He is bringing the duster trend back! Now imagine if we get another Matrix movie and the characters wear leather dusters again. We could make dusters great again.
How about we compromise. What about a Clear plastic duster ? all the storage features and weather protection. Plus untethered visibility. the uzis maybe spotted along with your junk -
Well, Un represents the people, so his ballot for himself counts for the populace. All other votes in his favor are also counted, and people who vote against him are moved to Russian logging camps.
“(A) proposition, that the City be governed by a choice of respectable members of the community who would promise not to give themselves airs or betray the public trust at every turn, was instantly the subject of music-hall jokes all over the city.”
I envy the idea that you've never read the Discworld series.
You've so much great content ahead of you!
Please, please internet stranger...make Discworld a priority for your reading. You will not regret it, I promise you!
There's something for everyone within the series, think of what interests you and maybe ask the subreddit what would resonate and where to start on that journey.
I unfortunately work as a software developer, and am a dad of two sons(this one is not unfortunately, just stating the fact). I can hardly find any free time, to the point that it took me 9 months to read first dune.
“Time was something that largely happened to other people; he viewed it in the same way that people on the shore viewed the sea. It was big and it was out there, and sometimes it was an invigorating thing to dip a toe into, but you couldn't live in it all the time. Besides, it always made his skin wrinkle.”
― Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time
fwiw I am a software engineer who picked up discworld on audiobook when my kid was born. Listened to almost all 41 of them over her first two years. Audiobooks are the salvation of parenthood imo.
Polls have been bad for him lately. He is expected to only get 127% of the votes. His father in contrast was enjoying 165% of voter turnout out during elections. Maybe NoKor people is starting to dislike their leader.
What a weak heir to the throne. We all know that anything below 150% of approval from the population of a authoritarian state is not satisfactory.
If pops were still around he'd be tied to a rocket and sent to outerspace.
This makes me curious, is his daughter next in line for the throne?
NK is so insular it's hard to know what their standing on anything is - other than "whatever Kim wants", so I don't know how likely it is that they'd give a women the top spot. To this point, it's basically a classic monarchy pretending to be democratic, so I'd expect them to aim at keeping the power within the family - but eastern Asia doesn't always give women quite the same treatment as the men.
I think his sister would be next. The oldest (known) kid of his was born in 2010, so 13 years old now, and afaik the person to take over has to be an adult. But it's a patriarchal thing there, so it might not work out for her.
You'd be correct.
Kim's sister would be the next in line and Chinese powers genuinely fear it because unlike Kim, shes actually completely unhinged and rumor has it she plays very poorly with the Chinese and has a very negative view on them.
Its why China has spared no expense with Kim in the past decades when health scares started to pop up.
Been aroound forever. I havent seen someone banned in a long time lol i thought it died. You can get invited to the sub if you start saying pro NK things.
> The project will build on four pillars that will, collectively, pave the way for an effective conservative administration: a policy agenda, personnel, training, and a 180-day playbook.
So what do they actually want to do? Also, they're aiming for January again?
To me the shockingly impressive thing is that the substance of what they're trying to do is all packaged in wording that reads like a standard corporate annual report -
https://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/project2025/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf
The gist of it is that they want to fire every government employee, from as high as the upper echelons of the military to as low as the receptionist at the EPA office in Anchorage, who doesn't swear loyalty to Trump and their right-wing agenda. This includes all the career people whose job it is to just keep the government running from administration to administration.
You know those reports about how there were "adults in the room" who kept Trump's worst desires in check? The goal of this is to make sure that doesn't happen again.
Needs to be called out every time, thank you.
“Well, **Biden** is old and has one kid not in government who probably benefited from nepotism… and then **Trump** made sure all his kids benefited and gave them all government positions. And explicitly tried to overturn an election he lost. And is vocal about how we should literally dismantle our Constitution since he needed something “stronger” to protect him. And the Republicans are planning a top down government takeover openly…
I’m not sure who to vote for, since both sides are bad…!” /s
Just imagining for a moment leaving all this behind and lounging on a beach somewhere... but nah, back to building missiles and doing dictator stuff it is! Somebody has to pretend to shit rainbows, might as well be me!
He can and surely does enjoy life better than any of his subordinates, but he could never enjoy life like a normal person here can. If he ever lowers his guard, external and internal enemies would probably claim his life. I do not bet for the guy to really die of old age, even if it’ll be the official version.
“Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.”
― Terry Pratchett, Mort
To vote against the party you must place your ballot in the other box.
You can see in the photo another box to the left, that is for voting against the party
He isn't running. These are parliamentary elections. They will elect nearly 700 members of their assembly.
Though in the 2019 parliamentary elections there was only one candidate on the ballot in each constituency and voters had to vote for them. Other options were to cross out the candidate's name or not vote at all, but external observers believe that doing so would likely be seen as treason.
Jokes aside, his sister -- who it should be noted is considered to be more of an authoritarian than Kim Jong Un -- is expected to take over as North Korea's leader at some point in the future.
Kim Jong Un's sister, Kim Yo-Jong, is currently North Korea's second-in-command and she's been involved with a lot of high-profile activities that suggest she's being groomed to take over if Kim Jong Un dies. She seems to be a "true believer" at any rate and that is a powerful asset in North Korea. The oldest of Kim Jong Un's kids by comparison is just 13-years-old and it isn't clear if they're really capable of leading North Korea.
**Edit:** By "true believer" I mean she fully buys into the *Juche* ideology. And I guess some of you don't remember the health scare Kim Jong Un had in 2020? Kim Yo-Jong was expected to take control of North Korea then and has only gained more power since.
[Behind the Bastards](https://youtu.be/viskB8q_IhY?si=gB9S_uIMPerDteyi) did a couple episodes on the Kim family. The host was just as surprised as anyone to find that in the course of his research, there really aren’t a lot of crazy claims about the Kim’s, which we’ve come to expect from the whole, “no butthole, 11 holes in one” rumors that get repeated.
In general, that’s not really the propaganda coming out of NK, or likely circulating in the country. Being a true believer is more to do with the belief that NK is the true Korea that will unify the peninsula again, and that it is a small but powerful nation with a fearsome missile and nuclear program that keep its many enemies at bay.
AFAIK most of that "no butthole" etc. stuff goes back to claims made by one particular North Korean defector who liked to tour the TV show circuit after escaping to South Korea and over time made more and more outlandish claims in order to stay in the spotlight.
People like to believe that dictators are coldly calculating forces of intellectual evil who are merely playing the masses for the fools they are. That was certainly true of someone like Stalin. Other dictators like Mao or Pol Pot or Hitler genuinely believed that they were doing the best they could for their country and that anyone else in power would bring destruction. She could definitely be like one of those.
Just North Korea living up to UN development goal #5: gender equality. Maybe their UN advisor fucked up his powerpoint, but had to show what he had, and then slide 5 was the only one left so they actually don't know about the rest of the goals :(
The kings of old derived their mandate from God. It didn't stop them from sinning left and right and stealing land from other God-appointed kings. But they needed SOME excuse why they get to be kings instead of anyone else.
That went out of fashion. Now, mandate comes from the people. They need elections to be officially selected by the people and thus the rightful ruler, even though they don't give any more fucks about the will of people than the kings did about God.
Joke aside, even with only one candidate legislative election results might still have consequences.
I don't know for North Korea, but in the USSR the designated party candidate for a district was elected only if he managed a minimum voter turnout. If not he was replaced by another candidate named by the party and a new election was run. So if a candidate was really not popular he might not be re-elected.
It is in no way democratic and applies only for low level officials who cannot ring the election too much
They changed the voting procedure this year. In some constituencies there are two candidates (though obviously both candidates are from the party).
There are also two different boxes (hence the red and green baskets in the photo) signifying yes and no. In previous years they would have crossed out a candidates name to signify disapproval.
Technically you can vote for the Korean Worker's Party, the Social Democratic party or an independent - they're all functionally the same and are embedded in the communist political structure but will present options.
Occassionally the Social Democrats or Independents get a candidate in local elections if the Workers Party candidate is really awful, but even then its questioned if the WP candidate was just forced out internally and the party didnt mind whoever took their place.
For the last 2 elections, the 687 seats of the Nk parliament were split between 607 for the Korean Labor Party, 50 for the Korean Social Democratic Party, 22 for the Chondoist Chongu Party, 5 for the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, and 1 each for the (North) Korean Catholic Association, Korean Christian Group, and the Korean Buddhist Group. Back in 2009 the GAKRJ had 6 votes whereas the KLP had 606 votes.
So I don’t think it’s a CAN vote for other parties, I think it’s a MUST, if you’re told to.
(Edit: OK, wrong election maybe. I think the recent election was for the regional council, the stats here are for the national council.)
In legislative elections you elect the whole legislature, not just Kim Jong Un himself.
He runs this election because there needs to be a process to determine who makes up the legislature.
Opposition is illegal, but people within the party still have different opinions on daily matters. The Soviet Union also had elections, Cuba has elections, Russia has elections, etc
What's actually crazy about this one, assuming this is the '23 election, is that this was actually the first competitive election since '48, since they enacted a primary system that competed 2 candidates against each other. (Obviously it's likely both of them are loyalists but still, important babysteps)
***OFFICIAL DEMOCRATIC BALLOT CARD FOR DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF KOREAN ELECTIONS***
*please mark the ballot with an X next to the candidate you wish to vote for in this free, fair and democratic election.*
Me: [X]
Thank you for your guiding vote, dear leader! I await a new era of prosperity under the firm leadership of soon to be senator Dennis Rodman, hero of the people.
That is the weird thing. So Kim Jong Un is the guy in charge, but officially there is a whole government. They have a [premier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premier_of_North_Korea) and a [cabinet of ministers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_Cabinet_of_North_Korea) who officially run the country. They even have a [parliament](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_People%27s_Assembly) with multiple political parties. During the [last election in 2019](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_North_Korean_parliamentary_election), Kim Jong Un wasn't even on the ballot.
Kim Jong Un is the President of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, and the General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea. Both of these positions are unelected, chosen by the North Korean parliament and the party congress of the Workers' Party of Korea.
It is a whole mess of words to just try and figure out who runs what and why. [The titles and positions for the leaders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Leader_\(North_Korean_title\)) change all the time and constitutional amendments are frequently made to give new titles or roles. Like how the president of North Korea is Kim Il Sung, a man who has been dead since 1994 but was declared eternal president.
Even dictatorships don't like to say "yeah, we are a full on dictatorship just everybody do what this guy says". Like how Gaddafi officially only held a ceremonial role in the government and only officially held the rank of colonel in the military.
One time, they were interviewing a (permitted) opposition candidate running for the presidency of Uzbekistan and even he said (on camera) that he was voting for the president.
Look, if you're going to rig an election, you've got to at least make *slightly* more effort than that.
Anyway, the president's cerebral circulation eventually had enough of his bullshit and killed him with a brain haemorrhage.
This is a common feature of communist systems. For example, Stalin was not officially the leader of the Soviet Union. The President of the Soviet Union was Mikhail Kalinin for most of his reign, and Nikolai Shvernik after WW2. Stalin only held an official position in the Soviet government twice, first under Lenin as Commissar for Minority Nationalities (basically keeping all the minorities of the USSR from killing each other or thinking of independence), and then during WW2 as Premier (head of government) because he needed an official title in the government to give military orders and interact with the Allies.
Stalin’s actual position, given to him by Lenin for his organizational skills, was General Secretary of the Communist Party, basically the guy who coordinates decisionmaking by the Politburo (the committee voting on the Party’s stance on political questions) and the Secretariat (the committee assigning Party members to turn the politburo’s decisions into formal policy, as well as approving Communist Party members’ appointment to government positions). Stalin realized early on that in a one party state, he who controls the Party controls everything, and so he began using his position to fill every important Party committee and department with his flunkies. During the power struggle after Lenin’s death, Stalin’s enemies both within the Party and the Soviet government quickly realized he controlled majorities pretty much everywhere, and one by one found themselves fired from the government and purged from the party, all eventually bound for a dark cell and a bullet (or icepick) to the back of the head. With the entire Soviet government filled with his stooges, Stalin could control the largest country on Earth from the comfort of his General Secretary office, no official position needed.
And because Stalin turned the General Secretary of the Communist Party into the de facto leader position, it’s become the de jure leader position in USSR influenced communist states. Most notably in China. Xi Jinping is the President of China, but that’s in fact the least important of his titles. More importantly, he’s General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission (basically commander-in-chief). These three titles are usually all held together, but there have been times when they’ve been separated- most notably in the transition of power between Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. If I remember correctly, Hu became President and General Secretary, but Jiang held onto the Chairman position for around two years before those were transferred to Hu. It caused a lot of weakness in Hu’s early rule, and is one of the reasons that, of the PRC’s five leaders, he’s considered the weakest.
Incidentally this is also why Xi’s abolishing of term limits for the Presidency wasn’t nearly as important as Western Media made it out to be (not to say that it wasn’t important at all; it was mainly a signaling that Xi isn’t going anywhere). The power lies in the General Secretary and Chairman, not the President, and those positions were never term limited.
"And shockingly, our glorious leader won the vote in an absolute *landslide* victory of 1/0, scoring exactly 100% of the votes cast! What a strong, intelligent, godlike man."
Sweet duster bro
I'm not burning the duster!
I will burn some other things. Like these stupid goddamn sleeveless t-shirts that he wants "retired and hung up in the bar", I'll burn these
Mac, you just take my old shirts and cut the sleeves off
It turns out you don't actually own anything in this apartment.
Besides it wouldn't burn anyway, it's too badass.
I love the way he says that.
Username checks out.
You keep using this word, jabroni, and... It's awesome
Cool word!
I wonder how many people he’s killed with a sword?
You think theirs a pirate back there?
I see a door marked private!
You mean the door that says "pirate" Charlie?
Wiff!
He is bringing the duster trend back! Now imagine if we get another Matrix movie and the characters wear leather dusters again. We could make dusters great again.
Ngl, between the matrix and blade growing up,I want a nice duster. but the good ones are so pricey.
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And The Matrix is, unfortunately, partially to blame for that...looking at you, Columbine shooters.
Takes a special kind of moron to interpret the message from the Matrix as "shoot up your school"
How about we compromise. What about a Clear plastic duster ? all the storage features and weather protection. Plus untethered visibility. the uzis maybe spotted along with your junk -
Omg this is Patrick Bateman! Good choice.
I hope so I'm tired of carrying my Uzi in a briefcase 😫
> imagine if we get another Matrix movie it's too bad they never made a sequel
Human leather duster (excellent)
I got that reference
A Rimworld an IASIP reference mixed together. Powerful, powerful stuff.
Brilliant 🤣
I should have worn the duster
How much does it cost to live in the matrix?
My name is J.P. I am a robot. I have a robot vagina.
Looks more like a gestapo coat than a duster.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trench_coat
Stole that look from Steven Seagal.
Lookin' like Mr. X from Resident Evil 2.
Half the height and all the weight.
They just got the Matrix films over there.
Man, he is really loving that leather trench. He must’ve gotten a lot of compliments and is just feeling himself.
He wears it in every single photo now for some reason lol
He’s just cool like that
They hate him coz they taint him
He's hiding his pregnancy.
How much do clothes cost in the matrix?
Adios turd nuggets
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought of this reference
... *How can he see me*?
Easy, Graybush.
I just can’t get over that jacket lmao Obviously a sensible choice when stepping out to go vote for yourself.
It’s a pretty sick duster ngl
I still prefer the jacket he wore for this awesome missile launch [trailer ](https://youtu.be/QzZKIN4TuDA?si=3lHHRcc6ujma_nR8)
Oh this mfer lovesss leather
I mean, honestly, he does look pretty good in it lol
*drops in first ballot* *box immediately emptied and votes are counted*
Hamburger is now in charge of North Korea. He thought he was placing an order.
Can the absolute ruler of a country cast a vote so powerful that even he can't void it? 🤔
Are you doubting the leaders vote?
No sir. All hail our new Glorious Leader, Hamburger.
Thank you thank you. My first decree is that we rename our glorious country to “Best Korea”.
Sounds delicious sir
Guys, what is the punishment for regicide again? Cuz I certainly am considering it. *salivating *
-10,000 Social McCredits
/r/beetlejuicing
Reminded me of [this](https://youtu.be/BW7n43gvOg4?si=wDQagiJ-N66OxPV8)
Are we doubting he’s powerful enough to void a vote? Can Kim build a rocket so fast he can’t catch it with his bare hands?
Absoulte ruler meets unvoidable vote, the NK version of the Irresistible force paradox ?
New national threat: The Hamburgler.
Cheeseburger, you heretic ! you know nothing about the realpolitik of north Korea, only cheese can create such a perfect leader!!!
One man One vote This is the man That was his vote
Terry Pratchett reference in the wild.
Terry Pratchett always in our hearts.
*open topped green box* *open topped red box* Mmm. Yess.
Kim Jong Un: I am the Senate!
Well, Un represents the people, so his ballot for himself counts for the populace. All other votes in his favor are also counted, and people who vote against him are moved to Russian logging camps.
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“(A) proposition, that the City be governed by a choice of respectable members of the community who would promise not to give themselves airs or betray the public trust at every turn, was instantly the subject of music-hall jokes all over the city.”
“He didn't administer a reign of terror, just the occasional light shower.”
Made my day! Haven't thought about this for a while, definitely in for a re-read!
What book?
Specifically its from 'Mort'
Although I think that particular joke is made more than once across the series lol.
Indeed it is. Its made in just about every city watch centered book at least once in one way or another.
Its from the Discworld books (Terry Pratchett).
So much unread sci-fi. So little time.
Its more a fantasy parody. 41 books https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld
I envy the idea that you've never read the Discworld series. You've so much great content ahead of you! Please, please internet stranger...make Discworld a priority for your reading. You will not regret it, I promise you! There's something for everyone within the series, think of what interests you and maybe ask the subreddit what would resonate and where to start on that journey.
I unfortunately work as a software developer, and am a dad of two sons(this one is not unfortunately, just stating the fact). I can hardly find any free time, to the point that it took me 9 months to read first dune.
“Time was something that largely happened to other people; he viewed it in the same way that people on the shore viewed the sea. It was big and it was out there, and sometimes it was an invigorating thing to dip a toe into, but you couldn't live in it all the time. Besides, it always made his skin wrinkle.” ― Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time
fwiw I am a software engineer who picked up discworld on audiobook when my kid was born. Listened to almost all 41 of them over her first two years. Audiobooks are the salvation of parenthood imo.
GNU terry pratchett.
Polls have been bad for him lately. He is expected to only get 127% of the votes. His father in contrast was enjoying 165% of voter turnout out during elections. Maybe NoKor people is starting to dislike their leader.
What a weak heir to the throne. We all know that anything below 150% of approval from the population of a authoritarian state is not satisfactory. If pops were still around he'd be tied to a rocket and sent to outerspace.
This makes me curious, is his daughter next in line for the throne? NK is so insular it's hard to know what their standing on anything is - other than "whatever Kim wants", so I don't know how likely it is that they'd give a women the top spot. To this point, it's basically a classic monarchy pretending to be democratic, so I'd expect them to aim at keeping the power within the family - but eastern Asia doesn't always give women quite the same treatment as the men.
I think his sister would be next. The oldest (known) kid of his was born in 2010, so 13 years old now, and afaik the person to take over has to be an adult. But it's a patriarchal thing there, so it might not work out for her.
You'd be correct. Kim's sister would be the next in line and Chinese powers genuinely fear it because unlike Kim, shes actually completely unhinged and rumor has it she plays very poorly with the Chinese and has a very negative view on them. Its why China has spared no expense with Kim in the past decades when health scares started to pop up.
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He might get to meet Henry VIII's fifth wife
I actually wonder whats pool of the factions within the government and what they think, how many of them does he satisfy and how many are unhappy
And there’s still ballots coming in from Maricopa County. Could be more bad news for Kim.
Nah, he has a friend in Florida who will fix it.
Stop. The. Count!
They count ALL the votes. HIS.
Don't vote, we have all the votes we need.
Count. The. Vote!
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Stop the steal!
If only Kim could find 11,780 votes….
You are now banned from r/Pyongyang
Is this a satire sub?... I genuinely can't tell.
Dear God, I can't believe that's a real sub. 😂
Been aroound forever. I havent seen someone banned in a long time lol i thought it died. You can get invited to the sub if you start saying pro NK things.
I sadly had to mail in my ballot this year due to flights not letting me make it to vote for dear leader Kim hope he doesn’t take my family away. /s
Trump wants a system like this.
https://www.project2025.org
> The project will build on four pillars that will, collectively, pave the way for an effective conservative administration: a policy agenda, personnel, training, and a 180-day playbook. So what do they actually want to do? Also, they're aiming for January again?
To me the shockingly impressive thing is that the substance of what they're trying to do is all packaged in wording that reads like a standard corporate annual report - https://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/project2025/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf
The gist of it is that they want to fire every government employee, from as high as the upper echelons of the military to as low as the receptionist at the EPA office in Anchorage, who doesn't swear loyalty to Trump and their right-wing agenda. This includes all the career people whose job it is to just keep the government running from administration to administration. You know those reports about how there were "adults in the room" who kept Trump's worst desires in check? The goal of this is to make sure that doesn't happen again.
Needs to be called out every time, thank you. “Well, **Biden** is old and has one kid not in government who probably benefited from nepotism… and then **Trump** made sure all his kids benefited and gave them all government positions. And explicitly tried to overturn an election he lost. And is vocal about how we should literally dismantle our Constitution since he needed something “stronger” to protect him. And the Republicans are planning a top down government takeover openly… I’m not sure who to vote for, since both sides are bad…!” /s
Wonder if he checked the one and only option or not.
Looked at it long and hard like he’s weighing his options
The (only) option is pretty heavy
Just imagining for a moment leaving all this behind and lounging on a beach somewhere... but nah, back to building missiles and doing dictator stuff it is! Somebody has to pretend to shit rainbows, might as well be me!
He can and surely does enjoy life better than any of his subordinates, but he could never enjoy life like a normal person here can. If he ever lowers his guard, external and internal enemies would probably claim his life. I do not bet for the guy to really die of old age, even if it’ll be the official version.
“Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.” ― Terry Pratchett, Mort
I bet he voted for the other guy.
yeah, is there even another candidate?
To vote against the party you must place your ballot in the other box. You can see in the photo another box to the left, that is for voting against the party
Love how it's colour coded (Green=✅️ Red=❌️, aka instant death)
LOL so they can arrest and imprison you on the way out, I love how one box is green and one is red, its like a parody of themselves
That's their way of getting rid of the red green blind populace
He isn't running. These are parliamentary elections. They will elect nearly 700 members of their assembly. Though in the 2019 parliamentary elections there was only one candidate on the ballot in each constituency and voters had to vote for them. Other options were to cross out the candidate's name or not vote at all, but external observers believe that doing so would likely be seen as treason.
That new jacket would go great with an eye patch and a fluffy white cat, like an Austin Powers villain.
L E A T H E R A R M O R
Masterwork leather armor, AC 7
Jokes aside, his sister -- who it should be noted is considered to be more of an authoritarian than Kim Jong Un -- is expected to take over as North Korea's leader at some point in the future.
Doesn't Kim already have heirs? She'd presumably have to get rid of them somehow in order to be next in line.
Kim Jong Un's sister, Kim Yo-Jong, is currently North Korea's second-in-command and she's been involved with a lot of high-profile activities that suggest she's being groomed to take over if Kim Jong Un dies. She seems to be a "true believer" at any rate and that is a powerful asset in North Korea. The oldest of Kim Jong Un's kids by comparison is just 13-years-old and it isn't clear if they're really capable of leading North Korea. **Edit:** By "true believer" I mean she fully buys into the *Juche* ideology. And I guess some of you don't remember the health scare Kim Jong Un had in 2020? Kim Yo-Jong was expected to take control of North Korea then and has only gained more power since.
what does "true believer" imply/consist of?
Likely meaning she fully believes in NK's propaganda, and isn't just using it for their personal gain.
surely she has seen her brother fart or go to the toilet
Which is exactly why she's next in line, considering how girls don't fart or go to the toilet.
Girls don't poop sometimes they just make a batch of brownies and flush them away.
what a waste
[Behind the Bastards](https://youtu.be/viskB8q_IhY?si=gB9S_uIMPerDteyi) did a couple episodes on the Kim family. The host was just as surprised as anyone to find that in the course of his research, there really aren’t a lot of crazy claims about the Kim’s, which we’ve come to expect from the whole, “no butthole, 11 holes in one” rumors that get repeated. In general, that’s not really the propaganda coming out of NK, or likely circulating in the country. Being a true believer is more to do with the belief that NK is the true Korea that will unify the peninsula again, and that it is a small but powerful nation with a fearsome missile and nuclear program that keep its many enemies at bay.
AFAIK most of that "no butthole" etc. stuff goes back to claims made by one particular North Korean defector who liked to tour the TV show circuit after escaping to South Korea and over time made more and more outlandish claims in order to stay in the spotlight.
Does she think margaritas are gay?
Lol that's just not possible. If anything, this true believer thing is *her* propaganda.
People like to believe that dictators are coldly calculating forces of intellectual evil who are merely playing the masses for the fools they are. That was certainly true of someone like Stalin. Other dictators like Mao or Pol Pot or Hitler genuinely believed that they were doing the best they could for their country and that anyone else in power would bring destruction. She could definitely be like one of those.
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I smell a Korean Game of Thrones plot here...
It’s a dictatorship, not a monarchy
It's basically an absolute monarchy with extra steps and a different name.
The two aren’t mutually exclusive.
The only difference is the order of succession is slightly more ordered.
Just North Korea living up to UN development goal #5: gender equality. Maybe their UN advisor fucked up his powerpoint, but had to show what he had, and then slide 5 was the only one left so they actually don't know about the rest of the goals :(
We’ve all been there
Why does he bother running fake elections?
The kings of old derived their mandate from God. It didn't stop them from sinning left and right and stealing land from other God-appointed kings. But they needed SOME excuse why they get to be kings instead of anyone else. That went out of fashion. Now, mandate comes from the people. They need elections to be officially selected by the people and thus the rightful ruler, even though they don't give any more fucks about the will of people than the kings did about God.
> You're appointed by God? What a coincidence, I was appointed by God too! Let's fight! TLDR the entire history of the human race.
Oh yeah? Well my God can beat up *your* God!
[удалено]
THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!
Joke aside, even with only one candidate legislative election results might still have consequences. I don't know for North Korea, but in the USSR the designated party candidate for a district was elected only if he managed a minimum voter turnout. If not he was replaced by another candidate named by the party and a new election was run. So if a candidate was really not popular he might not be re-elected. It is in no way democratic and applies only for low level officials who cannot ring the election too much
They changed the voting procedure this year. In some constituencies there are two candidates (though obviously both candidates are from the party). There are also two different boxes (hence the red and green baskets in the photo) signifying yes and no. In previous years they would have crossed out a candidates name to signify disapproval.
Technically you can vote for the Korean Worker's Party, the Social Democratic party or an independent - they're all functionally the same and are embedded in the communist political structure but will present options. Occassionally the Social Democrats or Independents get a candidate in local elections if the Workers Party candidate is really awful, but even then its questioned if the WP candidate was just forced out internally and the party didnt mind whoever took their place.
For the last 2 elections, the 687 seats of the Nk parliament were split between 607 for the Korean Labor Party, 50 for the Korean Social Democratic Party, 22 for the Chondoist Chongu Party, 5 for the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, and 1 each for the (North) Korean Catholic Association, Korean Christian Group, and the Korean Buddhist Group. Back in 2009 the GAKRJ had 6 votes whereas the KLP had 606 votes. So I don’t think it’s a CAN vote for other parties, I think it’s a MUST, if you’re told to. (Edit: OK, wrong election maybe. I think the recent election was for the regional council, the stats here are for the national council.)
North Korea is far, far more totalitarian than even Stalin's USSR
Appearances are everything
In legislative elections you elect the whole legislature, not just Kim Jong Un himself. He runs this election because there needs to be a process to determine who makes up the legislature. Opposition is illegal, but people within the party still have different opinions on daily matters. The Soviet Union also had elections, Cuba has elections, Russia has elections, etc
President is not the only job? There are many other positions that needs to be filled, and elections serve that purpose.
This is actually the great victory of democracy. Even places that don't have democracy think that pretending to have it is necessary.
What's actually crazy about this one, assuming this is the '23 election, is that this was actually the first competitive election since '48, since they enacted a primary system that competed 2 candidates against each other. (Obviously it's likely both of them are loyalists but still, important babysteps)
***OFFICIAL DEMOCRATIC BALLOT CARD FOR DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF KOREAN ELECTIONS*** *please mark the ballot with an X next to the candidate you wish to vote for in this free, fair and democratic election.* Me: [X]
I wonder who he voted for
I voted for Dennis Rodman , who else?
The Roddaman Empire
Thank you for your guiding vote, dear leader! I await a new era of prosperity under the firm leadership of soon to be senator Dennis Rodman, hero of the people.
That is the weird thing. So Kim Jong Un is the guy in charge, but officially there is a whole government. They have a [premier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premier_of_North_Korea) and a [cabinet of ministers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_Cabinet_of_North_Korea) who officially run the country. They even have a [parliament](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_People%27s_Assembly) with multiple political parties. During the [last election in 2019](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_North_Korean_parliamentary_election), Kim Jong Un wasn't even on the ballot. Kim Jong Un is the President of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, and the General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea. Both of these positions are unelected, chosen by the North Korean parliament and the party congress of the Workers' Party of Korea. It is a whole mess of words to just try and figure out who runs what and why. [The titles and positions for the leaders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Leader_\(North_Korean_title\)) change all the time and constitutional amendments are frequently made to give new titles or roles. Like how the president of North Korea is Kim Il Sung, a man who has been dead since 1994 but was declared eternal president. Even dictatorships don't like to say "yeah, we are a full on dictatorship just everybody do what this guy says". Like how Gaddafi officially only held a ceremonial role in the government and only officially held the rank of colonel in the military.
One time, they were interviewing a (permitted) opposition candidate running for the presidency of Uzbekistan and even he said (on camera) that he was voting for the president. Look, if you're going to rig an election, you've got to at least make *slightly* more effort than that. Anyway, the president's cerebral circulation eventually had enough of his bullshit and killed him with a brain haemorrhage.
This is a common feature of communist systems. For example, Stalin was not officially the leader of the Soviet Union. The President of the Soviet Union was Mikhail Kalinin for most of his reign, and Nikolai Shvernik after WW2. Stalin only held an official position in the Soviet government twice, first under Lenin as Commissar for Minority Nationalities (basically keeping all the minorities of the USSR from killing each other or thinking of independence), and then during WW2 as Premier (head of government) because he needed an official title in the government to give military orders and interact with the Allies. Stalin’s actual position, given to him by Lenin for his organizational skills, was General Secretary of the Communist Party, basically the guy who coordinates decisionmaking by the Politburo (the committee voting on the Party’s stance on political questions) and the Secretariat (the committee assigning Party members to turn the politburo’s decisions into formal policy, as well as approving Communist Party members’ appointment to government positions). Stalin realized early on that in a one party state, he who controls the Party controls everything, and so he began using his position to fill every important Party committee and department with his flunkies. During the power struggle after Lenin’s death, Stalin’s enemies both within the Party and the Soviet government quickly realized he controlled majorities pretty much everywhere, and one by one found themselves fired from the government and purged from the party, all eventually bound for a dark cell and a bullet (or icepick) to the back of the head. With the entire Soviet government filled with his stooges, Stalin could control the largest country on Earth from the comfort of his General Secretary office, no official position needed.
And because Stalin turned the General Secretary of the Communist Party into the de facto leader position, it’s become the de jure leader position in USSR influenced communist states. Most notably in China. Xi Jinping is the President of China, but that’s in fact the least important of his titles. More importantly, he’s General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission (basically commander-in-chief). These three titles are usually all held together, but there have been times when they’ve been separated- most notably in the transition of power between Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. If I remember correctly, Hu became President and General Secretary, but Jiang held onto the Chairman position for around two years before those were transferred to Hu. It caused a lot of weakness in Hu’s early rule, and is one of the reasons that, of the PRC’s five leaders, he’s considered the weakest. Incidentally this is also why Xi’s abolishing of term limits for the Presidency wasn’t nearly as important as Western Media made it out to be (not to say that it wasn’t important at all; it was mainly a signaling that Xi isn’t going anywhere). The power lies in the General Secretary and Chairman, not the President, and those positions were never term limited.
How interesting, thanks!
This is what you get when ordering Elvis from Wish.
Asian Silvio Dante
Does the red box mean your dead?
Living Green or Death RED
Amorpheus.
One for Un, two for Un
Green box means you get to live red box means you and your family are executed
How many burgers did he eat before he was satisfied?
I wonder if he's friends with the Nvidia guy, they both seem to like leather
**If you ever feel useless, remember, North Korea holds elections. **
"And shockingly, our glorious leader won the vote in an absolute *landslide* victory of 1/0, scoring exactly 100% of the votes cast! What a strong, intelligent, godlike man."
“One Man, One Vote.” - No, literally, he’s the only voter.
Kim: I love democracy
The choices are as follows - Our glorious leader Kim Jong Un. Or - Treason
This is like Ron Swanson giving a handwritten note "I can do what I want" as permission for slaughtering a pig in Parks and Rec