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If by "democracy" you mean the pro-forma elections held with ever increasing participation from the organs of government and the commanding heights of the economy, I agree.
If by "democracy" you mean real mass participatory politics with the people consulted at least about major decisions, I disagree. If that ever existed, it will not for some time now that power is coalescing. None of us alive today will ever see a more participatory government.
What does this even mean? Elections are that consultation, and the electorate gets to decide what the 'major decisions' are by the salience of any particular issue come election time. Any more specific consultation than that is hardly necessary for a meaningful democracy, hence why every successful democracy ever has been a representative one.
This is bullshit propaganda for the ruling class of liberal democracy.
The people are never intentionally consulted about important issues, and when they are and vote against the wishes of the elite, their will is ignored in practice or slow walked to oblivion.
When were the European people's consulted on immigration? And those few times they were consulted about higher EU integration they said no and were summarily ignored.
Americans keep desperately voting to end their foreign wars and the elite will literally have generals disobey the people they elect to conserve foreign entanglements.
The idea of popular sovereignty is a fiction as self evidently self serving by now as the divine right of kings.
Perhaps not intentionally, but elections are a de facto consultation on the biggest issues anyway. The latter part of the statement just isn't so universally, or even generally, true as you suggest. Take immigration. Every election in a European nation was a consultation around the time of the refugee crisis; Germans could have voted for AfD if they felt that strongly, but they mostly didn't so more Merkel it was.
Concerning EU integration I assume you are referring to the Denmark Maastricht referendum, but I don't think it proves your point. As a result of the referendum they negotiated several crucial opt-outs including on defence and currency, then they put that changed agreement to another referendum and won fairly comfortably. So score one for liberal democracy, if anything.
Also; Obama did end the Iraq war? So not sure what the 'foreign entanglements' bit is about. If it's referring to Trump, them that isn't evidence of deep state interference, just of the fact that Trump is a moron who had no idea how to work the levers of power.
What do you call it when generals lie about the number of troops stationed in Syria to their president?
Anyway, this makes the whole idea unfalsifiable. Anyone that the deep state successfully hinders is automatically a moron who doesn't know how to work the levels of power by this logic.
Having read about that now it seems fairly small fry. Leaving under 8-900 troops where they led Trump to believe it was below 4-500. They still probably shouldn't have done it but hardly a grave subversion of democracy.
I don't think so. Successful apparent 'deep state hindrance' of an otherwise competent politician would be genuine cause for concern, whereas there is plenty of other evidence to indicate that Trump was just an idiot.
The dude that posted a bunch of classified documents on Discord doesn't seem like big deal to me either, in the grand scheme of things, but somehow the whole system came down on him like a tonne of bricks.
If someone's hindered at every step, won't he look like an idiot no matter what? How do you tell whether or not he's actually competent?
Well in all of his other affairs/experience as a politician/legislator/governor (as in someone who governs, not literally a 'governor'). In fairness though on some skim re-reading it doesn't seem that on Afghanistan there was that much thwarting. After all he got it done in the end.
I thought that was a joint Trump-Biden thing? Trump started the retreat, but Biden saw it through to the end, and going purely on memory, he surprised everyone with that move. It does show the establishment isn't omnipotent, but also that a lot of stars have to align for the common people to get their way.
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