahahaha
It would be naive to believe otherwise. Stay vigilant, and disconnect when you can. This shit is poison
dont try to argue with the red army on lemmy. they cannot take any reasoning, lol. it seems like they dont know anyone from the Ukraine and only care about spewing russian Propaganda…
dont try to argue with the white army on lemmy. they cannot take any reasoning, lol. it seems like they dont know anyone from the proletariat and only care about spewing tsarist Propaganda…
Why are you on lemmy? Is anyone forcing you or paying you to be on lemmy?
Who is the third from the left?PS: Sorry that was politically incorrect, let me rephrase my question: Who is the second from the far right?
Kier Starmer, aka Kid Starver and Kiev Sturmer
Aka Queer Harmer
It’s just a bourgeois democracy.
And the reason they haven’t had an elections is because they don’t want this guy to be in charge?
I wonder if I’ll be down voted?
You’re saying that of they held an election, people would either vote for Putin or someone that is pro Russia? I thought Ukraine was united against him…
My favorite trope is how libs will inevitably start screeching about Russia when faced with the fact that their ideology is midwifing fascism.
Maybe i can think your meme is dumb while also agreeing that the people pictured are libs that I don’t like. I just don’t like dishonesty and your meme is just a dishonest smear instead of something with legitimate or logical basis. You’re crowing about how societies self-govern while under invasion and idk how anyone other than fellow leftists are supposed to glean any meaning from this. How would your society select its leaders and continue to operate under such circumstances? I’m noticing the lack of any ideas being expressed here other than “liberals bad”, which we all already know. This meme is just a lazy preach-to-the-choir meme and a waste of your propaganda efforts, really.
The only dishonesty here is in your own comment. We know what alternative systems to liberalism are, and there existing socialist states today. Pretending like nothing better is possible and nobody is offering any alternatives is the height of dishonesty.
everyone who dislikes oligofascism is a lib, lada is a premium auto brand, salo is dog food, we need to send our notorious skinhead division to defeat them because they are skinheads, etc
Anybody who starts talking about Russia to distract from what’s happening in their own liberal state descending into fascism is indeed a lib. It’s amazing how intellectually impoverished you people are that you think your transparent straw man is going to convince anyone. Nobody was talking about Russia here at all. It doesn’t matter what Russia is like, that’s not the standard you’re being held to. But of course liberal have no standards and stand for absolutely nothing.
What I find more amusing is that either is idiots trying to talk about Putin/Russia or people focusing on “doesn’t hold elections”, few people talking about the other leaders with abysmal approval.
It’s always deflection with libs, these people are utterly incapable of honestly engaging with any criticism.
supporting fascism to own the libs for… facilitating the rise of fascism. galaxy-brain stuff on display here. not a liberal, btw
not a liberal, btw
definitely a neoliberal
ardent communist rofl
if platner can call himself a leftist; you too can call yourself a communist despite espousing unquestionably neoliberal points of view. lol
lmfao nobody is supporting fascism to own the libs here, that’s just an idiotic straw man you came up with being utterly unable to engage with the argument honestly
oh man i clicked on your profile after reading this. You know the CCCP has be supplanted by something different, right? I’m sure the gazprom execs are thrilled to have your support, though.
You’re the only one talking about modern Russia here further highlighting your utter lack of intellectual integrity. Pathetic.
This totally makes sense if we consider the fact that many westerners don’t consider nonwesterners to be people.
Colonizers can’t choose the presidents of sovereign nations anymore, the people there do the choosing now, and that makes the colonizers furious.
140% of the people choose Putin every time
Why make up obvious lies? Truth not in your favor?
Did putin pay you to say that
Genuine psychosis at this point
Do you really, genuinely believe that 140% bullshit?
I’m confused by the comment? Putin is trying to colonize Ukraine. Putin mad because they had a free election to elect the person who is holding his own against an ageing wana be world power in a war going on for years that was supposed to be over in days. Also Putin rig’s his own elections so him demanding is bit well, fix your own shit before you fix someone else. Oh wait Putin does fix his own elections.
The Russian Federation is not trying to colonize Ukraine. Their goal is NATO neutrality, and annexation of the four oblasts, which are largely pro-Russian. This is a response to the ethnic repressions against Russians in the Donbass following the coup of Yanukovych in 2014, and the ensuing secession of Donetsk and Luhansk and the civil war that followed.
The war was never supposed to be over in days. This was circulated as a means to humiliate Russia, but all talks of an attack lasting days either came from many years before 2022, or from the west.
As for Putin rigging elections, this might be true, but we also know that he is legitimately popular in Russia. The nationalists are most popular, followed by the communists. The pro-western liberals like Navalny was are in the minority and have no real support base.
This goes against my current view of the situation. The NATO expansion is somewhat understandable, not enough for a war perhaps, but unsure.
Care to point me in the direction to read more about this?
What in particular do you question? It’s a complex and ongoing subject, so there’s no one-stop shop for it. The closest I can do is point you to threads like this one.
Thanks, exactly what I was looking for! 😄 As a Norwegian pretty much everyone sides with Ukraine, and I have not really challenged that view for myself. I have just accepted the narrative “Russia = imperialistic & bad. Ukraine = democracy & good”. So it’s probably a good idea to try to understand it
Understandable! It’s one of the more difficult topics for westerners like us to grasp, and it took me some time to come around to the ML consensus on the Russian Federation (ie, it isn’t imperialist if we accept Lenin’s analysis, and actually is anti imperialist even if run by bourgeois oligarchs).
Good on you for being open to non-western propaganda sources. Curiosity seems to be mostly dead in the lemmy liberal scene.
The amounts of war crimes alone, even if we were to accept that whole ‘supressing NATO’ excuse, which is bullshit, are enough to stop any goodwill towards Russia.
Wiki article with the whole Putin talk video
It was bullshit all along, and Ukraine would ignore NATO if Russia left it alone, which they never did, and ignored previous peace deals, yada yada, you don’t care anyway.
Talking about popularity in any state without free media is always a joke, including in US.
Kiev has committed massive numbers of war crimes. If your point is that committing war crimes should be a measuring stick, and the side with fewer war crimes is correct, then this is horribly reductive. Ukraine was fine with Russia until the west backed a coup in 2014 and empowered neofascists, this is why the whole civil war erupted and transitioned to war with Russia in 2022.
As for popularity, no state has “free media.” The people legitimately support Putin, in general, though the communists have been gaining ground.
What war crimes has Ukraine commited?
From the thread I linked elsewhere:
- https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/40th-periodic-report-human-rights-situation-ukraine-treatment-prisoners
- https://www.npr.org/2023/01/31/1152743054/human-rights-watch-ukraine-landmines
- CNN coverage of Donbas in 2014 https://xcancel.com/paulius60/status/1611148483859255296
- UN finds no genocide https://news.yahoo.com/un-commission-fails-evidence-russias-160057021.html
- https://mronline.org/2023/07/30/russia-donbass-and-the-reality-of-the-conflict-in-ukraine/
- Stoltenberg admits NATO was in Ukraine since 2014 https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_211698.htm
- https://www.kanekoa.news/p/osce-reports-reveal-ukraine-started
- HRW https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/10/20/ukraine-widespread-use-cluster-munitions
- Donbas documentary 2016 https://youtube.com/watch?v=bN68OfFKaWs
- clip from the doc https://odysee.com/@justsomeclips:2/trade-union-burning-2014:8
- Ukraine in Donbas https://ingaza.wordpress.com/2022/08/10/what-ive-seen-of-ukraines-war-crimes-against-civilians-in-the-donbass-over-the-years/
- https://thegrayzone.com/2023/09/06/ukraines-arms-supplier-maidan-massacre/
- Poroshenko https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHWHqj8g7Bk
Essentially, killing civilians, torturing prisoners, shelling civilian areas, similar tactics to the IDF with respect to the Donbass. Makes sense considering Israel and Ukraine occupy similar roles for western imperialism, both are staunch allies, and both are run by fascists.
Ukraine would ignore NATO if Russia left it alone
It’s entirely not Ukraine’s choice. The west through institutes like the NED couped the government in 2014 with this end goal in mind (a spear tip against Russia and another block in the containment). If the banderites through some act of god decided to return to being neutral like yanukovych they’d just get couped again and replaced with the next down the list group happy to sacrifice as many Ukrainians as it takes to satisfy their western backers.
Wow, it’s like I’m on reddit all over again. Propaganda hits hard.
Can you elaborate? Since when did Reddit have a sizable communist userbase?
I said the absolute contrary. There’s nothing communist about Russia nowadays. It’s as capitalist as it gets.
Of course Russia is no longer socialist. My point is that what I said is the standard communist stance on the Russian Federation, that of critical support.
No way!!! No one told us!!!
You are the master of fractal wrongness.
You’re overthinking it, my comment was purely about the picture you posted
And the picture was about the issue at hand
Nope, it wasn’t.
You know the meme with the donkey with swirly eyes screaming “RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA”?
That’s what the picture reminded me of.
Nobody who understands how elections work would ever post this.
It’s embarassing, and quite obviously centered around Zelenskyy, with also unfair title, as if it’s his fault.
It’s not, fuck you and anyone who defends this.
And yes, the whole ML is such a sad excuse of a russian propaganda.
If there was ever a psyop to bury any chance of a communist revolution, this is it.
when embarassing, and unfair, and fuck you, and sad, and russian propaganda, and psyop
= when the loser is sore
Why would Marxism-Leninism be a psyop to prevent communist revolution when it’s been by far the most successful ideology and methodology for establishing socialism in history?
Communists are a psyop to turn you against the guys wearing swastikas and killing 14,000 unarmed people, because there will never be a communist revolution if we don’t support those guys.
Oh so many downvotes. Boot licking Putin fanbots roam wild over here.
Putin is Democratic or what.
whataboutism
it’s the real and only reason, you know, being attacked in a war
Putin was chosen by Russian oligarchs after the second sovereign default in 10 years.
He used to carry luggage for the mayor of St Petersburg, Sobchak.
An Islamic caliphate started a civil war in the South of Russia before he was chosen, this is why Russian oligarchs needed a man with a military backgound.
multi party system, you get all the shades / 32bit if you like 🙌🏻. two party system result in us vs them (see US), only black and white / 1bit system.
those are leaders of the free and democratic world right there . also why cant zelnsky dress normal
he’s a method actor
Coalitions? Also not sure how Kid Starver’s number is calculated, labour does have house majority.
“Ukrainian’s deserve a vote” also “democracy is a sham” - pick one, bro
Western implementation of democracy is indeed a sham while the working class majority do deserve a genuine vote is not the contradiction you seem to think it is bro.
And yet you hold up no example. Empty words
Last I checked, China, Vietnam, Cuba, and DPRK exist. I’m sorry that I’ve underestimated the sheer extent of your ignorance on the subject you’re opining on.
There is no way you earnestly believe that China or the DPRK have anything resembling a democracy. If you start yapping about 全社会民主主义 I may actual laugh so hard that I die of an aneurysm
Why not? Both China and the DPRK are democratic, even if their models of democracy are different from liberal democracy.
Oh thank you for educating me on the existence of countries. I shouldn’t have doubted your commitment to honest engagement.
Thank you for admitting you were just trolling earlier and you’re perfectly aware of what the alternatives are.
You seem to lack as much in reading comprehension as you do sense. Accusing people in the comments of trolling when you post these “memes” daily is a nice touch
aww muffin, I’d be so insulted by that if I had a shred of respect for you
You seem to have a grudge
Actually, in a multi party system, it is. If you only have two, or one political flavour you’ll get different results.
The number of parties has fuck all to do with how democratic a particular system is. It’s whose interests the parties represent that matters. In capitalist societies, parties serve the interests of the ruling capital owning class, and the working majority simply gets to pick which member of the exploiting class will rule over them and repress them.
The number of parties influences the percentual result.
You could say that in a 51/49 outcome 49% of the people isn’t represented but it’s still democratic.
I’m Belgian. We hold the world record in government foundations. I know how small percentages work and am pretty sure it’s democracy at work.
Do I like it? Not really, but it still democracy.
Pluralism has nothing to do with whether or not the will of the people is accurately reflected. One party states often have higher democratic representation because the people can more directly influence policy.
Last elections in Poland seen a whooping 17 parties and over 40 independents elected to sejm. However, you could not find a single socialist among them, not to mention communist, all 17 parties and over 40 independents are representing various flavours of liberalism
Excellent point to make. Pluralism isn’t bad in every case, though it can lead to factionalism of course, but the idea that it’s democratic itself is horribly wrong.
Sure. But, the Polish people seem to be happy with a far right representation.
I really don’t care about left or right. I’ve been working with politicians the last 15 years and I’ve met socialist people on the far right and extremely liberal people on the left. The boring centrist seem to get it right more often but they don’t get elected.
Democracy is a compromise. The irony is that by representing everybody partially you’ll never represent anyone fully.
Democracy is rule by the majority, which really means in practice a country where the working classes are in control. Bourgeois “democracy” guises capitalist control in a cloak of electoralism, obscuring unpopular candidates with positive wins in the realm of capitalist controlled elections.
Dude, half of my country has been ruled by elected socialist for 70 years now. Socialists have been part of the federal government since the 2nd World War and in their prime they formed a purple government together with the liberals.
Our most liberal party is struggling to get enough votes to participate in tge elections. What you’re on about?
PTB has a decent and growing foothold in Belgium, which is fantastic, but that’s about as good as it gets in bourgeois democracy, and speaks more to the effectiveness of parties like the PTB than the effectiveness of bourgeois democracy.
In capitalist societies, parties serve the interests of the ruling capital owning class, and the working majority simply gets to pick which member of the exploiting class will rule over them and repress them.
Would you say that extend to elected representatives and from what background they come? E.g. elected representatives not coming from worker class?
One hand you do recognize it’s the class domination that is the actual problem, the root of all evil, and that a socialist injected into said government is socialist in words, not in deeds (if the class domination is not stopped),
but on the other hand every time I read a post from you, you seem to refuse to notice said class domination, blinded by their government words, in selected countries of your choice (or even acknowledge possibility of said class domination, throwing “whataboutism”).
It is hard to take you seriously.
Do give a concrete example of me ignoring class dominance. It’s hard to take people who just make up unsubstantiated personal attacks instead of engaging in honest discussion seriously. Perhaps, you should actually spend the time to learn about these countries instead of making a clown of yourself in public.
When talking about sham democracies (capitalist “democracies”):
You:
Western implementation of democracy is indeed a sham while the working class majority do deserve a genuine vote is not the contradiction you seem to think it is bro.
Last I checked, China, [cut] exist. I’m sorry that I’ve underestimated the sheer extent of your ignorance on the subject you’re opining on.
(Crossed out Vietnam, Cuba and DPRK because I do not know enough about them).
How is that not ignoring class dominance happening in those countries is beyond me (e.g. https://spectrejournal.com/one-should-not-camouflage-capitalist-and-imperialist-china-as-socialist/ , ).
Gig economy? Up and rising. Literally industrial reserve army of low paid workers whose renumeration is artificially kept low, straight from what Marx foretold. Hukou? Used for the same, rural workers migrating to urban centers where they are not registered and exploited as low wage proletariat. Ownership? Vast majority of business in China, according to China, is privately owned. 80% of urban employment, totally private businesses. Technological cartels, like Pinduoduo. Like this fuckery: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/chinese-regulator-fines-confiscates-36-billion-yuan-food-delivery-platforms-2026-04-17/
Food delivery platform was scamming people, was actively acting like a damn mafia, was combatative against the police and judiciary, and did not cooperate with the government … and was fined 1.5% of the profit. No person holding actual power in the company C-level suit suffered any consequences. This shit happened in China, as if it was USA.
How can you be so blind is beyond any rational person.
Oh wow, you really think you’ve discovered something groundbreaking here. Yup, nobody has ever heard of contradictions or commodity production under socialism. You’re the first genius to point out that private ownership and wage labor still exist in China. Truly a revelation that would make Marx weep with joy!
The fact that you think socialism means the immediate abolition of every bourgeois relation overnight tells me your understanding of the subject comes from memes and a cursory skimming of a single Wikipedia paragraph. Socialism is not some sort of an utopia handed down from the heavens. It is a transitional society that emerges from capitalism and is therefore stamped with all the birthmarks of the old society. Commodity production, wage differentials, and even the market economy persist precisely because you cannot wave a magic wand and instantaneously create abundance and perfect class consciousness.
China’s gig economy and the hukou system are real problems and nobody with a functioning brain denies that. But the difference between China and a capitalist country is that the state, led by the Communist Party representing the working class, is actively intervening to regulate, reform, and suppress these contradictions. Hokou reforms are a perfect example of this. The food delivery fine you cited, a mere 1.5% of profit, is indeed insufficient and that is a legitimate criticism. But to present that as evidence that China is simply capitalist is to ignore the fact that the government has the legal and political power to improve the situation which is precisely what they are doing. The very fact that the regulator fined them at all, that the public outcry is taken seriously, that the party openly discusses the need to break monopoly capital, is something no bourgeois state would even pretend to do.
You want a socialist society with zero exploitation, zero inequality, and zero contradictions. That is called communism, and it will take a long time to get there. In the meantime, socialist societies are messy, uneven, and full of tensions just like every human society that has ever existed. That is an argument against socialism that only a person with an utterly infantile understanding of politics and economics could make. Your gotcha list just proves you have the analytical depth of a child.
What are these percentages?
The percent of the vote they got into power by?
Lets re-display that not as a percent of merely the turnout, nor merely the electorate, but as a percentage of the entire populations they purport to represent.
They are approval ratings, not electoral results. Bourgeois democracy regularly fails to put popular candidates in power.
if they are
approval ratings
then
doesn’t hold elections
is not like the others in more than the immediately obvious way.
I didn’t make the meme, I am conveying the intent and explaining the numbers.
How is Trump doing better than them?!!!
Have you seen the average yank
he’s not
Because Trump at least appeals to the feral hog demographic, as opposed to going out of his way to disappoint everyone
We already understand that, the point is that bourgeois democracy is a farce, as it leads to deeply unpopular figures getting elected. Socialist democracy is necessary.
With these numbers, they should be holding new elections.
Though I do agree,
the opinion numbers should be put side at side with election numbers
to showcase how little these politicians care about approval rates once in power.
🎣
Obligatory fuck Putin and his army of deluded defenders.
Zelensky must be planning to be a permanent leader, right? How evil that would be. He might install a puppet for a while then take back control over the country and invade a neighbour without provocation because he’s a pathetic loser with a deluded sense of his country’s military capability.
Wait, am I thinking of someone else? 🤔
At least he isnt winning at the polls with 140% of the vote
He’s not winning at the polls at all!
