No it isn’t.

That country never had a leader, either from favoring West camp or from favoring Russia camp, who united the both sides of the country. The politics in that country was always chaotic during that period.

It’s a policy difference. Working political societies finesse that all the time. In any case, after 2014, the Russophile segment of the Ukrainian political spectrum fell to 16% of the total and competed well only in the Donbass. Intramural disputes are not the problem in the Ukraine. Russia is.

Do you have a list in mind? A specific definition of what you’re talking about?

Ukraine between 1991 and Feb 2022 is a good example. That country never had a leader, either from favoring West camp or from favoring Russia camp, who united the both sides of the country. The politics in that country was always chaotic during that period.

What Mac meant on 50%+1, in my opinion, is a country of roughly equally divided and polarized in which both side don’t trust each other and view the other side as a threat to the country. But neither can marginalize the other side since they are roughly equal in size.

Do you have a list in mind? A specific definition of what you’re talking about?

It’s coded language, probably derived by one of their George Lakoffs (rhymes with. . . .”.

“Our Democracy” is THEIR term for the ongoing coup.

This has been going on for so long now that there are a whole lot of people who have no other conception. So if a high school in Podunk, Oklahoma says a prayer over the PA before a football game, the matter will be seen as a choice between nationally mandated prayer and nationally forbidden prayer. To this is added the monarchical power attributed to the presidency. “A Republican president will force us all to pray!” on the one side. On the other side “A Democratic president will prohibit us from praying!”

Left-of-center politics has been the big driver of this, but by now it’s accepted unthinkingly as a norm by others. Among other things, the utopian secular-religious streak in even moderate leftism can’t help but assume that any good thing (from their point of view) should be mandated everywhere.

1. A foundational phenomenon was the replacement of circumspect judicial review which had an eye on constitutional text and history and an eye on common law with judicial review which acted as a handmaiden of the Democratic Party in Congress; you can date that to 1937. Step 2 was the appellate courts assisted by the law professoriate going into business for themselves, making use of the judicial ukase to impose policy goals which often had scant popular constituency; this began in 1953. Some of these exercises were more justifiable than others.

2. Another phenomenon has been the secular decline in the ability of Congress to compose and enact sensible statutory legislation of any kind. Some part of this is structural (which structures are never repaired) and some part cultural. Legislation today when it gets through is a rococo compendium of carve-outs. The original Social Security Act (1935) was 35 pages long. Obama’s “Affordable Care Act” and the “Dodd-Frank” financial sector legislation had four-digit page counts. Dodd-Frank was composed though bull sessions among lobbyists held in Barney Frank’s office.

3. The mental breakdown of Congress means that standards binding on the public are not incorporated into statutory law, but are left for administrative agencies to compose and promulgate.

4. The courts do not insist Congress and the administrative agencies it empowers stay in their lane, and neither set of actors wishes to do so. Congress spends oodles of time (and globs of money) on issues that are not its proper province. In the regulatory arena, the proper power of Congress concerns (1) the use of natural resources to which the federal government holds what amounts to an allodial title; (2) transactions between parties domiciled in different jurisdictions (the jurisdictions delineated by state lines, the international frontier, and the social boundary between the Indian tribes and the rest); (3) transactions between vendors and travelers; (4) recruitment of labor outside of one’s jurisdiction; (5) labor relations at an enterprise with employees in multiple jurisdictions; (6) considerations of health and safety in re merchandise shipped across jurisdictional lines; (7) considerations of health and safety in re services provided to travelers and shippers; (8) considerations of health and safety for employees of concerns operating in multiple jurisdictions or employed in cross-jurisdictional shipping and transportation; (9) the migration of effluvia across jurisdictional lines; (10) the definition and enforcement of virtual property rights (patents, trademarks, copyright, broadcasting, domain names); (11) the administration of bankruptcies; and (12) the architecture of financial institutions whose facilities and customers are located in multiple jurisdictions. The courts have, since 1942, pretended the distinction between inter-state and intra-state commerce was factitious.

5. Conjoined to that has been the hypertrophy of the federal penal code. The proper province of the federal penal code is the definition and prescription of punishment to (1) contain assaults on the integrity of legal procedure (ex: laws on jury tampering and perjury); (2) contain assaults on the state that act to frustrate its execution of its duties (ex: prohibitions on trespass and burglary on federal property, on assaults on working government employees, on stealing government property, on forging government documents and attestations, on evading taxes, on bribing public officials; (3) contain offenses against national security (treason, espionage, insurrection); (4) contain assaults on a citizen exercising rights he has as a citizen (fraud and intimidation corrupting elections and legal proceedings); (5) contain criminal activity where cross-jurisdictional transactions and shipping are integral (not incidental) to the offense (ex fraud schemes, drug trafficking). Another aspect of the hypertrophy has been the failure to calibrate prescribed sentencing to the median value among the states for crimes of similar severity.

6. The acceptance by the courts and Congress of promiscuous use of agents provacateurs, of legal procedures which allow defendants to be absurdly overcharged, and the failure to insist as a matter of law that U.S. Attorney’s offices indemnify a defendant pro-rata for his legal expenses. Oliver North was convicted of three counts on a 23 count indictment; the special prosecutors’ office should have been on the hook for 87% of his legal fees.

7. The habit of Congress of gleefully funding anything to build patron-client relationships and manufacture PR. The shining example of this is the National Endowment for the Arts. There is no need for central co-ordination and control even if you fancy public funds should be doled out to individual artists as a matter of course. Twyla Tharp should have been told to try hitting up the New York City government. The one thing this sort of activity does is transfer allocations decisions to the most remote and distracted appropriating body (which was the whole point).

8. As an addendum to the foregoing, please note on federal welfare policy that Congress is, as a rule, properly limited to foreign aid, specialty clientele (veterans, reservation Indians, residents of the territories, Americans living abroad, military families, and migrant populations), programs which operate over a whole life cycle (wherein a subject may live in multiple jurisdictions – Social Security being a prime example), and programs for which the size of the actuarial pool is most salient (disaster relief, unemployment compensation). Subsidies for people’s rent, groceries, and utility bills do not cut it, financing the schooling of aught but specialty clientele does not cut it, and cash doles for random people do not cut it. These are state responsibilities.

9. Please note also that Congress and the executive branch are horribly organized.

10. The Democratic Party is a criminal organization. This is of a piece with the decline in character generally.

1. It wasn’t the poorest country in the world.

2. India’s political economy was associated with slow growth over that period. It was not the source of India’s poverty; it just retarded efforts to improve output in India.

https://redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2022/12/14/exclusive-analysis-of-rnc-spending-since-2017-shows-millions-were-spent-on-private-jets-limousines-luxury-retreats-broadway-shows-and-more-n673852