There's something to be said for a dictatorship that at the very least thinks climate change is real.
Not that this is a problem.
The masses just want food and security.
While I personally think of democracy as "the worst except for everything else we've tried", there's plenty who speak as if it's tautologically the best.
I think there is a TON of interesting discussion to be had on the best ways to _implement_ democracy, but locating the source of political power directly in the people who are governed seems like a pretty solid idea to me... I have not been able to come up with anything better.
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2024/03/21/why-amer...
That would be my guess as to both why Trump got elected and why voting isn't very popular.
A turnout of 63.5% isn't popular? Even compared to past elections it's the second highest turnout in the past 3 decades. The highest was in 2020.
And if that record turnout is to support and/or oppose a candidate that seeks to burn the whole system down and gets votes due to the system not reflecting voters priorities for a while then it further supports my theory.
Who are you comparing it to? The U.S. is middle of the pack in the OECD [1].
The highest-turnout countries are Equitorial Guinea, Rwanda and Turkmenistan [2]. None are democracies.
[1] https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/reg_glance-2009-35-e...
[2] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/voter-tur...
sure, but half of the country believes that's achieved with some measures and the other half believe those measures are the cause of the problems. A dictatorship doesn't change that, you'll only have half of the country incapable of voting for a change.
That's a very interesting phrase to use here.
I never even heard anybody claiming that democracy is perfect form of government. People in democratic countries usually accept that democracy is messy.
The real killer app of democracy is the ability to change leaders without death or bloodshed. Of course it results in fewer big projects being built (though the US was very good in building things like Apollo or the Interstate System, once - it is mostly environmental regulations that get in the way now, and not pure democracy).
But the stereotypical danger of autocracy is that its big projects will be a useless money sink (like this [0]), or even destructive.