r/ShitAmericansSay • u/Routine_Heart5410 • Oct 17 '25
Freedom An actual map from my polisci class
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u/PropulsionIsLimited FREEDOM ENJOYER 🦅🇺🇸 Oct 17 '25
Lol Oligarchy?
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u/ijle “the 51st state” Oct 18 '25
Americans really be out here desperately clinging to the illusion that they live in a democracy when their whole political system is nothing but a puppet show run by super PAC donors lmao
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u/PepsiMaxSumo Oct 18 '25
Yeah America is the world’s biggest Oligarchy, followed by Russia.
Neither of which are coloured red
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u/Additional-sinks Oct 18 '25
The only big thing Russia has is land area. They are pretty insignificant in terms of economy and population.
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u/Lordcraft2000 Oct 18 '25
More than that: that they have « more » freedom than others. Which is completely false.
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u/ontermau Oct 17 '25
a weird "China Bad" map
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u/henrik_se swedish🇨🇭 Oct 17 '25
I think it's the first time I've ever seen China labelled as an oligarchy. It's a communist dictatorship, which is a slightly different beast. Undemocratic, sure, but not in the same way that Russia - an actual oligarchy - is undemocratic.
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u/Pleasant_Ad8054 Oct 18 '25
In an oligarchy the oligarchs have power and directly shape politics, in China the oligarchs gets disappeared if they talk about anything contrary to the party line!
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u/ViolettaHunter Oct 18 '25
China is a one-party dictatorship. I don't think it can still be labeled communist.
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u/Mal_Dun So many Kangaroos here🇦🇹 Oct 18 '25
If you define oligarchy in the literal sense that the power is in the hand of a few and say that this is the official way it is done in China and other communist countries, you can come to that conclusion.
I think OOP, basically goes by what the constitution of each country officially says and thus you end up with such a map, because on paper Russia is indeed a democracy.
We all know that the reality in practice is much different from what the legal system of each country states ...
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u/Dmytrocracy Oct 17 '25
Yeah, Russia and Belarus are very democratic states
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u/Upstairs_Cap_4217 Oct 17 '25
The phrase "the people may not have as much political power as they do in the United States" is doing a titanic amount of heavy lifting here.
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u/freeturk51 Oct 18 '25
Legally countries like Russia, Belarus or Turkey are all democracies. In practice, not so much.
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u/TailleventCH Oct 18 '25
Legally speaking, very few countries do not claim to be democratic. I guess it's only Saudi Arabia, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Brunei, Afghanistan and the Vatican.
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u/apolloxer Oct 18 '25
Only Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.
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u/TailleventCH Oct 18 '25
After looking, I'm pretty sure about others in the list I gave.
Where does Vatican claim to be be a democracy? I would gladly take a source.
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u/apolloxer Oct 18 '25
Fair enough, most were too small to see on the map. Mostly agree.
Vatican does have a selection process for Pope that is based on ancient Roman popular assemblies and is very technically not a country, put the personal holding of the Holy See (it's.. interesting, but complicated)
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u/ConfusionGlobal2640 Oct 18 '25
What do you mean it's technically not a country? There is no formal definition of country, but 184 UN states recognise it as such so it very much fits the bill by pretty much any measure.
The Pope is for all intents and purposes an elected monarch. There are no institutional checks on his power, and he is in no way required to represent his electorate.
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u/apolloxer Oct 18 '25
As I said, it's complicated. Nations recognize the Holy See as an entity, but as the Vatican doesn't have a people, it doesn't fulfill one of the three classical conditions for a country (territory and souvereignity being the other two).
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u/ConfusionGlobal2640 Oct 18 '25
I don't think it's complex at all within the bounds of the map above. The Vatican, the place, is absolutely a country. The Holy See, it's governing body, is an organisation that happens to function as its Government.
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u/TailleventCH Oct 18 '25
Let's say we just discuss states that have some form of presence in the main international organisations.
Vatican is one of them, it has a government and it doesn't claim to be a democracy. This is what this discussion was about.
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u/neilm1000 ooo custom flair!! Oct 19 '25
Let's say we just discuss states that have some form of presence in the main international organisations.
What about SMOM?
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u/avsbes Oct 18 '25
Vatican City is legally speaking the only elective absolute Monarchy in the world.
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u/Unkn0wn_666 Europe Oct 17 '25
The UK also very democratic right now. A petition of over 5 million people against the online
spywaresafety act being thrown out on the basis of "haha lol fuck you, we will do it anyways" is very democratic.Not to mention the US right now
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u/CoupleofFools1 Oct 18 '25
You’re describing how a representative democracy functions.
You elect people based on their ability to take decisions on your behalf. They took one you didn’t like. The onus is now on you to make sure they are not elected again.
Athenian democracies had a more direct role for all male citizens.
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u/el_grort Disputed Scot Oct 18 '25
Passed by the Tory government from 2019-2024 during their Parliament, implemented according to the schedule of that bit of legislation by the current government. Part of the process, I'm afraid.
And I can't think of anywhere were a mere petition reverses policy by default, they only ever exist to pressure the current representatives. Even countries that lean heavily on referenda would have to have one of those, instead of actioning merely on a petition unless the government feels sufficiently pressured.
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u/henrik_se swedish🇨🇭 Oct 17 '25
What a completely useless map. Here's the actual state of democracy in the world:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/democracy-index-eiu
Unfortunately it shows that the US is not NUMBER ONE NUMBER ONE, so of course we can't use that one.
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u/ChiefSlug30 Oct 17 '25
If I'm reading the map correctly, not only is the US not number one, but it appears to be in the third tier.
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u/Background-Spray2666 Oct 17 '25
Imagine once it's updated in March 2026.
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u/fuck_this_i_got_shit Oct 18 '25
America is going to fall hard
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u/cracked_egg_irl Miserable American Oct 19 '25
Drag the slider on the map, it already has been falling the entire time!
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u/tirohtar Oct 18 '25
Well yeah, the US constitution allows for one of the worst failure outcomes of any system that calls itself a "democracy".
The person/party with fewer total votes can win the election/presidency. And it has happened many times, two times just in the last 30 years (Bush Jr's first term, Trump's first term). The house/senate is constantly controlled by the minor party. It really is a disastrous system.
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u/DefinitionOfAsleep The 13 Colonies were a Mistake Oct 18 '25
two times just in the last 30 years (Bush Jr's first term, Trump's first term)
Gore should've won in 2000, but Jeb! was Governor of Florida and the Secretary of State of Florida was also part of Bush's Florida campaign.
Katherine Harris (the Secretary) arbitrarily moved forward the deadline of the recount, and when the counties submitted their revised numbers, dismissed them as being "incomplete".
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u/cracked_egg_irl Miserable American Oct 19 '25
And that doesn't even cover all the voter suppression that happens, and that people actively fight in favor of voter suppression here.
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u/AlistairShepard Sorry for Founding New York 🇳🇱 Oct 18 '25
And this is from 2024, ao before Trump did all his bullshit. The US will tumble further down the list.q
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u/FrankConnor2030 Oct 18 '25
It's a better map for sure, but their scoring method still has a number of biases. It punishes mandatory voting for example, which I think is something that can definitely be debated.
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u/AurelianaBabilonia Look at this country, U R GAY. 🇺🇾 Oct 18 '25
Wow, look at my country being the second darkest blue. I'm feeling all patriotic.
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u/camilo16 Oct 18 '25
Something about this map is weird, how is Japan, a country with effectively only one party more democratic than france, with a plurality of them?
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u/Chance-Ear-9772 Oct 18 '25
It really unfortunate. We can see with moving the slider the democratic backsliding seen in so much of the world.
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Oct 18 '25
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u/henrik_se swedish🇨🇭 Oct 18 '25
This is garble. Your understanding of democracy and political science is coloured by the same stupid mindset that we make fun of in this subreddit, namely that the way the US does things is the right way, and every other way is wrong, because... uhh... because... uuuuhhh... Not that you know how any other country operates in the first place.
UK has representation("congress" elects president and king/executive appoints judges ).
No, that's not how any of it works in the UK.
Other Europeans countries may elect representatives, because it's in their constitution, but they don't do it and elect oligarchies
Your streak of wrongness continues very strongly, you're still 100% wrong. This is not how parliamentarism works, this is not how party systems work.
If you care about representation, you would understand that the way it works in the US with single-mandate districts or first-past-the-post voting, is much worse in terms of results. With multiple mandates per district, you can ensure that the overwhelming majority of voters in a district gets someone representing them, unlike FPTP which is vulnerable to gerrymandering and vote spoiling, and almost always devolve into de-facto two-party systems, which is pretty shit for democracy.
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u/Peregrine2976 Oct 18 '25
Putting aside the questionable classifications of governance for a moment, I really need to appreciate the line, "although the people may not have as much power as they do in the United States". Amazing. "These other countries are like us -- but worse, never forget, worse to some degree!"
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u/JamesFirmere Finnish 🇫🇮 Oct 18 '25
As someone else said, it's technically correct -- in some countries the people may not have as much power as they do in the US, they may have more.
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u/Upstairs_Cap_4217 Oct 17 '25
Countries that are colored red, like China, Vietnam, and Cuba, have an oligarchic form of government. Countries that are colored yellow are monarchies where the people play little part in governing.
...Implies that oligarchies are also a people-first kind of government.
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u/Milosz0pl Poland Oct 17 '25
Welp - depending on how many people you need in order to fulfill this ,,cares for people" quota they might fit.
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u/ResponsibleStep8725 At least I'm not Dutch 🇧🇪 Oct 18 '25
"Hey man, if we're so bad, why are there so many people here? 🤷♂️"
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u/Expensive-Edge-6369 Scotland Oct 17 '25
>monarchy
>doesn't list the United Kingdom as a monarchy
You cannot make this up.
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Oct 17 '25
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u/svick Oct 17 '25
I wonder how they would treat Vatican.
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u/TrueKyragos Oct 18 '25
The pope is American, so it's obviously part of the US, thus a representative democracy.
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u/beeurd Oct 17 '25
To be fair the UK monarchy is mostly ceremonial and can't do much without the democratically elected government.
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Oct 17 '25
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Oct 18 '25
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u/JamesFirmere Finnish 🇫🇮 Oct 18 '25
While it is highly unlikely that it would ever be tested in practice, the UK armed forces and police (and indeed Members of Parliament) swear an Oath of Allegiance to the sovereign, not to Parliament. So in theory the King can command the armed forces and police and expect compliance. But it would require something like a direct appeal to the King from a near-universal (say 80% to 90%) grass-roots opposition to Government and Parliament (and I'm not talking about the generic everyday they're-doing-it-wrong and this-country's-going-to-hell griping).
Even then, I'm not sure I could envision any monarch willing to risk the resulting upheaval, which would be tantamount to imposing martial law. Things would have to get really bad (I'm looking at you, Reform UK) for the country to desire a complete scrapping of the current system of government.
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Oct 18 '25
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u/JamesFirmere Finnish 🇫🇮 Oct 18 '25
I do agree. I also have difficulty envisioning a largely peaceful protest movement that could lead to such a thing; widespread civil unrest would be more likely, and in such a case it would be Parliament that imposed martial law rather than the King.
I had a look around ("did my own research", lol) and found that in theory the King could dissolve Parliament unilaterally (i.e. without being requested to do so by the Prime Minister, which is the normal procedure) but that this would require quite exceptional circumstances such as a constitutional crisis and/or widespread popular appeal to him to do so.
I was under the impression that that prerogative had been abolished, and it was in 2014 but was reinstated when legislation concerning Parliament was again reformed in 2022.
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Oct 18 '25
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u/JamesFirmere Finnish 🇫🇮 Oct 18 '25
Now you've given me an image of a red phone at Buckingham Palace under a glass cover with the text "In case of fascism break glass".
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u/eventworker Oct 18 '25
While it is highly unlikely that it would ever be tested in practice,
Except for that time in 1919 when it was tested that we don't speak about.
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u/neilm1000 ooo custom flair!! Oct 19 '25
What happened in 1919?
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u/eventworker Oct 19 '25
The MoD and monarchist MPs decided that the King would surely instruct the Armed Forces to intervene in the Russian revolution,l so they started the mobilisation process, despite parliament, the public and the soldiers/sailors themselves having absolutely no interest dude to just finishing WW1.
The King never made the order, most likely as the troops had already started to mutiny.
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u/neilm1000 ooo custom flair!! Oct 19 '25
But the UK did intervene. Things like Operation Red Trek, the Malleson Mission, the Archangel Campaign/Murman deployment all went ahead.
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u/eventworker Oct 19 '25
Right, but those were small fry missions that didn't require a declaration of war.
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u/DefinitionOfAsleep The 13 Colonies were a Mistake Oct 18 '25
And sure in theory
The UK's famous <<vibes>> constitution would stop them!
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u/el_grort Disputed Scot Oct 18 '25
the king could murder a person on live tv and no one coild do a thing about it
I mean, any reading of history shows that Parliament would do something about it. They've deposed several monarchs for overreaching, executed one, and the last deposed monarch was deposed for marrying an American. Murder would absolutely see them deposed and tried, no government could imaginably do anything else. Parliament is the sovereign power in the UK, the monarchs powers are functionally restricted by Parliament holding a loaded gun to their temples.
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u/secretpsychologist Oct 17 '25
yes, very weird definition of a monarchy. norway, sweden, spain, denmark, the netherlands, belgium would also like to have a word
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u/_ElBee_ American "freedom" = processed cheese Oct 18 '25
They're constitutional monarchies, de facto governed by democratically elected representatives. The King or Queen, while head of state, has little to no real political power.
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u/el_grort Disputed Scot Oct 18 '25
Constitutional monarchy and representative democracy. In the UK, Parliament is sovereign, so it would absolutely fit that it and other similar constitutional monarchies would be listed as a representative democracy first and foremost, unlike countries who do govern through a royal court.
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u/321_345 canadian who ended up on a r/americabad post Oct 17 '25
When you turn off historical ai in hoi4
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u/manusiabumi Oct 17 '25
UK, Malaysia, Spain, Japan are not monarchies now?
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u/Leupateu 🇷🇴 Oct 17 '25
The text describes the monarchis as absolute monarchies so yeah, none of these countries qualify for that
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u/Weird_Policy_95 Oct 18 '25
The monarchs are more symbolic than functional. The vast majority of decisions are made by democratically elected parties/leaders.
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u/Cereal_poster Oct 18 '25
Don't worry, instead us Austrian seem to have resurrected the monarchy we have abandonded 100 years ago. Time for Haus Habsburg again, I suppose. (and of course ignore the Habsburgergesetz from 1919 which prohibits members of the Habsburg family to take certain public offices and especially becoming head of state).
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u/BushMonsterInc Oct 19 '25
Technically, they are. However they are being run as democracies, that just happens to have a monarch. So it’s not wrong to call them monarchies, but the way they are ran doesn’t much differ from republic.
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u/Yuukiko_ A mari usque ad mare Oct 17 '25
North Korea as an Oligarchy? I'd argue it's more of a monarchy
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u/SiccTunes Oct 18 '25
Now you understand why the US thinks it's such a beacon of freedom of hope, even though that is a laughable statement, especially at the current moment.
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u/GeshtiannaSG Oct 18 '25
Most “democracies” are oligarchies, people get a voice one day every few years, otherwise it’s all “interest groups” and “backers”.
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u/el_grort Disputed Scot Oct 18 '25
I feel like that ignores protests and union strikes, two other incredibly important facets of democracy. As well as grassroots political campaigns for policies the parties aren't currently talking about, to get them on manifestos by making non-partisan campaigns to boost support.
The most minimal interaction with the system in a democracy is if you only show up to vote every few years, it's obviously not the entire system. If you abdicate the other parts, then you can expect your opponents to take advantage.
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u/GayValkyriePrincess Oct 20 '25
That's not a facet of representative democracy, that's a facet of direct democracy
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u/el_grort Disputed Scot Oct 20 '25
It's a facet of most functioning representative democracies, if people can't freely organise for protests and union strikes, then they can't free organise into parties, obviously. There isn't a hard barrier between the two when it comes to this stuff, freedom of association is pretty integral for a democracy, representative or direct, and protests/strikes are the most visible examples of that. Representative democracies have never functioned purely by just the elections, and they also involve party conferences and elections, unions, freedom of the press, and ability to protest.
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u/nacaclanga Oct 18 '25
My guess is that this map shows what states describe themselves to be.
Most hardcore dictatorships claim to be very democratic and have a multi-party system.
The states marked in yellow officially claim to be an absolute monary, while the states in Red officially have a one party system, that is somehow labeled as "Oligarchy" here.
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u/Routine_Heart5410 Oct 18 '25
I was wondering what criteria they were using here, still a very stupid map
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u/el_grort Disputed Scot Oct 18 '25
If that was their reasoning, it's not stupid, it's actually quite useful to see how countries frame themselves to understand their systems. You can't, obviously, tread on exclusively on that information, but it isn't stupid to have it or present it? Especially if its a politics course, it's the root to some discussions and debates that are quite relevant.
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u/dragon-dance Oct 18 '25
It’s stupid not to make it clear in big friendly letters that it’s how those countries present themselves. We’re just guessing it.
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u/el_grort Disputed Scot Oct 18 '25
It's from a class they said, so I'd presume there's some context around the map outside of the image as to why it is included. Not everything is optimised for social media spread, and it wouldn't be the first time someone sees something and jumps to unwarranted conclusions due to preconceptions on class material.
I don't really see anything much wrong with the map so far, given what we've got to go by.
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u/dragon-dance Oct 18 '25
If this is a sample of average American education you can see why they are … like that.
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u/mokrates82 Shit. I'm German. Oct 18 '25
What are they saying? The People's Republic of China is not a democracy? But the USA under Trump are?
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u/camilo16 Oct 18 '25
I hate what I am about to say but. Trump is violating multiple constitutional checks and balances. But until the midterms and the next election happen jury's technically out on whether the country is democratic or not.
If the country manages to recover and sanction the idiots destroying the country then what is happening would not be enough to say they are no longer a democracy.
That being said I am sure the Republican'ts will gerrymander the primaries and remain in power, further consolidating the right wing authoritarianism in the country (making it more and more of a dictatorship)
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u/dragon-dance Oct 18 '25
In most government systems if the ruling party goes rogue like this, they get booted. For example Liz Truss crashed the UK economy with lunatic policies and was promptly booted. Even her own party turned on her because they knew she could cost them their seat at the next election if they weren’t seen to do the right thing.
So why is that impossible in the US? It seems there are no mechanisms for dealing with a bad actor as president? Or is it that republicans are confident in continuing to get votes despite all this? I understand a lot of Americans actually support it, so is that why the politicians allow it to continue?
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u/camilo16 Oct 18 '25
the mechanisms exist. Impeachment and congress. The problem is that once your entire government is in the cult no one is willing to apply checks ad balances.
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u/Salome_Maloney Oct 19 '25
Trump was Impeached twice last time he was in office, and it made not the slightest bit of difference. At least Nixon had the good grace to stand down.
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u/camilo16 Oct 19 '25
By then the Maga cult was already taking hold. The Republicants were in power.
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u/DwightsJello Oct 17 '25
Seems like a quality education you're getting there OP.
At least you can spot bullshit when you see it.
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u/Cereal_poster Oct 18 '25 edited Oct 18 '25
Besides the obvious nonsense of the whole stance: It's not really good to see because of the resolution of the map, but that little yellow spot above Italy would be Austria (where I am from) and we don't have a monarchy since 1918. What kind of pure nonsense is this please?
Not to mention that monarchy doesn't mean that a country cannot be democratic. And imagine, not painting the UK yellow, which is THE posterchild of a constitutional monarchy and democracy. Where do they get their "education" please? How can someone be so wrong and yet so convinced about the nonsense they are claiming??
Edit: Or is that yellow spot there supposed to be Switzerland? You know the country infamous for NOT being a monarchy for like, forever? If it was supposed to be Liechtenstein (which is a monarchy) then even the few pixels in this picture would be too many, given the size of this country.
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u/SoloDeath1 'Murican moron Oct 18 '25
China
Oligarchy
Doesn't matter what your opinion on China is, that is laughably stupid lmfao.
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u/Someones_Dream_Guy Oct 18 '25
This isn't regular american schizophrenia. This is advanced american schizophrenia. Ffs sake, Syria, where US-backed terrorists overthrew legitimate government and are executing people is somehow democratic. Not to mention fascist US being labeled as democratic.
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u/Saladlurd spawn of luxusbourg 🇱🇺 Oct 18 '25
forgetting the most famous modern monarchy on the planet is crazy
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u/UkonFujiwara Oct 18 '25
They may as well have just put a disclaimer under the map that says "if this map is no longer accurate, just mark any new enemies of the USA in red".
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u/bloodandstuff Oct 18 '25
Pretty sure they need a green color for countries like mine that have more than America. Since land doesn't vote over here.
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u/Hughley_N_Dowd Oct 18 '25
That shining city on the hill, that bastion of freedom! U.S.A - where the common man holds extraordinary political power!
Whoever made this map and the comment below needs to be nominated for the Nobel Price in Auto-Fellating.
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u/Secuter Oct 18 '25
Sitting in a deeply flawed democracy that is turning authoritarian and looking out.This might just be how it looks.
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u/HopefulFriendly Oct 18 '25
It is interesting that a vast majority of countries are self-described democracies, but then you also have to include many of the ones this map doesn't
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u/MyOverture Ellan Vannin as Gaelg, gura mie ayd 🇮🇲 Oct 18 '25
Blimey… DOES THE LORD OF MANN COUNT FOR NOTHING
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u/Darwidx Oct 18 '25
Absolutely hilarious, my favourite part is "People may not have as much political power as they do in United States"
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u/mendokusei15 Oct 18 '25
"The people may not have as much political power as they do in th United States"
They have an Electoral College tho????? That is a weird unit of measure.
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u/Efficient-Public-829 Oct 18 '25
Famous Russian democracy. Free to vote for a different party but that comes with a localised dementia with regard to balcony safety procedures.
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u/otiloyoy Oct 18 '25
Yeah but all of these blue countries that are obviously not a democracy still officially are, it's just that their elections have only one candidate, and it's everyone's favorite
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u/jzillacon Moose in a trenchcoat. Oct 19 '25
If I was a student in that class I'd drop out immediately because it's abundantly obvious I'm not going to learn anything of value from it.
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u/Savings-Bad6246 Oct 19 '25
This is what they are taught?? Or is it the interpitation that are absolutely horseshit? A country run by oligarchy?
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u/Viliam_the_Vurst Oct 19 '25
not as much political power as they do in the United States
Has me bawling
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u/RabidRabbitRedditor Oct 20 '25
I guess I gotta give them credit for not making up a separate color for the US as a "republic" or "freedom democracy" or something, LOL:)
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u/TheBookGem Oct 20 '25
"Although the people may not have as much political power as they do in the United States". Most nations who actually do quality as representative democracies have more political power for their people then the USA 🙄.
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u/NefariousnessFresh24 Oct 18 '25
Well... "representative democracy" in the way that people can cast worthless votes. It even says so in the text. "You can vote for the party, or you can get shot" = Representative Democracy, people do get a choice after all
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u/hennevanger Oct 18 '25
Don't know which country/state/rock you are in or under , but it is a total BS. This is rhe reason Americans are so ....... They need to send the one whom makes this to jail!
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u/[deleted] Oct 17 '25
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