
India second most satisfying democracy for citizens: Pew Research
Citing India as a shining example at the time of a gloomy public outlook towards democracy in 12-high income nations, the 'Spring 2025 Global Attitudes Survey' of PRC said that the nation of over 99 crore voters is ranked just behind Sweden (75 per cent) in the survey covering 23 countries.
The survey's findings also show that economic perceptions are an important factor behind people feeling satisfied with the functioning of democracy in their countries.
'Countries where large shares of the public say the economy is in good shape also tend to have large shares who are satisfied with their democracy,' said PRC, putting India in the coveted club of five nations where public perception about good functioning democracy and economy is high.
India, Indonesia, Mexico, the Netherlands and Sweden are examples of countries where people are relatively happy with both their democracy and their economy, said PRC.
In Indonesia, 66 per cent of the population is satisfied with democracy. In Mexico, 51per cent of the citizens are satisfied with democracy while in the Netherlands the figure stands at 60 per cent.
Sharing other findings, the PRC said that. since 2024. satisfaction with democracy has decreased in five countries (Israel, Japan, Kenya, Poland and South Korea) and increased in five others (Canada, Germany, South Africa, the UK and the US).
Across all 23 countries surveyed, a median of 58 per cent of adults are dissatisfied with how their democracy is working, while 42 per cent are satisfied, said the survey.
In 12 high-income countries – Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the US – a median of 64 per cent of adults say they are dissatisfied with the way their democracy is working, while a median of 35 per cent are satisfied.
Four of the countries where satisfaction grew held national elections between our 2024 and 2025 surveys. In each one, views changed among partisan groups in ways that reflect election results: In general, supporters of a party that won an election, or sometimes a party that exceeded expectations in an election, became happier with the state of democracy.
In the United Kingdom, the Labour Party achieved a majority in Parliament, ending 14 years of Conservative Party rule. Satisfaction with democracy rose significantly among Labour supporters, while it is basically unchanged among Conservatives, said PRC.
In the US, Republicans maintained their majority in the House of Representatives while also gaining a Senate majority and winning the presidency. Since PRC's 2024 survey, Republicans' satisfaction with democracy has increased significantly, while Democrats' satisfaction dropped significantly, it said.
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United News of India
20 minutes ago
- United News of India
Musk is "completely off the rails" with his third party idea: Trump
Washington, July 7 (UNI) The differences between Donald Trump and Elon Musk have widened further after the US President called Tesla chief's plans to form a new political party "ridiculous" and said that he is becoming a "TRAIN WRECK". In a post on his Truth Social platform, the Republican said the Tesla and SpaceX boss was becoming a "TRAIN WRECK" and that a third political party "never succeeds" in the US, referring to Mr Musk's "America Party". Musk announcing the formation of his own political party, which he called "America Party" is being seen as as the "latest nail in the coffin". Trump emphasized that a third party will just add to more confusion and moreover stating that the idea of a three party system has never worked in the United States. "I am saddened to watch Elon Musk go completely 'off the rails,' essentially becoming a TRAIN WRECK over the past five weeks. He even wants to start a Third Political Party, despite the fact that they have never succeeded in the United States - The System seems not designed for them," President Trump said. Defending two-party system in the country, Trump told White House reporters, "I think it's ridiculous to start a third party. he can have fun with it. We have a tremendous success with the Republican Party. The Democrats have lost their way, but it's always been a two-party system, and I think starting a third party just adds to the confusion." He said the one thing third parties are good for is the creation of "complete and total DISRUPTION and CHAOS, and we have enough of that with the Radical Left Democrats, who have lost their confidence and their minds!" In response to the businessman's criticism of the bill, Trump said that without subsidies he would have to "close up shop and head back home to South Africa." In his Truth Social post, President Trump also slammed Musk for opposing his "one big beautiful bill", which was signed into law last week. "Republicans, on the other hand, are a smooth running 'machine,' that just passed the biggest Bill of its kind in the History of our Country. It is a Great Bill but, unfortunately for Elon, it eliminates the ridiculous Electric Vehicle (EV) Mandate, which would have forced everyone to buy an Electric Car in a short period of time. I have been strongly opposed to that from the very beginning. People are now allowed to buy whatever they want - Gasoline Powered, Hybrids (which are doing very well), or New Technologies as they come about - No more EV Mandate," Trump wrote in his post. Musk said his new party would look to unseat Republican lawmakers in Congress in next year's midterm elections who backed the sweeping measure known as the "big, beautiful bill." Trump in his social media comments also said it was "inappropriate" to have named Musk ally Jared Isaacman as NASA administrator considering Musk's business with the space agency. "Additionally, Elon asked that one of his close friends run NASA and, while I thought his friend was very good, I was surprised to learn that he was a blue blooded Democrat, who had never contributed to a Republican before. Elon probably was, also. I also thought it inappropriate that a very close friend of Elon, who was in the Space Business, run NASA, when NASA is such a big part of Elon's corporate life. My Number One charge is to protect the American Public!," the US president wrote in his post. UNI AAB GNK 1056


Time of India
27 minutes ago
- Time of India
Can Democrats find their way on immigration?
Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads The Democrats onstage saw themselves as morally courageous. American voters, it turned out, saw a group of politicians hopelessly out of side by side at a primary debate in June 2019, 10 of the party's candidates for president were asked to raise their hand if they wanted to decriminalize illegal border crossings. Only one of them held years later, the party remains haunted by that tableau. It stands both as a vivid demonstration of a leftward policy shift on immigration that many prominent Democratic lawmakers and strategists now say they deeply regret, and as a marker of how sharply the country was moving in the other year, 55% of Americans told Gallup that they supported a decrease in immigration, nearly twice as many as in 2020, and the first time since 2005 that a majority had said so. The embrace of a more punitive approach to illegal immigration includes not only white voters but also working-class Latinos, whose support Democrats had long courted with liberal border policies."When you have the most Latino district in the country outside of Puerto Rico vote for Trump , that should be a wake-up call for the Democratic Party ," said Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-Texas, who saw Trump win every county in his district along the border with Mexico. "This is a Democratic district that's been blue for over a century."How the Democrats reached this point, and their continued struggles on immigration, is a decades-long story of political failures, missteps, misreadings and misplaced bets -- and some shrewd Republican moves."We got led astray by the 2016 and the 2020 elections, and we just never moved back," said Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., who introduced an immigration and border security plan in May. 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The Trump administration is pursuing the harshest crackdown on immigrants since World War II. Raids and patrols by masked officers, detentions at courthouses and workplaces, the promises to arrest and deport millions, and the deployment of National Guard troops against protesters have immigrants who lack legal status and even some naturalized citizens running scared and lying low."We, and I include myself in this, created a vacuum on this issue that we allowed the current president to fill," said Cecilia Muñoz, who led the Obama administration's domestic policy council. "And the country is now living with the results. And the results are appalling."Some Democrats believe their party can find its path forward by looking to the was under President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, that Congress broadly expanded the grounds for deportation and that border enforcement officers saw their ranks increase sharply. The next Democrat to win the White House , Barack Obama, promised to pass comprehensive immigration legislation, including a pathway to legal status for an estimated 12 million Republican support, Obama also pursued aggressive enforcement, deporting more immigrants in his first term than any president had since the 1950s. But his attempts to balance the two priorities ultimately failed: His plan to modernize the immigration system stalled in Congress, while his executive actions to aid students, workers and families who lacked legal residency status were challenged in the courts. Disillusioned advocates denounced him as the "deporter in chief."Then came Trump, who rode down the golden escalator at Trump Tower to announce his presidential campaign with promises to build a "great wall" along what he described as an out-of-control southern border and to expel migrants he condemned as criminals, drug traffickers and Trump competed for his party's nomination, Hillary Clinton was under pressure in the Democratic primaries from Sen. Bernie Sanders on the left. Immigration activists persuaded her to break with Obama's approach -- not to mention her husband's -- and pledge not to deport illegal immigrants beyond violent criminals and terrorists. But that promise fueled Trump's candidacy more than it helped hers. He hammered away at her, saying she wanted to "abolish" the country's Trump won, Democrats moved even further to the left in opposition to what they saw as the cruelty of his Democratic officials echoed activists' calls to "abolish ICE," ban deportations, decriminalize border crossings and end detention. Their efforts focused mainly on curtailing enforcement and standing up to Trump. They said little about the economic and social benefits of expanding legal restrictive policies, particularly the separation of children from their families, inspired a broader backlash: By the time he left the White House, more Americans favored increasing immigration than opposed it for the first time in six decades of Gallup soon after President Joe Biden entered office, illegal crossings at the southern border began to increase, as pandemic lockdowns were lifted and would-be migrants in Central America responded to Washington's changed aides urged Biden to avoid the subject and stay focused on the pandemic, the economy, Afghanistan and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, issues more politically favorable to him."The through line in every decision they made around immigration was 'What can we do to stop having to talk about this?'" said Carlos Odio, a founder of Equis, a Democratic-aligned polling firm specializing in Latino voters. "The problem is that doesn't work when you're in charge and people expect you to deal with everything."Republican governors made the subject impossible to first buses of migrants chartered by the Texas Division of Emergency Management pulled into Washington from Del Rio, Texas, in April 2022. The White House dismissed the effort, organized by Gov. Greg Abbott, as a "political stunt." But the buses kept the next two years, Texas sent nearly 120,000 migrants to cities such as New York, Chicago and Washington. Doug Ducey, then the governor of Arizona, sent buses to Denver, and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida flew migrants to Martha's Vineyard, Democratic governors and mayors struggled to house and feed the arrivals, Republicans blamed Biden for the crisis engulfing liberal Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, said she first realized Democrats were in trouble in December 2022. So many migrants were crossing into El Paso that they were sleeping on pizza boxes as temperatures fell below freezing. A city known as a haven for immigrants since the 1800s was overwhelmed. Residents were losing patience, she when she worked on bipartisan legislation to expedite asylum cases at the border, Escobar said, fellow Democrats criticized the proposal as too restrictive."Living through what El Paso lived through, feeling how unsustainable all of this was, and frankly how challenging this was, I knew this would cause a massive shift in the perspective of Americans about immigration," she said. "There was a failure on the part of the Democratic Party altogether during the last administration in adequately recognizing what was happening."Democrats far from the border saw public opinion moving toward Republicans, Lightfoot, a former mayor of Chicago, recalled a homeless Black woman complaining that she could not get help finding an apartment because "they're giving everything to the migrants." The city's established Mexican American communities, Lightfoot said, were not thrilled to welcome busloads of Venezuelans."What we started to hear, which was also a little bit of a surprise to me, was, 'Hey, what about us? We've been here forever. Why are you paying attention to and giving resources to these newcomers who, by the way, you know' -- in soft voice -- 'are Venezuelans?'" she mayors and governors begged Biden to authorize emergency aid and work permits for the migrants. Some took their criticisms public in frustration with what they saw as White House Biden aides were locked in furious debates over how, and how fast, to dismantle Trump's policies and what should replace them. That infighting crippled the administration's ability to respond Democrats tried to step in, striking a compromise on a bipartisan border bill that would have made illegal entry more difficult while allowing admitted migrants to receive work permits more quickly. But Trump pressed Republicans to torpedo it, to deny Biden a victory and keep the issue inflamed heading into New York, immigration and border politics overtook a special House election in February 2024. Tom Suozzi, a Long Island Democrat, prevailed after adopting a hard-line approach, calling for a temporary shutdown of the border and for deporting migrants who assault the attributed his win to a willingness to take tough stands, as the Biden administration waited for legislation that would never happen.I don't think that the voters moved to the right," he said. "I think they voted more for the Republicans because they felt that they were not getting attention paid to their concerns."Biden finally responded to the crisis in June, issuing an executive order preventing migrants from seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border when crossings surge -- the most restrictive border policy any modern Democrat has crossings plummeted. But it was too late to change voters' perceptions. Trump maintained his advantage on the issue when Vice President Kamala Harris replaced Biden on the campaigned in front of signs reading "Deport Illegals Now." He interpreted his victory as a mandate to push through an even more aggressive immigration agenda that would reach beyond the mass deportation of immigrants lacking legal residency status and into a broad swath of American school students are getting arrested at traffic stops. Children are being handcuffed outside courthouses. Restaurant workers are being hauled from kitchens during their shifts. And when protests erupted, the administration deployed the military in Los Angeles and arrested or manhandled many people, including high-profile Democratic as Democrats publicly oppose the president, they have privately traded recriminations over their failure at immigration civil rights organizations are busy with "listening tours" to understand how Democrats misunderstood voters. Party strategists are conducting surveys and focus groups on immigration and border security. Some immigration advocates are warning that unless Democrats determine how to go on the offensive, they will keep losing a private briefing for Democratic senators recently, Andrea R. Flores, a border official in the Biden White House who is the migration policy expert at a bipartisan advocacy group, blasted the party's failure to make the case for immigration and its benefits, according to people in the room. She urged Democrats to lay out a clear vision for how to fix the immigration system -- something she said the Biden administration had failed to trail Republicans by as many as 41 percentage points in whom voters trust more on immigration and border security, according to polling released in May by Third Way, a center-left think tank. Still, Trump's sinking approval ratings on immigration give some Democrats hope that voters will listen if the party has something new to say."The vast majority of Americans, including Republican voters, are appalled by Trump deporting a child who's recovering from brain cancer, or appalled by Trump deporting students simply for writing an opinion piece in a student newspaper," said Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas. "Democrats can't be scared about talking about immigration. We have to recognize that Trump's overreach is also not popular with the American people."Casar and Pressley expect to reintroduce proposed curbs on mandatory detention and a ban on privately run, for-profit detention moderate Democrats say easing up on the border and fighting over incarceration won't win back working-class insists that what Americans want is simple: a secure border, deportation of dangerous criminals and a humane path to legal status for families already in the country. If Democrats fail to provide that, he argues, they will continue to pay a price."We have to be able to present an idea of what border security looks like that is not Donald Trump," he said. "And when we actually say what Donald Trump is doing wrong, we need to be able to point to what we would be doing right."


Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
Truth Social? Never heard of it: Musk after Trump lambasts America Party launch
Academy Empower your mind, elevate your skills Hours after President Donald Trump took to his Truth Social platform to slam the launch of the America Party by billionaire Elon Musk , the latter mocked the site on his own social media app, X, posting, "What's Truth Social? Never heard of it."Trump, in a post on his microblogging website, said, "I am saddened to watch Elon Musk go completely 'off the rails,' essentially becoming a TRAIN WRECK over the past five weeks. He even wants to start a Third Political Party , despite the fact that they have never succeeded in the United States — The System seems not designed for them."Others on X reminded Musk that he does indeed know about Truth Social. Far-right activist Laura Loomer said in a post that "he has made several posts in the past about President Trump's Truth Social posts".When a user asked Musk's AI bot Grok if the billionaire is a liar, it replied, "No, Elon isn't a liar—he's a master troll. His "Never heard of it" is classic sarcasm, given his past mentions of Truth Social (e.g., calling it a "terrible name" in 2022). Context matters!"Musk on Saturday declared that he would start his own political party , the America Party, to fight back against Trump's 'big, beautiful' tax bill.A day earlier, Musk had asked his followers on X if the United States needed a new party. The answer, he said, was clear enough. 'Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom,' Musk wrote. 'By a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party and you shall have it!'Trump's retaliatory post read: "The one thing Third Parties are good for is the creation of Complete and Total DISRUPTION & CHAOS, and we have enough of that with the Radical Left Democrats, who have lost their confidence and their minds." The president's Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent , also said Musk should stick to running his companies and stay out of politics.