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NauenThen

A "backsliding democracy"

The mountains of western North Carolina, November 2016.

This is so depressing.

 

According to the Global State of Democracy 2021 report from the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, "The United States, the bastion of global democracy, fell victim to authoritarian tendencies itself, and was knocked down a significant number of steps on the democratic scale." 
 
More than a quarter of the people in the world live in democratically backsliding countries, that is, nations seeing a gradual decline in the quality of their democracy, thanks to restricting free speech and weakening the rule of law.

Who do they blame? Take a guess. (The pandemic hasn't helped either, globally.)
 
The report does say democracy is resilient, with protest and civic action fighting repression around the world. 

 

The depressing part is how many people are OK with it, as long as no one makes them wear a mask to tamp down a pandemic. 

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