Isn't it democracy when a candidate gets more votes than the rest? The only way to undermine democracy is to reject the results of the elections.
If propaganda from the "enemy" really is that effective, then either it's rooted in truth and resonates with the electors, or we have to admit that the general public is so easily influenceable that allowing them to vote is a danger for democracy, which means democracy isn't really worth much in the first place.
Many people are easily influenceable, which is why there are rules around campaign funding and transparency. It doesn’t mean that we have to give up on democracy (what would be the alternative?), it means that the rules have to be enforced.
I don't buy it. People aren't that easily influenceable; they are just extremely tired from decades of failed liberal policies and out of alternatives. The populist right-wing wins we're seeing all over the world are the expression of the immense frustration people have with the system.
You want democracy to work? Give people real choices, not the usual binary bad or more bad. Make them feel like their vote matters for once.
I observe for myself that I am rather quickly influenced by the information I take in. Since I’m aware of that, I’m diligent in the information I seek out, and can therefore compensate for some amount of misinformation. Other people aren’t necessarily aware or diligent in that way.
I’m not satisfied with the voting choices either, but I do have some understanding of why they are the way they are. It is a nontrivial systemic issue, and voting populist does not improve that situation.
You seem to see a dichotomy between the politicians that provide voting choices and the rest of the population that votes. I don’t see it that way. The politicians are part of the population, they represent the population. I won’t tell you to go into politics to try to change things, but if you did, then maybe you’ll realize why it’s hard, and that how things are is a function of human nature, of the particular country’s specific political system, and of the world being more complicated than many people recognize.
Obviously, as long as neutral observers can guarantee the voting. But in this case, there is no question about the validity of the results; there are no voter suppression and intimidation tactics here. Those seem to be far more common in the US, with electoral nonsense such as gerrymandering, no ID required to vote, mail-in ballots, and so on.
Why would they need additional chances when they have already expressed what they want? Oh, they dared to vote for a candidate that doesn’t suit the powers that be, so they’ll vote again and again until they choose the preselected candidate.
No, this is about common rules for everyone. Campaign material had to be marked as such and campaign finances had to be declared. One candidate blatantly failed to do so and won the first round. The court took a bold decision.
If campaign material was not capable of changing the minds of the electorate, nobody would waste time effort and money on it.
Free speech is valuable and worth defending specifically because it has the potential to change minds, not just because people like the sounds of their own voices.
(For the recent US election, people also point to Musk buying Twitter and getting his president of choice and saying this demonstrates why Musk is smart and $44bn was worth it, so are you sure it wasn't won by the biggest spenders?)
First, as far as I can tell you're equating likely foreign state propaganda with what appears to be a diffuse meme organization so they can't be assumed to be the same thing.
Secondly, for political messages it should be clear who the message is coming from! If this organization is coordinating messages that should be public (though from looking them up it sounds like they are already fairly public with it).
Open, fair, and honest elections are important. People always whine on about what the other side is doing but I want that fixed, too and I would gladly work with anyone that wants to fix both but sadly it's much more common to see continuous deflections to the other side (because they know their side is indefensible) rather than a desire for real change.
It's really hard to take this line of argument seriously. Drawing parallels between a Twitter meme account run by a half dozen guys and a state intelligence apparatus is absurd.
Those "half dozen guys" are actually thousands of coordinated accounts. They had an official summit in Vilnius during the NATO summit, with official visitors such as ministers and presidents.
Can you show me where the EU disclose its compaign financing for the romanian presidential election? They've certainly been putting the finger down in the scales far more than the russians
The EU don't have to disclose something like that, as Romania has a central authority that handles this stuff, as per the law:
> The collection of electoral contributions and the payment of electoral expenses may be made only through bank accounts notified in advance to the Permanent Electoral Authority.
The EU is not involved in directly financing candidates or political parties in Romania, they've already given us tens of billions of dollars to develop our country.
>The EU is not involved in directly financing candidates or political parties in Romania, they've already given us tens of billions of dollars to develop our country.
Wow, seems like they're spent tens of billions of dollars in long term election interference campaigns. Are we going to see the politicians elected going to jail over it?
Tens of billions of dollars of development funding, which Romania obviously wanted, given they went through the trouble of joining the EU, and then went through the trouble of getting hold of the EU cash and spending it.
Not quite the same as external party spending huge amounts of cash running political campaigns, while ignoring all the local rules about campaigning. After all Romania didn’t have to accept the EU cash, or spent it. The EU doesn’t force countries to join, just so they can give them billions of euros in the hopes of interfering in a political process years later. A political process that’s only important, because of the development funding. Much easier and cheaper to simpler not get involved, and allow those countries to struggle alone.
Yep, you've stumbled upon a 'secret' fallacy that most know. People can be made to believe anything, or you can arrive at any conclusion you want from pretty much any premise. Not even in science is there consensus.
What kept things in check so far has been that in the West, the elites have been benevolent. But now the masses, thx to social media and global comms, can be influenced by others.
But we already have open borders in the EU. If you're referring to allowing in migrants freely, that's deeply unpopular in Romania and no candidate is in support of it.
Say you live with your family in Juarez right now - what do you think statistically your chance of legal immigrating to the United States is (and lets up the ante, say you have legit proof that every mafia boss in Mexico is hunting you and every member of your family)...?
I'll give you a ballpark - your chance of legal immigrating is similar to me marrying Gisele... there is a chance, I am very good looking but you know...
Majority of people arguing "illegal" vs. "legal" immigration simply fail to look at statistic to see that "legal" immigration is vaporware - just a term to use to try to prove some point which cannot be proven with that argument...
> Open borders means open to illegal immigration.
No, open borders mean that the immigrants are legal by default. It doesn't mean the borders aren't secure enough for your paranoid xenophobic liking.
> No, open borders mean that the immigrants are legal by default.
I suppose that's one definition of it, a more extreme version. No country on Earth has this kind of immigration policy. It would be unsustainable.
> It doesn't mean the borders aren't secure enough for your paranoid xenophobic liking.
Ad-hominem attacks are not necessary. My wife is second generation immigrant. Her father is first generation, they do not support illegal immigration either. He came here legally and the people that come here illegally take away resources from those who want to come here legally the right way.
The cold war communist boogie man hasn't gone away. Russia is apparently all power and has infinite reach into global elections, but at the same time, getting destroyed on the battlefield and about to lose the Ukraine conflict any moment now.
Russia is well balanced against the aid everyone else is giving to Ukraine; it's a war of attrition, where both Ukraine and Russia are being worn down and nobody's quite sure which side will collapse first.
Other than just being cheapskates, the west has a fear that {if Putin fears his regime may collapse, he may personally order the use of nukes}, and also that even if he doesn't and Russia does collapse then rogue actors may steal some of the nukes.
building military is much much more expensive than paying influencers.
Russian propaganda machine is incredibly strong, because it was perfected on their own citizens for basically century now. They spend billions on pure propaganda.
While with military - they relied on propaganda as well. They projected power while not picking conflicts with anyone who can punch back.
Ukraine appeared too big to swallow this time and everyone can see, that king is naked. Russian military is a sham compared to US. Like, incomparable to be honest. But problem is that propaganda is much stronger than military. So west made a mistake dismissing russia because of their weak corrupt military while being invaded by propaganda.
West has nothing against russian propaganda machine and this is what thrtuthly terrifying to be honest.
If propaganda from the "enemy" really is that effective, then either it's rooted in truth and resonates with the electors, or we have to admit that the general public is so easily influenceable that allowing them to vote is a danger for democracy, which means democracy isn't really worth much in the first place.