Thanks for sharing, William, nice piece. Taking the larger view--that is, what is intrinsically correct, rather than what are a majority of people feeling at the moment--I think you'd agree (based on your renewal at home comment below) that liberalism/checks and balances/democratic ideology/independent judiciary/rule of law etc at least provide the opportunity for those not in direct control of the military and domestic security forces/secret police to control the men with guns and the elite who order them around.

While the US is struggling horribly, it remains the fact that the CCP starved to death 40 million of its citizens within living memory and has now condemned its country to decades of stagnation through its own unwillingness to transfer some of its wealth and power to ordinary Chinese by rebalancing, while the average Chinese has zero say in what happens or ability to do anything about horrible mismatches in domestic power or horrible policies. I'm donating a lot to Biden and plan to volunteer for his campaign if possible as well as spread the word in my own circles i.e. get more involved in civil society, and that's not a luxury any Mainland Chinese has. As I wrote in response to DC, the Eric Li camp (laughably and with horrible amnesia) says that's not necessary in China because the CCP is a uniquely virtuous group of individuals, but obviously the virtue he is really talking about is the virtue of aligned incentives for the CCP elite to get rich building infrastructure and other major SOE's over about a generation plus which caused the economy to grow for all, but now that their economic incentives are no longer aligned with the interests of their own population, we can see in Xi's desperate and shrill nationalism the CCP response to the situation--distraction and repression (or else absurd belief in actual Marxism itself, i.e. somehow "the contradictions will be resolved" in the CCP's favor by some mysterious Hegelian historical process).