I don't want America to become like Russia or China, but I fear that it will if we keep abusing our democratic system to create a "vetocracy" where nothing can ever be done. Eventually people will rebel and elect totalitarians to force things through. Either that or totalitarian nations will leave us in the dust while we do paperwork.
Our major cities are full of tent city slums because NIMBYs won't allow housing to be built. We have hundreds of gigawatts of renewable energy in the 'planning' stage stuck behind mountains of red tape. California has spent billions on high speed rail and they've barely started to lay track and only after scaling the project back to the point that it'll be near useless (it doesn't even connect the major cities!).
>Just how much veto power do you think the average person has in Russia and China when the elites choose to do something?
They don't, but most of them don't care, because the leaders are getting things done. They may not be the things you want done, or some other malcontents, but to say authoritarian systems are completely ineffectual is just wrong. They really do get things done.
The problem is that they usually get the wrong things done (e.g., idiotic wars in Ukraine). But most of the citizens in those places are easily misled into believing these actions are justified or necessary.
Authoritarians frequently come into power because the previous systems weren't working well, and people wanted a strong leader to take power. Just look at the Roman Empire for example.
Dysfunctional democracies either stagnate or turn into totalitarian dictatorships when people elect totalitarians in a desperate attempt to fix intractable problems. A "vetocracy" where nothing can ever be done is one form of dysfunctional democracy, and if it gets too bad people will elect leaders that will force things through.
(I'm not even sure a vetocracy is a democracy. You could say it's a dictatorship of a small group of obstructionists.)
I want people to think more about the benefits of things and be skeptical of fear-mongers whose career is built around coming up with reasons to do nothing.
(P.S. I think right-wing culture war fear-mongering is also a bunch of bullshit.)
Our major cities are full of tent city slums because NIMBYs won't allow housing to be built. We have hundreds of gigawatts of renewable energy in the 'planning' stage stuck behind mountains of red tape. California has spent billions on high speed rail and they've barely started to lay track and only after scaling the project back to the point that it'll be near useless (it doesn't even connect the major cities!).