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As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last, and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and complete narcissistic moron. H. L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920

Democracy across the West is not very well. It cant be described as just resting. Any stress-test of a democracy could justifiably use the election of leaders of the calibre of Johnson and Trump as a criterion of failure. In America, Donald Trump has actively worked to undermine and dismantle the democratic fabric of his country. He boasts of his law breaking and tax avoidance, brags of his achievements in the field of sexual assault, lies, spreads conspiracy theories, gives his backing to miracle cures that are in fact lethal, attempts to interfere with the process of voting and to exclude his opponents votes from the count, elicits the help of states hostile to the interests of his own country and deliberately issues statements intended to incite proud armed militias. In this he is assisted by wealthy, illiberal power-grabbing backers and powerful sections of the media, owned by the rich to serve the rich.

Ditto for the UK. Here, as across the pond, the extremists of the right have gained power by realising that in order to win, all they have to do is break democratic norms and standards. By trampling these they are freed from the inconvenient shackles of truth-telling and from commitments to promote the well-being and prosperity of the people.

In this, they hold democratic values, and the electorate itself, in contempt. Nowhere was the contempt for the electorate illustrated more obscenely than when Dominic Cummings tried to excuse his lockdown trip to Barnard Castle. And why wouldnt he be confident that, in the Britain of today, hed get away with it? After all, he, along with Johnson, Gove and others, was instrumental in shaping that Britain via a Brexit formed out of lies, misleading statements, dog-whistle, xenophobic falsehoods and empty, meaningless promises.

Between them they engineered the shutting down of parliament and made clear their willingness to break international law, while those who gave legal opinion on the question of prorogation were condemned as traitors, saboteurs and enemies of the people. As in America, our leaders lead usinescapably to the conclusion that there is something seriously wrong with the democracy that put them there.

It is often said that our democracy should more accurately be termed an elective dictatorship. We get to elect our dictators every few years and thats about it. Hardly healthy. But the reality is far worse. These dictators often get elected on a minority vote and enact policies which have no majority support. Brexit, for example.

So why is our democracy so unfit for purpose? Why is it that we can elect leaders who are little more than self-serving schemers, whose contempt for the electorate renders them incapable of giving straight, honest answers to even the most straightforward, reasonable questions? Its not as if any of these qualities have been smuggled in under our noses. They are paraded before our eyes every single day. Nobody voting for Johnson or Trump could be blind to the fact that they are serial liars. And yet they voted all the same. Why?

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Mencken was on to something when suggesting that the leaders we get, the leaders we deserve, closely represent something dark in the inner soul of the people. Theres no easy way to put this the problem with democracy is the voters. The voters simply arent good enough to support a healthy democracy. Theyre not up to the job. Now I know some will think: a snowflake-remainer-lefty-loser will always blame th e voters just as a bad workman always blames his tools. But these tools are shot.

Consider this: a poll in 2005 found that 21 per cent of Americans believe in witches and 9 per cent that spirits can take control of a person. In 1999, 18 per cent believed the sun revolves around the earth so much for the science and in 2000, 31 per cent believed in ghosts, and increase of 20 percentage points since 1978.

By 2019, the year before Trumps re-election attempt, significant numbers believed in the illuminati, Big-foot and a flat earth. Ghost-belief had risen to 45 per cent, as had the belief in demons. Belief in vampires stood at a fangtastic 13 per cent.

Britain has nothing to be proud of. While 33 per cent of us believe in ghosts and 18 per cent in demonic possession, a whopping 52 per cent of us believe that you can magically make a false claim true simply by writing it on the side of a bus.

In elective dictatorships where small margins have huge consequences wed better get used to the fact that (possibly small) groups with stupid ideas and a lack of relevant knowledge and skills can have a disproportionate effect on the lives of the rest of us.

A I have argued previously in TheArticle, Leave voters in the EU referendum did not know what they were voting for. It is also pretty clear that too many British voters showed themselves to be gullible swallowers of laughably simplistic solutions and explanations. They came to believe in manufactured problems and they fell for the tricks of ad hominem persuasion and the cult of personality. In short, too many voters failed to make a sensible political choice in their own interests and which also respected the interests of others. For too many, the distance between giving an up-yours the establishment through casual, self-indulgent voting and losing their livelihoods has been very short. It is a tragedy.

The deceivers know their public well, hence their contempt, which is manifested in an openness about their own lying. They dont even try to cover it up anymore. In this they feed off general, public cynicism about politicians and their motives, a cynicism which our current crop of leaders has worked hard to nurture.

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What is to be done? The central virtue of democracy proves to be its greatest weakness. Because all votes count the same, democracy offers no incentive for self-improvement. It enshrines intellectual complacency and ignorance. One answer to this is that if dumb voters are the problem, maybe dumb people shouldnt be allowed to vote. If you want to take part in the democratic process then you really should know what you are doing. Anything less is simply irresponsible.

The idea that only the knowers should be allowed to vote, the epistocracy, runs through Plato and J S Mill, and has recently been championed by the American philosopher Jason Brennan in his book Against Democracy.

Whatever else one might think of it, an epistocracy at least has the merit of rational justification for its franchise limitations; unlike other examples from the recent history of our democracy such as exclusion on grounds of class or gender and our current, entirely arbitrary exclusion on grounds of age. Far from being anti-democratic, as its critics suggest, an epistocracy can be seen as the purest form of democracy. A democracy open to all, regardless of age, gender, class, religion or race, provided they show themselves to be fit to participate.

Consequently, the primary question becomes: how might we determine fitness for democratic participation? Brennan favours giving people a test. A sort of qualifying exam, passing which earns the candidate a license to take responsibility for their political views in the hustle and bustle of democratic decision making. It qualifies them to influence decisions which affect the lives of others and serves to protect the public from unskilled tyros.

Instead of a test, Mill views our established social and cultural structures as providing the best indicator of qualification for democratic participation. Mill suggests that everyone should get a vote, but, depending on an individuals position in society, some people should have more votes than others. Mills is a sort of meritocratic democracy.

Of course, there are serious problems with all this. Mills reward-by-position would only ossify prevailing social structures. Covid has led to a sharp reappraisal of the importance of roles as diverse as care-workers, nurses, pub staff, delivery drivers and so on. Mills scheme would not have stood up to Covid. Nor does it explicitly work to ensure the quality of a democracy. With appropriate weighting, a fascist state could be made to run on Mills method. As could Putins form of Russian democracy.

The all too obvious problem with Brennans exam-driven alternative is: Who sets the test? Now I dont think this is as great a problem as some critics might believe, but Im not going to argue the case here because there is a much bigger, practical obstacle. It is all fine and dandy when newly enfranchised groups are celebrating the acquisition of their shiny new democratic rights, but what about when you do the reverse and snatch the vote away from people and label them not good enough?

It is possible to do, and in the US, current voter suppression tactics show that it is even possible in a self-styled democracy.

But before going down that route theres an alternative make sure that our people are properly educated. All of them givenan education which places critical thinking at its core. An education that goes out of its way to nurture respect for reason, respect for persons, for truth, for fairness, for justice for these things underpin the democratic process. Explicit political education would also have a role. But it is critical thinking that is the essential ingredient in achieving the goal of a politically literate population. Individuals must be able to pick apart the claims that confront them and their implications. They must be able to spot the fakery and falsehoods that litter the grounds of contemporary politics.

Finland is already well ahead in this effort to educate a critically aware and capable population. This has been largely in reaction to the Russian disinformation programmes of the previous decade. In the UK and US, however, we have a problem in that so recent untruths have come from our own governments.

I can hear the screaming now. Educational programmes such as those sketched here will be attacked as indoctrination or brainwashing, or, even worse as progressive. But as Neil Postman, author of Teaching as a Subversive Activity said:

The best things schools can do for kids is to help them learn how to distinguish useful talk from bullsh*t. I think almost all serious people understand that about 90 per cent of all that goes on in school is practically useless, so what I am saying would not require the displacement of anything that is especially worthwhile. Even if it did, I would still be able to argue that helping kids to activate their crap-detectors should take precedence over any other legitimate educational aim.

Subversive? Yes. The last thing most governments want is an interested, critically-thinking, lie-detecting, politically literate population. Political extremism grows through ignorance and by offering the snake-oil of easy answers to simplified questions. And so we are led by people who can, with impunity, run the country on extraordinary claims about bleach and Brexit, immigrants and eye-tests.

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The problem with democracy it's you - TheArticle

Our already hyperpartisan politics keep becoming just a little more hyper. Now that Republicans are pushing through a vote on President Trumps replacement for Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court, Democrats are talking openly of ending the filibuster, expanding the Supreme Court, and adding DC and Puerto Rico as states. As a big-D Democrat, I think it seems fair. But as a small-d democrat, I cower at the further escalation. I honestly dont know whether our now-fragile old democracy can handle it.

To make our democracy work, were going need to stop escalating and break out of the polarizing trap of our two-party system. Simply crying fairness isnt enough; Democrats and Republicans cant agree on whats fair. This is serious. For democracy to work, competing parties must agree on a neutral process, with neutral arbiters, and these rules must remain consistent. Once the basic rules are up for grabs with every election, we no longer have a meaningful democracy just competitive authoritarianism, where though elections persist, those in power rig the rules in their favor.

There is only one way to wriggle free of this democracy death spiral: End the zero-sum binary that has separated us into two competing mega-identities, each fighting for an elusive permanent majority, and each convinced that if the other side gets the permanent majority, they will use it for evil, and therefore everything should be on the table. Break the two-party doom loop.

Our two-party system exists not because Americans want just two parties. They definitively want more. But our antiquated first-past-the-post system of voting, where the candidate with the most vote wins, renders third parties as spoilers and thus directs all political ambition to the two major parties, entrenching the two-party system. The way to fix this is to modernize how we vote and create multi-member congressional districts with ranked-choice voting.

For example, Massachusetts is split into nine congressional districts. Each elects one representative to Congress. Under the system I propose, the state would have fewer districts, but each would have more members. For example, the state could split into two districts, one with four members and one with five. The top four vote-getters in the first district would go to Congress, as would the top five candidates in the other district.

Right now, all nine of the states representatives are Democrats. Massachusetts is a heavily Democratic state, for sure, but what about the third of voters who generally pick Republicans? Dont they deserve more representation? If the delegation fairly and proportionally represented the states voters, roughly a third of delegates should be Republicans and two-thirds Democrats. Or more likely, voters would get to choose among a wider spectrum of candidates from left to right in a competitive general election. And with a ranked-choice vote as part of this which Massachusetts voters can choose to enact next month candidates would work harder to build coalitions, and voters could be assured they wouldnt waste a vote. This is how Ireland votes.

Apply this to all 50 states, and you wind up with a much more representative Congress. The right might benefit in Massachusetts, but the left would benefit in many other states. Take North Carolina, for example: a purple state, where 10 of 13 Congressional representatives are Republicans.

More important, every voter would count equally, regardless of partisan preference. Gerrymandering would become irrelevant, because there would be little point in carving up districts to minimize the presence of some voters. And as left and right became less rigid, less binary, voters would have more choices. Instead of just two parties, we could have five or six parties.

Americans disagree with one another, but not nearly as cleanly as the two parties force them to. With more parties, they would form more fluid governing coalitions, as they do in other multiparty democracies, with no permanent majority and no permanent minority. More voters would have candidates and a party they are genuinely excited to vote for, not just a party they are voting against. Turnout would almost certainly increase.

We can do this through a simple act of Congress, with no constitutional amendment. In fact, there is already federal legislation introduced to accomplish this: the Fair Representation Act. Massachusetts voters can also help advance the cause by supporting ranked-choice voting on Question 2, following Maines lead in adopting ranked-choice voting.

If Democrats win unified government in 2021, they will face what feels like an impossible choice: Fight back against Republican hardball and escalate further, or back down and let them get away with it. But this is a false binary. There is a third option: Exit the system that forces only two choices.

Lee Drutman is a senior fellow in the Political Reform program at the think tank New America, co-host of the Politics in Question podcast, and author of the book "Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America.

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To save our democracy (and our sanity), blow up the two-party system - The Boston Globe

We have for a long time hesitated to adopt and carry out the only principle which can solve that difficulty and give peace, strength and security to the republic, and that is the principle of absolute equality. We are a country of all extremes, ends and opposites; the most conspicuous example of composite nationality in the world. Our people defy all the ethnological and logical classifications. In races we range all the way from black to white, with intermediate shades which, as in the apocalyptic vision, no man can name or number.

One could easily be excused for emerging from last nights presidential debate convinced that American democracy is under direct assault by the president of the United States. I take absolutely no pleasure in this observation. This is an extraordinarily dangerous moment for our nation, and with so much on the line in this upcoming election, we must unequivocally condemn positions and policies antithetical to who we are as a people.

As pundits continue to dissect what happened last night, and as we gird ourselves for two more debates still to come between President Trump and Vice President Biden, we must not lose sight of three key points:

1. White supremacy is a vile, racist dogma, and white supremacist groups as entities are a threat to the domestic and national security of the United States.

I had the honor last year of leading a subcommittee effort within the Homeland Security Advisory Council to produce recommendations to end targeted violence against American faith communities. This study tackled the increasingly pervasive violent attacks on the Black Christian community, violent antisemitism and Islamophobia, and attacks on the Sikh and Hindu communities. Over and over, our studies and field research confirmed that the principal causal factors for this violence against all of Americas faith-based communitiesand more broadly on Americas communities of colorare white supremacist groups and their violent, armed cadres. The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI confirmed the reality of this violence and concurred in the nature and enormity of this threat to the U.S.

In last nights debate, Mr. Trump not only refused to condemn and disavow white supremacists, he called on one group, the so-called Proud Boys, to stand back and stand by. This is an organization widely condemned as a hate group, with white nationalist rhetoric permeating their every move. Whatever the president intended with this provocative phrase is irrelevant because this group has embraced it as validation of their cause and a call to arms itself.

2. Both candidates must loudly and unambiguously disavow politically motivated violence, and that includes preventing supporters from descending on the polls to provide vigilante security of our electoral process. Any refusal to endorse this basic protection of American lives and the sanctity of our democracy should be understood as a willingness to condone violence and de facto mob rule.

This second area of deep concern centers around Mr. Trumps unfounded attacks on the 2020 presidential electoral process as unfair and rigged against him, and on mail-in voting as inherently fraudulent and invalid. These twin, baseless accusations seem specifically tailored to confuse and frighten the American voter and create uncertainty about the elections outcome. This is not the time to wish away the presidents remarks as usual, empty rhetoricno, this amounts to a direct attack upon the American democratic process of voting.

Furthermore, in the White House press room, Mr. Trump recently refused to acknowledge acceptance of a peaceful transition of power if he loses and refused to call for a restraint on violence if that occurs. During the debate, he also called on his supporters to go into the polls to ensure the elections security. Given the rallying cry during the debate of Stand Back and Stand By, inevitably, on November 3rd, I truly fear American voters will find both unarmed Trump supporters and armed, white supremacists groups at the polls seeking to guard our democratic process. The handwriting is clearly on the wall. Were we to hear such threats in any developing country, we would label it for what it is: dangerous and authoritarian. For it to come from our president a month from the election speaks to the enormity of this American crisis.

3. To achieve our full potential as a nation that stands for social justice, the rule of law, and the defense of democracy, we must invest in education on the causes and remedies of systemic racism in America. This is essential not just for the health of our own democracy, but for our ability to remain a transformational leader on these and related issues around the world.

Given the presidents recent public unwillingness to discourage violence if he loses the election, this final point is particularly disturbing. When, during the debate, he was confronted with the response that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security both see white supremacists as a domestic and national security threat, Mr. Trump proclaimed them both to be wrong, just as he says he knows better than his doctors and experts on COVID-19 and better than the scientists on climate change. It should come, then, as no surprise that in the same debate, he proclaimed racial sensitivity instruction within the U.S. government as racist propaganda against white Americans. And his recent executive order is intended to stamp it out, conveying, intentionally or otherwise, that being American is rooted in being, first and foremost, white.

These three points should be easily accepted by both Republicans and Democrats. Yet, what emerged during the debate was a stark and disturbing divergence between the best traditions of American democracy and the jarring reality of Mr. Trumps concept of governing this country. These differences are not lost on the electorate, which is currently experiencing the effects of widespread and dangerous political polarization. Nor are they lost on the international community, where allies are confused and concerned, authoritarians are comforted, and Americas enemies are afield, more brazen than ever, and on the march.

The stakes of this upcoming election may indeed be existential for the future of our American democracy. I previously called for Americans to mark their calendars that June 1st, when President Trump stood before St. Johns Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., just moments after ordering the assault of peaceful protestors, could be the beginning of the end of the American experiment. Yet, even then, I could not have imagined the tremendous nature of the threat we now face as a people. If then, June 1st was a starting point for our moment of true national peril, September 29th confirmed unequivocally that we are now far down that road. November 3rd may indeed be the most important date for these United States in living memory. The stakes are enormous and, in that moment, America will either step back from cliff or go over entirely.

America stands upon the edge of a knife. Please vote. Our shared future as a compassionate, inclusive society of values and laws depends on it.

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America's democracy on the edge - Brookings Institution

BRUSSELS (AP) Democratic standards are facing important challenges in some European Union countries, particularly in Hungary and Poland, where the judicial systems are under threat, the EUs executive commission said Wednesday in its first report on adherence to the rule of law.

The European Commission depicted a bleak situation in the two countries. Its wide-ranging audit found that prosecution of high-level corruption in Hungary remains very limited, and deemed Poland deficient in the four main areas reviewed: national justice systems, anti-corruption frameworks, media freedom and checks and balances.

It is relevant to have an overview of these issues, and see the links between them. Not least because deficiencies often merge into an undrinkable cocktail, EU Values Commissioner Vera Jourova told journalists.

The report, published a day before the leaders of the EUs 27 nations meet in Brussels for a two-day summit, could have repercussions for discussions on the blocs long-term budget.

While EU leaders have agreed in principle on a 1.8 trillion-euro economic recovery package for the 2021-2027 budget period, they have yet to find common ground on how to distribute the money because many countries insist that allocations should be linked to respecting the EUs rule of law standards.

Poland and Hungary, which believe they are being unfairly targeted, are opposed to the idea. The EU has accused the two countries of violating rule-of-law standards for years and is pursuing sanction procedures against them.

Hungary immediately dismissed the report as irrelevant and biased.

The Commissions Rule of Law Report is not only fallacious, but absurd, the Hungarian government said in a statement. The concept and methodology of the Commissions Rule of Law Report are unfit for purpose, its sources are unbalanced and its content is unfounded.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki made no reference to the report while presenting his new cabinet on Wednesday, while Polands liberal opposition, the Civic Coalition, stressed that the report was critical of the right-wing government, but not of the country itself.

It is the current ruling team that is rated so low in the report and its Law and Justice (party) that is responsible for all the problems that the European Commission is referring to now, said Civic Coalition lawmaker Kamila Gasiuk-Pichowicz.

The EU report also called out Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia and Spain for threats against journalists, and threats, attacks and smear campaigns against journalists were also reported in Hungary. Bulgaria also was cited for a lack of judicial independence and an inability to tackle corruption cases properly.

Bulgarian officials reacted along party lines. While government officials called the report an appreciation of Cabinet efforts to stem corruption, opposition lawmakers said the EUs conclusions demonstrated that the government lacks the political will to implement needed reforms.

The report is positive, objective and clearly outlines the results of cooperation with the EU, Minister of Justice Desislava Ahladova said.

The left-leaning countrys president, Rumen Radev, who has been a vocal critic of the government and supports the three-months long anti-corruption protests in Bulgaria, had a different perception.

They should have come earlier, he said of the reports findings.

The sticking points in Poland are the right-wing governments moves to take control of the justice system, especially the judiciary. The report says the double role where the minister of justice is also the prosecutor general has raised particular concerns, as it increases the vulnerability to political influence.

In Hungary, government-sponsored laws targeting media freedoms, minority rights, the electoral system and academic and religious freedoms drew the commissions notice. The EU report also criticized a consistent lack of determined action to start criminal investigations and prosecute corruption cases involving high-level officials or their immediate circle.

In an interview last week with Germanys Der Spiegel magazine, Jourova said the report highlighted an alarming picture, and she accused Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban of building a sick democracy.

The story triggered Orbans anger. He said Monday that Jourovas statements humiliated Hungary and asked for her resignation, but EU officials have offered their overwhelming support to the commissioner.

As I grew up in communist Czechoslovakia, I know how it feels to live in country without the rule of law, Jourova said. The European Union was created also as an antidote to those authoritarian tendencies.

The commission also looked into government measures that have limited personal freedoms during the coronavirus pandemic and noted that reactions to the crisis showed overall strong resilience of the national systems.

The commission will next debate the report with the European Parliament and EU nations.

___

Pablo Gorondi in Budapest and Monika Scislowska in Warsaw contributed to this report.

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European report finds waning of democracy in Poland, Hungary - The Associated Press

Taiwans Double Ten National Day approaches, and with the attendant celebrations, it is natural for Taiwanese to examine how their democracy compares with other present-day democracies.

How is it doing? Well, Taiwan is doing quite well.

Democracy in Taiwan might be young, but it has already shown clear signs that its citizens have a good grasp of what it is all about and how to implement it.

Some might even say that Taiwan has proven to be far better at achieving democracys ends than many older and perhaps decadent democracies, including the UK and the US.

Certainly Taiwanese have demonstrated that they appreciate the power of the vote and can use it to build a solid nation.

For example, in past elections they have not relied on or trusted representatives of any one party and its slogans. From 1996 on, when the president and legislature were elected by the people, they have carefully made their choices.

On a national level, they have gone from a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) president to a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) one, and then back to a KMT president and once again to a DPP leader.

This is not a flip-flop, but a clear choice of evaluating what each partys candidate had to offer at the moment of each election.

Further, in barely two decades, Taiwanese have even shown openness to gender equality in the presidential office and have chosen a female leader. The US has still not achieved that goal in more than 240 years; it remains mired in what could be called good old boys male chauvinism.

During the past two decades, the Legislative Yuan has also gradually moved from being dominated by its former one-party state KMT to the present DPP majority. This shift has been driven in part by many KMT representatives insistence on clinging to outmoded ideas, including a wished-for binding relationship with China and the bogus 1992 consensus.

Likewise, the people have changed the referendum laws to free themselves from former bird cage referendum conditions. Referendum achievements are now possible; the referendum laws are not yet perfect, but they are in developing progressively.

Regarding voter turnout, the average showing in major elections in Taiwan ranges in the 70 to 80 percentile of eligible voters. The UKs turnout closely resembles those figures on average, but the US has consistently had poor participation. Its turnout is about 45 to 50 percent of eligible voters, which might explain its recent issues.

At the local level, Taiwan provides other examples of a balanced democracy in action.

In Penghu County, residents twice voted against and defeated efforts to build casinos in their backyard, in 2009 and again in 2016.

Often in such cases, one would expect that big money would win out by enticing voters with promises of jobs and income. That did not work there either time, because the people wanted to preserve their environment.

However, the one example that most significantly represents voter awareness in Taiwan is when Kaohsiung residents voted to recall their mayor, Han Kuo-yu ().

What those citizens demonstrated was that they have the ability to feel voters remorse when they make a mistake in judgement and also the ability to do something about it within the system.

For 20 years, from 1998 to 2018, the DPP had held the mayors office in Kaohsiung. This party dominance was challenged in 2018 by the KMTs Han, who strode in with promises of the traditional chicken in every pot and grandiose plans for the citys prosperity.

In the initial vote, Han defeated the DPPs Chen Chi-mai () 892,545 to 742,239. It was a solid win and voters looked for the promised progress.

However, Han was not even a year in office when he turned and decided to use his seeming popularity to run for president.

It was at that point that voters realized they had been sold a bill of populist goods and immediately used the system to correct it.

The recall process must go through several phases. In the final stage, at least 25 percent of the electorate (here 574,996 voters) must approve the recall. In a startling statement, the recall vote totaled 939,090, far more than the 892,545 votes that originally elected Han.

Han had hoped to disrupt the 25 percent rule by urging supporters not to vote. That failed. Only 25,051 voted disapproval, but many others ignored his plea.

Voters who worked in Taipei even made a special trip back just to ensure the recall. The recall vote was even more solid than Hans original win.

A look at other older democracies shows that they definitely have their problems. Two glaring examples stand out.

The first is the Brexit vote in the UK, where supporters of Brexit convinced voters that the UK would be far better off by breaking its ties with the EU.

However, what seemed to be a simple vote in 2016, turned out to be a horrendous quagmire, illustrating the complexity of ties in a realistic modern world.

In four years, the UK has still not figured out how to gracefully leave the EU while sustaining as little collateral damage as possible.

Brexit had been portrayed as a quick easy break, something as simple as a Las Vegas divorce. Instead it has turned into an ongoing standing joke, one that promises to end badly.

Here, the UK voters discovered that the vast promised benefits have failed to materialize, and yet even though they might have voters remorse, they are powerless to rectify it.

The US has its own set of problems. It took the nation more than a century to overcome its slavery issues and even more for women to obtain the right to vote.

Now, US citizens find themselves hamstrung by an outdated Electoral College system, whereby a candidate who lost by nearly 3 million votes was still able to win the presidency. That makes the issue even harder to correct, even with voters remorse.

This problem with the Electoral College has happened before, but never at such a scale. By having a populist president without majority support, many other flaws in the system are revealed. A perfect storm has occurred.

The US has a president who continuously makes false and misleading claims. Because of a lack of needed transparency in the reporting of candidates previous income, the US has also discovered that this same lying president is millions of dollars in debt, a factor that easily lends any such person to abuse presidential power to escape such liability, more so for a lying one.

That same president has gaslighted Americans on the danger of COVID-19, while bragging that his office has done a fantastic job on the virus, despite a whopping more than 200,000 dead.

Now that the president has the virus himself, any statements on his condition or wishes are naturally under suspicion of credibility.

Based on these examples, Taiwan stands tall among democracies. Its voters have overcome the Stockholm syndrome from 40 years of a one-party state and avoided party propaganda polarization.

Taiwan does not deny it still has a learning curve, but many nations already admire its superb job in handling COVID-19, despite its proximity to China.

This brings up the final irony, and it is time for all democracies in the world to take stock of this: Taiwan knows how a democracy can learn from its mistakes and progress, but it is still not a member of the UN.

That body contains many democracies, as well as one-party states. Democratic Taiwan is kept out because that UN allows a one-party state to democratically reject it.

This needs to change. It is time for democratic Taiwan to be recognized and take its deserved seat at the table.

Jerome Keating is a writer based in Taipei.

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Taiwan, democracy and the UN -