The US is not a functioning democracy and therefore effectively not a democracy at all, either.
It's hard to pinpoint exactly when an empire will fall, but the signs seem to be around for a long time prior to that moment, and you basically have the people who recognize those signs, the people who don't, and the people who profit from confusion and disorder that pay a lot of money to both overtly and subtlety convince people that everything is fine.
> The US is not a functioning democracy and therefore effectively not a democracy at all, either.
It's a weird statement because you are jumping from a descriptive statement ("not a functioning democracy") to a normative one (if it's not at least 80% democratic then I have decided that it's not a democracy)
I am getting too old not to notice such rhetorical tricks. Do better.
It's not a rhetorical trick, and I would appreciate the benefit of the doubt. I just didn't feel like writing a larger comment.
The US is 100% not a functioning democracy, and whether something is a thing if it does not function as a thing is actually a deep philosophical argument that goes back thousands of years. Is a chair a chair if it functions as a chair, or simply if I call it a chair? Can a chair which one cannot use as a chair still be a chair? As you can see, I have an opinion on this, at least in this context, but I am not trying to convince anyone else to share this view. However, it is my view and I used it to advance my argument.
It's hard to pinpoint exactly when an empire will fall, but the signs seem to be around for a long time prior to that moment, and you basically have the people who recognize those signs, the people who don't, and the people who profit from confusion and disorder that pay a lot of money to both overtly and subtlety convince people that everything is fine.