The United States is not a democracy

OK, sure, there is no illuminati or whatever—I'll give you that.

But US democracy is a very troubled one. From local to federal level, it has critical flaws and little to no mechanisms against abuses. Education required for informed consent is tragic, the economy still depends on brain import instead of organic growth. Only far right has high turnout and so gets what they vote for. If I were to guess it's because of religious factions maintaining coherence and motivation, of course aside from active voter suppression. Can't have an effective democracy when half the population doesn't vote. 2020 was historic because "only" a third of the population didn't vote.

Various indices measuring democracy show a gradual decline, too, and they already tend to be slightly biased towards exaggerating US democraticity because of all the propaganda. Speaking of which, decades of Red Scare (and nuclear panic) poisoned free speech against left-wing concepts and yet utterly fail now that Russia is a bigger threat than ever. (Including nuclear—we're mere 90 seconds to midnight.)

Climate crisis needs not worry, car manufacturers will propagandize, bribe, and otherwise pressure cities to ban e-bikes if only to create consumer uncertainty to sell more electric/hybrid cars which have a much higher carbon footprint than e-bikes.