Talk:United States/Archive 127

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"The United States is now a competitive authoritarian system"

Several sources on this, including this one. I'm curious how many sources it's going to take to change this article. Trump's America is a postliberal, electoral autocracy. There's no doubt about it. Viriditas (talk) 22:51, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

It'd take a lot. Certainly not just the single one you've given. toby ^{(t)(c)(rw)(omo)} 22:53, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

Correct. My question is how many and what kind? Because I think we're already there, but I know resistance to that idea is huge, so I'm curious as to what it's going to take to change this article. Viriditas (talk) 22:55, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

I personally feel like a mention of democratic backsliding deserves attention in prose, but I know resistance to that idea is huge like you've said. I say we just wait. toby ^{(t)(c)(rw)(omo)} 22:58, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

Two other things: this article suggests the US is currently a liberal democracy, which is quite laughable given the electoral college, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and about a dozen other issues. Another POV, one which I'm only starting to come to grips with and understand at a very low level, is that the US was never a liberal democracy, this is just a myth. From this POV, it's been a hybrid regime for a very long time, perhaps from its very beginning. Examples abound, from Native American genocide to slavery, from white terrorism to McCarthyism, to the suppression of leftism, the incarceration of Japanese people, and the war on drugs, as only some examples. Viriditas (talk) 23:00, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

I don't see the need for us to start arguing politics or revisionist history. We need sources from those who know what they're talking about. toby ^{(t)(c)(rw)(omo)} 23:05, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

That's fine, I'm just acknowledging that there's more than one POV and way to see this. I assumed that we are, like you said, going through a period of democratic backsliding at first. But now I see that we may never have been a liberal democracy to begin with. From this POV, the idea that the US is a democracy is a story we are told as children that is perpetuated through schooling, the media, and the larger culture. But when you look at so-called people's history from the last three centuries, this idea of a democracy vanishes into thin air. Viriditas (talk) 23:13, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

It's more of an ideal than an exact term. TFD (talk) 00:32, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

Shut up Jersey Jan (talk) 12:23, 30 April 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, I'd delete that if I could. Jersey Jan (talk) 12:27, 30 April 2026 (UTC)

@Jersey Jan: No offense taken, Jan. A lot of people like yourself are naturally hostile to any criticism of their country. This is not your fault. You were likely inculcated with an attitude of "America, love it or leave it" at a young age, along with other kinds of programming from your parents, peers, schools, and authority figures. In many ways, your reaction is "normal" for people who are trained from a very early age not to question, criticize, or examine their most closely held beliefs.

Which reminds me, have you ever noticed how many unusual "exceptions" we give the United States when it comes to discussions of democracy in the world? This only occurred to me after reading your pithy reply, so I want to thank you for pointing me in this direction. For example, in 2025, the Pew Research Center analyzed how 107 democracies elect their national legislatures. They discovered that only two, the Federated States of Micronesia and the U.S. draw their single-member districts using primarily state legislatures, which leaves it vulnerable to gerrymandering.

To quote Pew: "The U.S. gives the responsibility to the states...This isn't how it's done in most other places. In more than two-thirds of democracies that heavily rely on single-member districts...special commissions or national election agencies have primary responsibility...Lawmaker's role, if any, is limited." Viriditas (talk) 20:17, 30 April 2026 (UTC)

This is not true. People love America because of what it is and what it does stand for. Actually, in many schools, people are taught to hate America. It is inaccurate to say schools right now are teaching children just to love America; they are actually generally doing the opposite. But who doesn't like the best nation in the world? If you've got national pride, as you should if you're American, you should be willing to stand for your country, even when it's being attacked. People don't love America because they're not properly educated. They love America because of what it is. To be realistic, people actually hate America because of improper and inaccurate false education. Of course, America's not perfect, but it's not that far off. ~2026-30080-29 (talk) 11:51, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

Oh yes, people definitely don't hate the United States because, for over a century, it has been meddling in other people's politics, invading countries, overthrowing governments, dispossessing people, etc. Remember Mexico and its 55% of territory lost, or Hawaii and how its people lost their own country, then their land, then themselves. Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, which the US invaded, toppled the government and occupied. Almost all South American countries where the US provided military, material, and intelligence support for the installation of brutal Allegiant dictatorships that ruled for decades and killed and tortured tens of thousands of their citizens. Or Iraq and their non-existent chemical weapons, reason why the US invaded. Or Lybia, once one of the most developed African countries, and ever since US bombing, in shambles. Yeah, people hate America because of improper and inaccurate false education, sure.

That said, why is this even being discussed here? This isn't a forum for debate of ideais, this is an encyclopedia and people should be objective in their arguments on why or how should something be interpreted or altered. ETQueEsteveEmVarginha (talk) 15:18, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

Keep in mind, one side is objective, and the other side is, well, I don't know how to say it without insulting 70 million people. NPR reported yesterday that a conservative thought it was a good idea to "starve" for Trump, as food prices were too high. If you think I'm making that up, I'm not. We're not in Kansas anymore. Viriditas (talk) 23:31, 20 May 2026 (UTC)

It'd take a lot.

Sure; there are several experts and indices no longer considering the U.S. a democracy, see Democratic backsliding in the United States. In fact, it seems like the majority of such indices now classify the U.S. as an illiberal democracy, hybrid regime, electoral autocracy, or similar form of government, except for the indices of Freedom House and The Economist, which were both published before Trump's second term. Maxeto0910 (talk) 05:58, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

See FAQ #10. ~2026-57236-8 (talk) 17:00, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

@~2026-57236-8, as the author of FAQ #10, this discussion is valid, as people are discussing what sources are needed to make this change. toby ^{(t)(c)(rw)(omo)} 18:45, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

We are not arguing for describing the U.S. as a fascist dictatorship as it stands in FAQ #10; we are merely arguing for no longer describing it as a liberal democracy and instead as a hybrid regime, illiberal democracy, or similar form of government. Maxeto0910 (talk) 19:35, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

You can't say a country is an autocracy when half of its states and most major cities are controlled by the opposition party. ~2026-56479-8 (talk) 01:38, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Here is a rough guide to recognizing an electoral autocracy, loosely adapted from Kim Lane Scheppele: Is the legislature captured by a single party? Are the courts captured by a single party? Has the civil service been captured by loyalists of a single party? Have checks on executive power been dismantled? Have independent positions been filled with loyalists from a single party? Is the media used as an echo chamber? Has the political opposition been defunded by the state and threatened? Does a single party encourage private violence against its critics? Are there attempts to rewrite the election laws to favor one party over another? Viriditas (talk) 01:48, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

The answer to all of those is no if you live in the real world and not whatever reality sensationalized headlines and social media posts represent. ~2026-13654-66 (talk) 06:17, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

The answer to all of these questions is yes if you read. How you could answer no to the first eight is a remarkable form of self-delusion. Viriditas (talk) 06:22, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

>Is the legislature captured by a single party?

No, the president's party has a very narrow majority and several members have voted against his agenda.

>Are the courts captured by a single party?

No, there have been more judicial injunctions to Trump's actions than any other president.

>Have checks on executive power been dismantled?

No, see above.

>Have independent positions been filled with loyalists from a single party?

Every president has appointed members of their party to "independent" positions.

>Is the media used as an echo chamber?

No, the majority of media outlets have been largely negative regarding the Trump admin. Even "right-leaning" outlets like Fox News have criticized the admin on a number of issues.

>Has political opposition been defunded by the state and threatened?

Governments have no obligation to fund their opponents. This isn't an issue of authoritarianism.

>Does a single party encourage private violence against its critics?

Yes, but that party is the Democrats.

>Are there attempts to rewrite election laws to favor one party over another?

States controlled by both parties have been trying to boost their own power in the upcoming elections. ~2026-14208-42 (talk) 07:58, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

Not sure what to say to that, except that one of us lives in an alternate reality, and I'm pretty sure it isn't me. Viriditas (talk) 09:15, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

Alternative reality? That seems like strong language. To be transparent, I am conservative, and I dislike how Trump is handling his term in office. And I was even more displeased with Biden. I think saying that our country has slid into being an electoral autocracy is wrong.

Trump does seem to be letting power go to his head, but so did Biden. In general, I dislike how recent presidents have been behaving on both sides of the political divide.

Do I think either of you are living in an alternative reality? No. But you both seem a little blinded to the problems on your respective sides. ~2026-19793-53 (talk) 19:41, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

Biden literally governed as a moderate Republican. Not seeing how you can claim to be a conservative yet not understand conservatism. As others have already said, we have one party in the U.S. A center right party and a far right party. Viriditas (talk) 20:53, 30 April 2026 (UTC)

Just want to add that Heather Cox Richardson, political American historian, recently described the united states as fully transitioned into a fascist state . While she's certainly an expert, I suspect we'll have to see additional blatantly corrupt "elections" before the page will change.

I'd also like to point out that this page has a ton of subtle propaganda on it -- or at the very least highly deceptive statements. For example, "The Constitution of the United States serves as the country's supreme legal document." Like, sorta technically, but practically the constitution is whatever the supreme court says it is. The second amendment was re-interpreted to be about guns decades ago, so this isn't even really a complaint about modern politics. Also, "The U.S. Constitution establishes a separation of powers intended to provide a system of checks and balances to prevent any of the three branches from becoming supreme" the word intended is doing really heavy lifting there. Like, it seems suspicious there isn't a "however the supreme court granted itself the ability to interpret constitutionality." It's that subtle first among "equals" sorta propaganda. For a modern political propaganda see "Finally, the president has the authority to issue expansive 'executive orders' in a number of policy areas, subject to judicial review." Why is the word expansive in there? At best that's a recently justifiable addition due to a blatantly corrupt supreme court, but given the aforementioned blatant corruption it probably shouldn't be in there at all. Unless we want to include other acts of corruption, in which case someone please link the wikipedia page describing how the law doesn't apply to the president or anyone rich enough to buy a pardon. ~2026-10934-47 (talk) 22:34, 18 February 2026 (UTC)

Even if the federal government is no longer democratic (debated and debatable), the overwhelming majority of state, county, and local governments are democratic. To label the entire country an autocracy would be to ignore that fact. I do agree that the article should mention the erosion of democratic norms, but I think a wholesale change to describing the United States as an authoritarian system is inaccurate and inappropriate. Firefox0807 (talk) 20:41, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

Trump isn't above the Constitution UltraCobson (talk) 10:32, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

USA is the name of our country! U.S. is the name of the 10 square mile area mentioned in the Constitution as the seat of our federal government! They are not the same! ~2026-19196-83 (talk) 04:54, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

Sir, this is a Wendy's. The Sovereign Citizens' Anonymous meeting is being held next door. Viriditas (talk) 05:10, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

He legally isn’t above the constitution but he acts like he is. The “government” section should say “Federal presidential republic under an authoritarian dictatorship” and I would edit it to say that if this page wasn’t protected. Coughers (talk) 14:32, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

Hey do you mind if we can chat better Trish stratus19 (talk) 21:52, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

You're the same user as before; block incoming... Viriditas (talk) 22:00, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

@Tarlby: I believe this source might meet your criteria. (Oct 2025) It certainly meets my own. Viriditas (talk) 23:54, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

What a load of bullshit you're writing, then you can say it's like the Chinese government!!!--Dorian88A (talk) 03:00, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

You’re so close, almost there, but entirely backwards: American-style postliberalism seeks Chinese style governance. I’m opposed to that. Viriditas (talk) 04:49, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

It would actually be worse if technological technocracies were in charge. Dorian88A (talk) 05:34, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

You are referring to some of the ideas in Patrick Deneen's book Why Liberalism Failed (2018). However, I think these arguments don't hold up. For example, DOGE and the promotion of AI under Trump implicitly supports a kind of authoritarian, algorithmic technocracy, where tech bros, the GOP, and a consortium of industry insiders (mostly billionares) are the technocrats. So it's really a game of musical chairs, where you replace one set of technocrats with quite another. I should also note that many of these people support a Chinese-style governance that you say you oppose. So it appears to be a game of saying one thing in public and doing quite another in practice. Viriditas (talk) 22:29, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

No country has ever lived up to the ideal that we learned about in school. Wealth has always allowed individuals to influence opinion and governments have always ridden over civil rights in order to push through policy. TFD (talk) 03:55, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

Here are some I'd say reliable sources on the US changing form a liberal democracy to other less- or un-democratic terms.

• this one.

Quote: The USA dropped below the "democracy threshold" (+6) on the POLITY scale in 2020 and was considered an anocracy (+5) at the end of the year 2020; the USA score for 2021 returned to democracy (+8). Beginning on 1 July 2024, due to the US Supreme Court ruling granting the US Presidency broad, legal immunity, the USA is noted by the Polity Project as experiencing a regime transition through, at least, 20 January 2025. As of the latter date, the USA is coded EXREC=8, "Competitive Elections"; EXCONST=1 "Unlimited Executive Authority"; and POLCOMP=6 "Factional/Restricted Competition." Polity scores: DEMOC=4; AUTOC=4; POLITY=0. The USA is no longer considered a democracy and lies at the cusp of autocracy; it has experienced a Presidential Coup and an Adverse Regime Change event (8-point drop in its POLITY score).}}

• this one

Quote: Regarding the United States, once a global symbol of democracy, Lindberg said, “The United States, by my analysis, at this point is no longer a democracy.” He went further to claim that the US is an “electoral autocracy.” An electoral autocracy is a country that formally holds elections, but those elections are not fair or just and thereby do not guarantee actual democratic competition. He went on to clarify that it’s possible to defend democracy without the US

• this one

Quote: As the graph below indicates, the current U.S. democracy rating of 54 among experts is closest to the 44 rating experts gave to our hypothetical illiberal democracy (“Country B”). Experts put the U.S. at approximately equal distance from the strong democracy (“Country A”), which received an average rating of 92, and the non-democracy (“Country C”), which received an average rating of 18.

• this one
• this one archive
• this one

Quote: Century’s New Democracy Meter Shows America Took an Authoritarian Turn in 2025. In the first year of Trump 2.0, the United States went from being a passing if imperfect democracy to behaving like an authoritarian state: breaking the law, ignoring court rulings, engaging in grand corruption, targeting critics for persecution, and conducting a campaign against immigrants [...] that flagrantly violates civil rights. Crucially, elections are still free, providing for the time being an avenue to reverse the democratic decline.

• this one

Quote: Professor Christina Pagel mapped the first actions of the Trump administration in a Venn diagram that identifies "five broad domains that correspond to features of proto-authoritarian states". These five domains are: undermining democratic institutions and the rule of law, dismantling federal government; dismantling social protections and rights, enrichment and corruption; suppressing dissent and controlling information; attacking science, environment, health, arts and education, particularly universities; aggressive foreign policy and global destabilization.

• This study: Cassani, Andrea; Tomini, Luca (2019). "What Autocratization Is". Autocratization in post-Cold War Political Regimes. Springer International Publishing. pp. 15–35. ISBN 978-3-030-03125-1.

Quote: "[It is] a process of regime change towards autocracy that makes the exercise of political power more arbitrary and repressive and that restricts the space for public contestation and political participation in the process of government selection".

• This study: Walder, D.; Lust, E. (2018). "Unwelcome Change: Coming to Terms with Democratic Backsliding". Annual Review of Political Science. 21 (1): 93–113. doi:10.1146/annurev-polisci-050517-114628.

Quote: Backsliding entails a deterioration of qualities associated with democratic governance, within any regime. In democratic regimes, it is a decline in the quality of democracy; in autocracies, it is a decline in democratic qualities of governance. ETQueEsteveEmVarginha (talk) 16:18, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

It doesn't matter whether or not the sources are reliable but the degree to which the opinions expressed in them are accepted. In any case, the problem is that democracy is on a scale, countries can be more or less democratic, and therefore subject to disagreement. TFD (talk) 16:35, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

Inded they can. Thus my reason for presenting such sources. Since we work with reliable sources, a majority of up-to-date reliable sources claim the US is no longer a liberal democracy, thus it should not be treated on text as so as the text must reflect the sources as long as it is up to date, reliable and consistent. Such was the case in articles such as Venezuela when sources started to call it a dictatorship, though there is still much controversy about it. Sources in that article point to things similar to what I cited here regarding the United States as an authoritarian executive ignoring other branches of government, interference in the electoral process, abuse of human rights, serious violations of international law, violation of civil rights and constitutional guarantees, politicization of specific armed forces, mass movements for and against the regime, political violence, internal and external coercion, etc. We can have no double standards. ETQueEsteveEmVarginha (talk) 15:00, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

You cannot determine who widely held an opinion is by experts by preparing a list of experts expressing that opinion. You need a source that says something like, "there is a consensus among experts that the U.S. is a competitive authoritarian system." Finding a number of experts who write, "The United States, by my analysis, at this point is no longer a democracy" is no evidence of how accepted their opinion is. In fact, that they have to quality that they are expressing their opinion means that there is no consensus for it. After all, no one would write, "the capital of the United States is, in my opinion, in Washington, D.C." TFD (talk) 01:14, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

Staffan Lindbergh can go fuck himself. The way V-dem ranks countries based on democracy is just fucking stupid tbh. Sorry for the strong language but to me it just feels like their “findings” is just based on vibes and nothing else. ~2025-39398-35 (talk) 15:47, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

Those vibes sound very much like democratic "norms". Who knew American democracy was based on vibes and not actual laws? I didn't. Viriditas (talk) 23:18, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm just frustrated by the way V-Dem ranks democracies because of how badly flawed it is. Like, come on. How can it be an electoral autocracy when Democrats have managed to secure big victories in the off-year elections just months ago? In that case, that doesn't sound like "eLeCtOrAl AuToCraCy", to me it sounds more like the US is still a flawed democracy, and that dumbfuck Lindbergh only took into consideration the ICE raids, attacks on the media, and whatnot, all while just blatantly ignoring the massive protests against Trump (especially the No Kings protests, which are likely to continue throughout 2026), and especially the smaller off-year elections.

I mean, sure, it might not sound like they ranked the US as an ElEcToRaL aUtOcRaCy based on vibes alone, but even still, V-Dem seriously needs to at least make changes to how it ranks democratic countries, because this is just friggin embarrassing, man. ~2026-82459-6 (talk) 18:13, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

List of researchers who believe the US is now a hybrid regime

User:ETQueEsteveEmVarginha, could you add to this list please? Viriditas (talk) 03:26, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

You can find experts to say anything. Even top experts can have fringe views on some things. You need to show whether it is a consensus, majority, mainstream minority or fringe view before it is included. TFD (talk) 16:40, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

This comment reminds me of the two lone survivalists of the New California Republic in Fallout waiting it out getting ready to bring democracy back to the people after it's been gone for 200 years. Viriditas (talk) 23:15, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

1. Steven Levitsky
2. Lucan Way
3. Kim Lane Scheppele
4. Daniel Ziblatt
5. Staffan I. Lindberg

List of people who aren't sure

1. Timothy Snyder
2. Jason Stanley
3. Jonathan Turley
4. Kurt Weyland

Who decides?

A philosophical question which may soon arise here is: Since "Democracy" is defined as "rule by the people", who decides if a country is democratic or not -- the people of that country alone, or people worldwide? If, say, a plutocracy manages to convince most of its citizens that "the people" are in charge, but internationally it is clear they are not, which is it actually? And again, is what well-informed "experts" say all-important or does the populist view also have merit.

My own view is that the view amongst international but well-informed experts should be given far the greatest weight, since local experts are subject to unavoidable bias on a matter which is so fundamental to them, and local people more so, whilst the popular views remote from the country are unlikely to be well enough informed to judge fairly. But I can see reasonable arguments for many other choices and combinations, so I suggest that we think about it now, since if for example, the Mid-Term elections in November are clearly interfered with, with success for the riggers, there will be a serious case for saying the US is no longer democratic, and leaving the answer to be decided then would cause major trauma for our community.

To aid thinking of this by considering other countries of similar status, I asked Google AI-Pro to "List borderline-democratic countries, ie those where about 50% of people think they're democratic, while others consider them autocratic or plutocratic, etc". It came back with a lengthy response, first defining such countries to be "hybrid" then giving a list, with an explanation for each choice, and a note of allied possibilities. I shall precis it here -- since if you want the full version you can ask Google yourselves: Hybrid countries include India, Hungary, Singapore, Turkey, and Mexico; noting "in Mexico and Nigeria, large majorities support democracy in principle but less than 50% are satisfied with how it is working" and "In Poland and Brazil, the population is often politically split 50/50, with the losing side frequently accusing the winner of authoritarian tactics, creating a "perceptual autocracy" for half the country." Enginear (talk) 06:41, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

Everything I cited before your comment was from books and journals and newspapers. No LLM was used. Please do the same. I don’t trust an LLM that is owned by oligarchs and manipulated by billionaires. Viriditas (talk) 20:34, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

I totally agree with your distrust. However, as someone who has spent most of my life in engineering design, I believe in three fundamentals for success, which are true across all fields of design but are best expressed in the analogue of how to write a report:

• First write a sentence, knowing that, while you dislike it, you can come back and change it later, then write a paragraph, knowing that, while you dislike it, you can come back and change it later, next write a subsection, ditto, then a section, ditto, then the report, ditto. [Specifically on a wiki] If you don't have time to improve it, Be Bold -- write it as a prompt to the person who will improve it.
• Never, ever, plagiarise, no matter how humble the source you have used [if in wiki Main Space, acknowledge it in the edit summary].
• Never, ever, criticise someone's work unless you are prepared to improve on it yourself.

FWIW, before I asked, I had already thought of India, Turkey [I keep forgetting it's now Türkiye] and Mexico. The other 5 mentioned surprised me, but on reflection I could see that they were appropriate (or at least were not clearly inappropriate); therefore the list meets with my approval to submit as my work, with due acknowledgement being made to the source. If I had not approved the list, I would not have used it, but the work was not all mine. Note that the argument I stated is all mine. I have not AFAIK been overly influenced by any other person, and if I had knowingly been influenced by any oligarch or their LLM, my natural response would be to argue the opposite to them!

The statements you quoted were as evidence for your point of view (and BTW, did you check them with any app to see what was the likelihood that any of them were written by an AI, because if not, I really think you should -- there are certain subjects, particularly mathematical ones, where the views of an AI are useful, since there is near-unanimity as to the actions of mathematical functions, so they will have learned correctly; but on issues like this they should be totally excluded as evidence, since we are unaware of what was included in their LLMs; if the purported authors actually used an AI, their statements are inadmissible and you should scrub them).

Contrariwise, the list I added was, if you like, a discussion starter -- it is certainly not evidence one way or another re the US, and I have purposely refrained from saying what is my current view re the US. It is my argument that you should be assessing, and perhaps it is helpful to consider how each of the combinations of "who should decide" applies to each member of a list which, conveniently, includes both the world's most populous country and one of the least populous, countries with widely different degrees of development, and examples of "each side believes that only the other is autocratic" which I am aware appears the case in Poland, though I am ignorant of Brazil.

In my view, the list I gave is adequate for that purpose, though I'm sure it can be improved. So @Viriditas, since you feel so strongly, please improve it. Or were you just "shooting the messenger" for a subject you want to ignore? I do think that for the good of the wiki we should discuss it before it gets heated (there may well be some "case law" I am unaware of, but even if there is, there is nothing like a highly emotive subject to test any rule). Enginear (talk) 03:12, 1 March 2026 (UTC) tweaked format + typo 16:30, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

"I asked Google AI-Pro" is sufficient reason for contempt. CAVincent (talk) 22:11, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

@CAVincent, I suggest you carefully read my reply to @Viriditas above, then consider whether you still feel "contempt" for me because I acknowledged an AI source used to create a discussion starter -- for it is because of the acknowledgement you are contemptuous -- if I had passed it off as my own work, you would never have known (except for the text of the two quoted sentences, but not for the countries listed, which was all that mattered). Yet I didn't see you checking with V whether they had confirmed that the quotes they used were not AI generated...but perhaps you know them well enough that you know they would have done so. Well, let me assure you that I would never use AI in a Main Space article (or at least I cannot imagine a case where I would, but if I ever did, I would acknowledge it in the edit summary) or for anything fundamental in discussion. But I think you may, on consideration, agree that it was a convenient timesaver here, and one you could eliminate by adding your own alternative list at any stage.

You might also consider whether it is ever appropriate to use such language of a fellow-editor on the wiki. Enginear (talk) 03:43, 1 March 2026 (UTC) tweaked twice Enginear (talk) 03:57, 1 March 2026 (UTC)

This isn't some deeply philosophical conundrum. Wikipedia should follow what the reliable sources say. Yes, sure, many American scholars likely have incentive to play-up how democratic the United States is. As long as there are reliable sources stating that, we can add it to the article, as well as important reliable sources that have differing assessments of the United States. I don't think asking an LLM for judgment is helpful. Instead, use an LLM to assist in finding reliable sources. Then, verify that the reliable sources actually exist and are being correctly described by the LLM (and aren't being hallucinated), and those reliable sources can be cited in the article. JasonMacker (talk) 17:53, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

@JasonMacker Bravo for the awesome response UltraCobson (talk) 19:14, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

LLMs should definitely not be asked for judgment. They can also give ludicrous answers when faced with quality judgments like "Who are reliable sources?" on a subject. They seem to be very good at finding obscure but undenied facts, and good at listing the common viewpoints on widely disputed facts, such as "who first said x?" replying "often attributed to a or b, but already used before then by c". LLMs could give useful answers to "Which academics have the most cites for papers about hybrid regimes?" which could be a factor in determining who is reliable. On reflection, you could ask an LLM what factors they had considered in coming to their conclusion on reliability, and then tell it how to change the ranking to what you felt was more apt. So I suppose they could indeed "assist" in finding reliable sources.

You are correct in (implicitly) reminding me that we are a tertiary source, so that our job is to report what reliable secondary sources say, which I had not specifically mentioned, but with that noted, let me repeat my first para:

A philosophical question which may soon arise here is: Since "Democracy" is defined as "rule by the people", who decides if a country is democratic or not -- the people of that country alone, or people worldwide? If, say, a plutocracy manages to convince most of its citizens that "the people" are in charge, but internationally it is clear they are not, which is it actually? And again, is what well-informed "experts" say all-important or does the populist view also have merit.

Hopefully, my worst fears will not come to pass and, by the end of the year it will be clear that the US is a democracy where the will of the plurality is respected. But in case it isn't, what I was trying to say was that I think there will be a huge argument as to which secondary sources are worth inclusion, and which are outliers who should not be given space. (I doubt there will be any push-back on including at least an aggregate of polls asking similar questions of the electorate, so I am really talking about an argument about which secondary sources are "experts" whose views are worthy of inclusion.)

I have already said that I will not be contributing to that argument because IMO, the views of non-US non-experts like me should not be relevant, but if I were, I would assess what, if anything, "experts" had written about India and the other countries in the list which I had asked Google AI to assist me in producing (in doing which, TBF, it pointed out a case I had not considered, that in Poland and Brazil, at any time, the supporters of one party claim that their party is democratic while the other isn't)! If an expert gave off-the-wall opinions about one of those, then I would question their right to space in our article, though technically, I suppose we should be relying on what others have said about their views, rather than our own views on their reliability.

My reason for suggesting it would be wise to agree in advance issues such as whether domestic or international views should be considered more important (or equally important), and which sources are "expert" enough to be included, is because there is already nonsense written on this Talk page -- someone has answered a question "Does a single party encourage private violence against its critics?" with "Yes, but that party is the Democrats." If that is the state of play now, what will it be in 6 months time? Enginear (talk) 03:15, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

I don't think the U.S. has ever been a democracy. The pioneers and founders trampled over the rights of the native peoples and used slaves and immigrants to make themselves rich. "Democracy" was just an old idea that hearkened back to a Golden Age, and many of the founders were motivated by this kind of nostalgia. Another user in this discussion argued that the U.S. is trying to form a more perfect Union over time, which has more credibility to it in some sense, but the reality is that it is the year 2026 now, but the country is held back by a plutocratic gerontocracy that has zero interest in long term planning or the younger generation and doesn't give a damn about American citizens or the future of humanity. As for LLMs, I was surprised to discover in the conversation between Andrej Karpathy and Dwarkesh Patel how bad the training data is and that explains a lot about why many people find LLMs useless outside of pure mathematics and commercial coding for companies for products we don't need and do nothing to improve the planet. Nevermind the environmental threat all of this poses. The reality is that these tools are being used, along with crypto, to directly undermine democracy and human labor and to provide a justification for dismantling the nation state and replacing it with a corporatocracy. How very American! Viriditas (talk) 00:14, 5 April 2026 (UTC)

I don't think my views on whose opinions should be given prominence are going to change, so I will give them now, and then bow out of the discussion unless I am directly asked to say more. In my opinion:

• The only people in a position to give an unbiased answer are international experts. If there is any doubt as to whether their views are "mainstream", we should research their views on other borderline-democratic countries, such as India, Hungary, Singapore, Turkey, and Mexico, to see if they are mainstream (or that any departure from mainstream is well-argued).
• The views of international non-experts are disqualified, because we do not know enough -- the results of a poll of (say) the UK public on whether the US is democratic would have no value and, although we believe our education system is better than the US's in international studies, the typical ignorance of US citizens about the UK is profound (no we do not have Sharia courts in London, no there are no police no-go zones anywhere in the UK, no George III was not a tyrant, that was the UK government -- the UK Royal Family is kept for prestige and tourist $$$ only, the last king not to bow to the will of Parliament (our equivalent of Congress) was Charles I in 1649 -- he used his army without their authority and they had him executed for it -- I could go on...) that we must assume we do not know the US system perfectly either. We may have a use as editors with no dog in the fight, to help defuse arguments.
• US experts' views should come with a caveat that the US Government has been attacking both academic institutions and media companies who publish views critical of the government, and that in any case, it is very difficult to be subjective on an issue so fundamental to their lives.
• US non-experts' views are disqualified, because the majority have little knowledge of the systems in other countries to compare their own with, and so are unduly affected by indoctrination by their friends, relatives and the government. For example, when I was at school in the 1960s, we learnt our times tables by chanting them aloud, and most people knew most of them after about 20 repetitions. But people of my generation in the US had to chant their pledge of allegiance about 2,000 times. It is therefore not surprising that many US citizens firmly believe that they have, for example, more freedom than any other country, even though experts usually rate the US at around 15th. Even today, when children are allowed to just listen to it, it will have a serious effect on their perception of their government. As I mentioned, with growing polarisation between the parties, I do worry that some editors will be unable to accept the views of international experts to allow a NPOV article. But, as I said, international non-experts like me can't possibly know accurately what is happening in the US, so hopefully, my concerns will prove unfounded. Enginear (talk) 13:32, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

WP:SOAPBOX. This talk page is not for random musings, but how to improve the article.--JasonMacker (talk) 21:22, 5 April 2026 (UTC)

A request to re-feature John Adams on the evening of July 4, 2026

Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/John Adams may be of interest to editors of this page. This would be featured on the evening of July 4 while the 250th anniversary celebrations are in progress. Randy Kryn (talk) 10:43, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

Area of the U.S.

The Encyclopedia Britannica states 3,809,525 mi², as in the 2020 U.S. Census and in the information from U.S. Census Bureau; 3,796,742 mi² is from the 2010 U.S. Census. Note: Feel free to delete this comment as well. Lepidux (talk) 19:32, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

Press mention

For Template:Press:

• https://www.popsci.com/technology/most-popular-wikipedia-entries/

--Another Believer _(Talk) 23:21, 24 May 2026 (UTC)