American liberalism is a bunch of crock. It is based on a false premise that most people can run public affairs by making rational informed decisions. They cannot. They cannot even run their own private lives in a rational way, let alone manage affairs that affect many.
They cannot act rationally most of the time because 1. they are usually swayed by appearances that more often than not are false and thus need careful rational critique, however 2. people are too lazy to perform such careful rational critique most of the time. Both traits likely had evolutionary advantages. If you live in a jungle, as the humankind did for most of its time on this planet, quickly reacting to appearances offers a much better chance of survival than delaying reaction until a critical examination of appearances is performed. And laziness conserves energy, which again increases a chance of survival under condition of scarcity.
While these traits might have offered a better chance of survival in the wild, they proved disastrous in civilization, because they made people vulnerable to manipulation by their fellow humans. Humans quite early discovered that they can make their fellow humans do virtually anything if they appeal to human laziness and susceptibility to deception and offer them something for little or no effort. It almost never fails. It is the mother of all scams, business, religion, and politics.
The risk of manipulation has always been there, of course, but increased exponentially as the size of human societies grew. This, in turn, created fertile ground for the growth of the shyster class - professional manipulators exploiting humans as resources to their own advantages. The professional shyster class invariably includes priests and religious figures more generally, political leaders, entrepreneurs of various kinds, and story tellers. This does not mean that ordinary humans did not try to manipulate their fellow humans, but that the shyster professionals do it on a much larger and systematic scale that employed art and science.
Consequently, any political or social organization that purports to appeal to rational choice of informed citizenry has as much credibility as an offer of a multi-million dollar transfer from a Nigerian bank received by email. Both are the same type of exploit of the fundamental vulnerability in the human operating system - offering something of value for little or no effort. The only difference is how well the code of that exploit is written, which explains why most but hopelessly naive people distrust Nigerian bank offers but swallow raw bullshit spoon-fed to them in civic lessons is again - deceiving appearances. Nigerian bank offers are laconic notes written in poor English and skimpy on vivid details. Civic lessons, otoh, are dressed in impeccable prose and illustrated with numerous uplifting and heat-warming details. That is, pretty much, the main difference.
It follows that American style democracy, as explained in civic lessons, is a lie, a bunch of crock designed to deceive people. The lie of religion is to convince people that the most threatening thing to their well being is not their fellow human in the shyster class, but some abstract entity called "demon" or "satan," from which the shyster class is supposed to "save" them. American democracy uses pretty much the same lie but substitutes "demon" with "government." But both are pretty much the same protection racket in which a professional shyster - a priest, a businessman, or a politician - is offering "protection" from a peril that he invented.
It further follows that the most effective form of social organization is not one that offers "choice" - which almost invariably is a racket invented by some entrepreneurial character - but one that offers real protection from manipulation by entrepreneurial characters. Such form of social organization was described by Hobbes as Leviathan - a supreme authority that suppresses human freedom to harm fellow humans. Of course, this also creates the danger of manipulation by the Leviathan himself, but that danger is far less damaging to the humankind than unrestricted freedom to deceive and manipulate others.
The USSR is a case in point. There was a deception and manipulation by the Leviathan in the form of the Communist Part apparatchiks, but the society as a whole was remarkably free of entrepreneurial shysters, and those few that existed were typically punished. As a result, the life was good for most people - basic life necessities were provided, people did not have to worry about uncertainty of their material existence, the temptation of fetishes offered by entrepreneurial shysters to cure imaginary ills or to offer imaginary happiness low. An most people learned how not to be fooled by Leviathan's deceptions, which was like a known pothole in a road. Everyone knew where it was and how to avoid it to use the road effectively. OTOH, the American-style democracy is a road where potholes appear daily in most unexpected places without warning, and often swallow the road itself - making it virtually impossible to move effectively.
Although the USSR ultimately failed under the relentless attacks by the global shyster class, the goal it tried to achieve was ultimately good and worth further pursuits. If "good society" is going to be implemented on this planet one day, it will take the form of Communist Leviathan paved over the treacherous potholes of the American style "democracy."
