Trudeau government bans TikTok from operating in Canada

If you live in a democracy you have a vote and a voice to bring to the table. It’s wild to me that on this topic people seem to see their own governments as largely equivalent to an outwardly adversarial if not explicitly hostile foreign power.

I think it has been so long since the Pax-Americana West has dealt with an overtly hostile major power that we’ve collectively lost the concept that there can be real enemies with goals that run explicitly counter to our own.

The Succession quote, “ I love you, but you are not serious people” comes to mind

I have plenty of beef with the American political system, but a loud group of motivated Americans absolutely has the ability to influence government decisions. If you, a citizen, decided you really cared about something, and gathered your like-minded fellow citizens to amplify your voice, you have a real chance at making an impact. That cannot be said in any way, shape, or form for a foreign power.

It is a frustrating and often ineffectual system, but I simply cannot disagree more that I, as an American citizen, have equivalent powerlessness over the American government as I do over the Chinese government. There is a clear and storied history of people who cared about issues making real change to the American government and the lives of their fellow citizens. There are plenty of terrible things this country has done as well, but I’m not ready to give up on it yet and assume the Chinese government is equivalent.

Lots of things change in China because people make a big stink about it. Probably the most notable are the lockdown protests, but there are countless examples of someone complaining about bad local governance and the national government coming in to fix it.

Chinese social media is pretty vibrant with the exception that you can’t agitate for the fall of the government.

Support for Israel reflects the broad support in the American public. You'll find that elected officials generally reflect the opinions of those that voted for them. They likely disagree with your opinions and think Israel is right to use force to defend itself against the aggression of its enemies.

That said these sorts of issues were way down the list in these elections and people have to compromise on some issues and vote on the aggregate. I do think that it's pretty clear the Republicans were and are a lot more understanding and publicly supportive of Israel vs. the Democrats. They didn't try to do a "both sides here" but clearly communicated who they consider to be the aggressor and who they consider to be defending themselves. That doesn't mean that every single republican voter feels that way but a lot of them do.

The US also supported and brokered quite a few peace initiatives in the middle east. It's not fair to say it only acts to support wars.

> Chinese social media is pretty vibrant with the exception that you can’t agitate for the fall of the government.

Or Pooh Bear.

Or South Park entirely after one episode of joking about China influencing Disney about Pooh Bear.

Or failures of the central government.

There are a lot of things banned online in China; this is so not true.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_China

It only serves to support wars, and most of the American public has historically been fine with it as long as the conflicts aren't on their own soil. However, they can no longer have that sense of security under Trump.

> You'll find that elected officials generally reflect the opinions of those that voted for them.

If you look into the data, you'll generally find that they don't.

"Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence."

https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

There is a Winnie the Pooh ride in Shanghai Disney.

I frequently see it mentioned in Chinese social media.

This doesn't exactly contradict what I was saying. Just because elected officials hold similar opinions doesn't mean economic interests can't impact their policy decisions. Also in terms of methodology, skimming through the paper, the author uses "national survey of the general public" but my claim is whether a given official reflects the will of their voters - which is not the same thing. He does also look at what "affluent" people think as some sort of proxy for the power of money. Maybe there's something there.

I think it's an interesting area of research. However on many fundamental issues, let's say illegal immigration, foreign policy, or abortions, it's not immediately obvious that business interests hold power most of the time. If that was true then it really wouldn't matter if you have democrats or republicans in power but you see definite shift in policy when that happens.

> For example, a vote for anyone is always a vote Israel and Israel's apartheid and wars.

This is provably false. The Green Party explicitly ran on support for Palestine and voters in parts of Michigan voted for the party in decently large numbers to split the Democrat vote.

Not enough voters saw the issue as big enough to switch their votes on a national scale but that’s not a failure of lack of choice, the people spoke with their votes that they don’t care about Israel and Palestine nearly as much as other issues.

That makes sense for Chinese citizens, but I was talking as a foreign citizen, since we were discussing the differences between having your own government vs a foreign government involved in what content you see.

You can't compare Pooh to Xi or you'll go to jail. You can do this in the US.

"It’s wild to me that on this topic people seem to see their own governments as largely equivalent to an outwardly adversarial if not explicitly hostile foreign power".

Because governments are adversarial to their general population in many cases. People live in reality, not in imagination land where the salt-of-the-earth type of people's voices are at all considered.

But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the possibility that Americans can change the policies and actions of the US government, vs. the possibility that Americans can change the policies and actions of the Chinese government. (Chinese citizens' ability to change the policies and actions of the Chinese government is irrelevant.)

The fact of the matter is that Americans do have the ability to change the policies and actions of the US government. It's hard to do, requires collective action, and can fail, but it's possible, and there are quite a few example of it happening.

No American can do anything at all, ever, about whatever the Chinese government has decided to do.

You can buy Pooh merchandise in just about every mall in China. My son has a Pooh sweatshirt we bought at Uniqlo in China.

You just can’t use it as a coded way to agitate against the government.

That is fair.

> Chinese social media is pretty vibrant with the exception that you can’t agitate for the fall of the government.

Just because one criticizes or expresses anger at the central government does not mean that they want to induce mobs that will topple it like in Ukraine. I sincerely doubt China's future history books will talk about the Pooh Bear mobs that brought down Xi's government. More likely to complain about housing or jobs.

> If you live in a democracy you have a vote and a voice to bring to the table.

In a theoretical direct democracy that would be true. But we’re talking about Canada and the US here.