As for democracy, this election actually wasn't an example of it. Millions more voters voted against Trump. The US Presidential election system is obviously broken. It was obviously a ridiculous system before the elections of 2000 and 2016 proved that it was.
Believe me, most Americans agree with you that our elections have become a joke. Congressional districts have been redesigned in the past 10 years to give Republicans a huge unnatural advantage in the House of Representatives. And the US Constitution itself gave us the undemocratic Senate and Electoral College. These things are by design. They were built to be safeguards against democracy run amok. But now the GOP has figured out how to make those safeguards work against the country. It's going to get ugly. It could happen really fast. I'm genuinely scared about the future of the US and the world.
How is the senate undemocratic? Isn't it the same as pretty much every other western democracy? I know it pretty much mirrors what we have in Australia except that we have a lot less states.
difficult and slow communication makes it harder for smaller actors to defend themselves against the tyranny of the majority, as plans get made without proper consultation with representatives of minority interests.
With easy information, however, news travels faster, and more elaborate plans can be worked out in the same time, and hence it is easier to account for minority interests.
I don't see how this at all explains the fundamental ideological differences between states and how less densely populated area's wouldn't be screwed if the system was changed to just be a popular vote or something similar.
Sure I can hear about how people in the middle states are dying because they have no jobs and are using record levels of hard drugs, but that doesn't mean people in the cities have to vote with them in mind.
And this is why, I'm of the opinion that the design needs to be changed.
Arguably executive orders should not exist, nor should a powerful President. The Swiss system of a rapidly rotating presidency and strong "state rights" seems preferable to me. But the USA has strong elected Presidents and I never saw any American seriously challenge that setup, I hear more talk of states seceding than I see talk of changing the constitution to limit the power of the POTUS.
So I don't see your point. The people were given a (fairly crappy) choice, made it, now their preferences are being implemented. That's democracy.
Don't get me wrong. I think locking people who live in America out of the country because they happened to be on vacation at the time is outrageous, stunningly stupid. But maybe if prior generations of politicians had been more responsive to anti-Muslim sentiment things wouldn't have got so extreme now.
It's quite simple, it's not democratic in the sense that the majority of the population voted for another candidate, but in the end Trump got elected.
Final ballot count:
Hilary: 65,844,610 votes
Trump: 62,979,636 votes
Now, I understand these are the electoral rules in the USA and I'm not saying Trump won unfairly, but he certainly didn't win democratically since the majority of voters didn't want him there.
If this starts a movement to abolish the electoral college, great, but the core problem here isn't a few million votes. Even with a different system Trump could still have won. The core problem is that such a guy was able to even get close to the White House and the root cause is a dire failure of all the other politicians to address the concerns he addressed.
A population can keep willing electing a dictator and that dictator could even be popular, but that political system would not be a 'democracy' as you might normally recognise; it will espouse none of the liberal values that places like the UK and the US typically expect.
If basic human rights aren't guaranteed by the government, citizens may not be able to exercise their power. Other actors may therefore rule and govern.
As such, authoritarian regimes that denies such rights to its citizens can't be called democracies.
The people screaming that before this will mostly be proud of this action.
The number of refugees the US had taken from Syria was already pathetic. Stopping taking any is straight up evil.
Turns out, that the specific Immigration Trump order is illegal.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/opinion/trumps-immigratio...
In countries where elected dictators rule you can vote for anyone you want, as long as its the dictator.
>Will Americans stop screaming 'Murica', 'We are number 1' from now? This president and how elections are held in this country are a joke. So much for democratic process and respect for the office.
This statement only holds water if you'd feel that same way if your preferred candidate won.
The fact that a bumbling idiot (apologies for my language)can become the leader of a country, fill the white house with 'swamp' leaders and within ONE WEEK sign so many executive orders and actions:
- without studying the history of why things are the way they are
- without appropriate counsel of stakeholders
- without any repercussions for such actions (no checks and balances provided by democratic systems)
I think my statement holds water regardless of who got elected president.
>> - without studying the history of why things are the way they are
In this case. Studying history about immigration from certain countries?
>> - without appropriate counsel of stakeholders
Who decides what is appropriate?
>> - without any repercussions for such actions (no checks and balances provided by democratic systems)
Chosen for by the US democratic system and exactly done as promised.
1. What is the difference between elected dictatorship and democracy?
2. Will Americans stop screaming 'Murica', 'We are number 1' from now? This president and how elections are held in this country are a joke. So much for democratic process and respect for the office.