>
> "...a “Beijing consensus” has been gaining ground, extolling the virtues of
> decisive authoritarianism over shilly-shallying democratic debate. In the
> margins of international conferences such as the recent Davos forum, even
> American officials mutter despairingly about their own “dysfunctional”
> political system."
Who has been saying this? I've heard a lot of people mocking the Senate for being dysfunctional, but the comparison is to parliamentary systems, which are more democratic.
Indeed, the only defense I've seen of the senate is an explicitly anti-democratic appeal to authority: the Framers wanted a republic, not a democracy, &c.