> Well I hate to disparage a large group of people, but how often have you spoken to an American who understands this type of social-legal history of the country, and values it?
Quite often, and the answer is not many. It's why I've returned to a frankly elitist worldview, because this seems to be a historical pattern when power is diffused too widely. The lesson of our age may be that the Chinese political system, which seeks to restrit political competition within a small, carefully-selected group, is fitter than the American experiment.
You think the lesson that the president of a democratic country is amassing power and becoming less Democratic is to just go all the way and remove democracy?
I'll additionally note that China has famously not handled some of its major protests well and uh, calls in the military.
> China has famously not handled some of its major protests well and uh, calls in the military
Agreed. I'm saying if we're accepting this as precedent, a Presidential republic is not a stable system. We either reject the military being called in to quell protests. Or we accept it as precedent and revise our system of government to remove that power from the madness of crowds.
Why won't the Chinese system just collapse eventually? You have a small elite who perhaps currently are well-selected (besides the point) but what is preventing that elite from leaving the reins to someone who is not so good? With the added effect that the incompetent ruler will call upon the reputation for competence built up by previous rulers?
Seems like it's just cultural norms all the way down. If people want to take advantage of the system, they can break these norms while pretending to be what they used to be.
The political system that brought us Wolf Warrior Diplomacy? Being an authoritarian uniparty doesn’t make them immune to seeking political capital one way or another, and they’ve dipped into the “encouraging jingoistic nationalism” part of that playbook plenty.
Quite often, and the answer is not many. It's why I've returned to a frankly elitist worldview, because this seems to be a historical pattern when power is diffused too widely. The lesson of our age may be that the Chinese political system, which seeks to restrit political competition within a small, carefully-selected group, is fitter than the American experiment.