> I don't understand why Americans continue believing that democracy is the only way for every population in the world

They don't! The majority voted for the guy who wants to, admittedly (multiple times), be a dictator and is huge fan of other dictators. If he finds a way to stay for a 3rd term his most loyal followers along with all the republicans in Congress will be just fine with it.

>I don't understand why Americans continue believing that democracy is the only way for every population in the world

Well, ideology. I believe my way is the only way for every population in the world too, and I fight for it to happen. Of course, each place adapts to their own condition, but I believe my core ideology is the way for humanity as a whole, and I believe it is the same for people who defend western american-style democracy.

Because a government has no power to tell the people what to do if the people did not vote for it to be there. There is no alternative.

people might not be excited about democracy, but they are about individual rights and freedoms

people can tell when their rights are being unjustly infringed upon, even without the verbiage.

democracy is just a handy way of working with individual rights

> Or the Chinese, for that matter?

The marched for it en masse in 1989?

Russians and Chinese are also people. They deserve to rule themselves.

> Why would Russians want democracy?

Could be something to do with almost 400 years under czar heel and then 70 years under commie repressions and mismanagement that yielded one of the worst crises in the history of the country that is still being mentioned with fear (90s, brrrr).

> There have been zero democratic impulses in their societies across hundreds, even thousands of years.

> Russia

What the am I even reading. Educate yourself before making such claims. Decembrist movement, 1905 revolution, 1917 provisional government, constant unrest after the death of mustached cunt, perestroika. Navalny recently died in prison for fighting for democracy, ffs. The only reason why we're having current Russia is because the West royally fucked up by not economically supporting them in 90s and allowing oligarchs to usurp vast soviet empire resources.

> I don't understand why Americans continue believing that democracy is the only way for every population in the world

It's not Americans, it's educated people who believe in personal liberties.

> Why would Russians want democracy

Because they would have a choice if they want to be robbed blind by a bunch of oligarchs, and if they want to be sanctioned off from the world because the supreme leader decided he wants to kill and maim a million Russians to achieve nothing more than killing Ukrainian civillians.

> There have been zero democratic impulses in their societies across hundreds, even thousands of years

Absurdly bad historic revisionism. Russia had democratic impulses in 1917 and 1990, both hijacked and went nowhere. China's 1911 revolution was also overtly democratic in nature, but was also hijacked.

The marketing pitch of Western "democracy" has always been that you can criticise your government freely and the government won't jail you or murder you.

Also, consumer goods.

The voting and multiple-branches-checks-and-balances elements are sidelines.

Currently none of those promises are true in the US. The government is murdering and jailing people for whimsical and self-indulgent reasons, the consumer economy is about to crash, and the only checks-and-balances are the checks going straight to the Emperor's private accounts.

To be fair, there's some judicial pushback, and some political friction.

But Senate and Congress are wholly captured, the opposition is flaccid and foreign-funded, media independence is a myth, and the last time The People had any real influence on policy was the 70s. Possibly.

I have no idea if China is "better". From a distance China seems to be doing much better at building useful things and making long term plans.

But ruling cliques always seem to end up being run by psychopaths, so my expectations for humanity from China's rulers aren't any higher than those for the US.

I mean the American people who will cry about humans rights records in China will also watch masked government agents shoot down their own citizens just because they're suspected to be illegal immigrants

It would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad

> their elected representatives

Yes? The US president is elected, and while you or I might the system would be better if presidents didn't have quite so much authority... we know the system works this way when we vote.

You can't force change, sure, but that doesn't mean you can't be part of it. Individuals can and do join political parties and become influential within them. Political parties win elections and ultimately set policy which can start to change things.

None of those things happen quickly, and most people don't succeed in their attempt to do it. That doesn't mean it's not possible. I'd argue that it's a feature of the system that the system makes it hard to change course - it averages out the extremes.

Saying stupid things isn't outrageous indeed.

Questioning democracy unfortunately is a very common agenda by certain countries that don't want their own people to realize how much they are getting screwed by authoritarianism. But in the end it's like saying people have a "right" to get fucked over as long as it helps me. It's just a distraction. If you watch this sort of stuff closely, you'll find there has been a huge uptick online with pro-China content lately. Probably not a coincidence that Xi has told his army to be ready to invade Taiwan by next year. If Trump keeps chickening out and fumbling Iran so bad, they will probably seize the opportunity before the US or NATO have a chance to reorganize themselves into something that could actually rival China. They already have the largest navy in the world by now and they are not done building up their strength.

Assuming that China is not officially a 100% authoritarian dictatorship takes some serious mental gymnastics or hardcore brainwashing by propaganda channels. In fact forget media manipulation. A simple look at what they did to their constitution would already tell you everything you need to know. The US might be moving in this same direction under Trump, but it sure as hell isn't there yet. And if they do try to do the same, there is a good chance for another civil war. So while China is already lost, there is still some level of hope for the US.

China has one proletarian party. The US has two bourgeois parties. One might think the ideal would be to have one bourgeois party, and one proletarian party, but that hasn't seemed to work out anywhere.

The two parties couldn't be more different today. Republicans are basically an authoritarian party that would be more at home in a place like Russia - or China - today.

That being said, democracies are about generating consensus between factions with otherwise irreconcilable differences.

There should be overlap on many fronts - that's kind of a feature, not a bug - at least in many cases.

> our so-called "democracy" (quotes intended, read: "21st century western systems")

Do not conflate the broken American political system, the semi-broken British one, and the whole rest of the "west". Each country has its own political system, and they are wildly different.

> crushing dissent

Democracies are good at crushing dissent? Compared to other political systems? That's just not true. All other political systems rely on universal truth and unwavering trust in a person / religion / clique of people, who can do no wrong and can never be criticised.

> There's a reason this "democracy" is very diligent at discouraging association and unionizing

What? You are probably talking about a specific democracy, and the most broken one at that.