It can always be worse! How come you can acknowledge that it’s shit, but you can’t acknowledge that it’s fundamentally undemocratic? Where’s the disconnect here? The US was not founded as a democracy, it was founded as a white supremacist settler-colony. Today it’s had many democratic reforms, and that’s good! But we have to acknowledge these root problems.
Has it had enough reforms to be called a democracy? Trump got less than 50% of the vote and he’s been elected twice!
If you want to be technical a true democracy is mathematically impossible. Also Donald won the popular vote this time. Don’t waste 4 years of your life chasing conspiracy theories like the right has and clinging to a fantasy that the loser actually won. I wish things were different but that’s how it went.
In a race with more than 2 people it shouldn’t be uncommon to have less than 50% of the overall vote and still win. I don’t understand the point you’re trying to make. In this race he got the most votes compared to the other candidates.
Many countries use variations of runoff voting, where if no candidate gets a majority then the top two candidates move on to a second round and the other candidates are eliminated. This is actually the most popular way to run elections worldwide.
As a Brit, this all seems unhelpful. The only reason anyone cares how the US was “founded” hundreds of years ago is that they were a bit closer to having the right idea at the start than most countries. Doesn’t mean they did of course, but compare to how the UK was “founded”, or Greece, “the birthplace of democracy”, and suddenly it really doesn’t matter.
As for whether it is currently a democracy, a flawed democracy is still a democracy. Trumps a terrible choice but he did get a lot of votes by ordinary people, and whilst their system is skewed by being a shitty fptp setup (just like the UK sadly) and their crazy elector system, it is nonetheless fairly democratic, in the sense that most people can vote, they didn’t pressure or threaten voters much, they didn’t fake lots of votes, and the flaws can only influence and skew the result to some extent, rather than being the deciding factor.
But it isn’t the best democracy in the world, we can all agree on that. I hope they manage to replace it in our lifetimes with something that would allow for more than 2 parties (UK too).
He got a lot of votes, but he didn’t actually get the majority. He got a plurality.
fairly democratic, in the sense that most people can vote, they didn’t pressure or threaten voters much, they didn’t fake lots of votes, and the flaws can only influence and skew the result to some extent, rather than being the deciding factor.
Unless all people can vote it isn’t a democracy. It totally reverses the power dynamic of democracy - rather than the People choosing their leaders, the leaders choose who gets to be of the People. It’s completely backwards! As long as the enduring legacy of settler-colonialism can choose who is allowed to vote there will be no democracy.
The way electoral districts are drawn, the way voters get purged or have to go through hoops to get registered, the way people can have their right to vote taken away, the way noncitizens and disenfranchised citizens in federal prisons are counted by the census for the purpose of allotting representatives, the efforts to keep voter participation as low as possible, it’s all rigged to produce undemocratic results.
It’s useful for us to recognize that this isn’t democracy. Not yet.
It can always be worse! How come you can acknowledge that it’s shit, but you can’t acknowledge that it’s fundamentally undemocratic? Where’s the disconnect here? The US was not founded as a democracy, it was founded as a white supremacist settler-colony. Today it’s had many democratic reforms, and that’s good! But we have to acknowledge these root problems.
Has it had enough reforms to be called a democracy? Trump got less than 50% of the vote and he’s been elected twice!
If you want to be technical a true democracy is mathematically impossible. Also Donald won the popular vote this time. Don’t waste 4 years of your life chasing conspiracy theories like the right has and clinging to a fantasy that the loser actually won. I wish things were different but that’s how it went.
He didn’t get a majority of the votes. Less than 50%. That should mean something.
In a race with more than 2 people it shouldn’t be uncommon to have less than 50% of the overall vote and still win. I don’t understand the point you’re trying to make. In this race he got the most votes compared to the other candidates.
Many countries use variations of runoff voting, where if no candidate gets a majority then the top two candidates move on to a second round and the other candidates are eliminated. This is actually the most popular way to run elections worldwide.
I’m aware but even assuming all of the non trump votes would go to Kamala, she still wouldn’t have won in this case.
He got less than 50% of the vote. If you add all the non Trump votes together you get more than 50% of the vote.
As a Brit, this all seems unhelpful. The only reason anyone cares how the US was “founded” hundreds of years ago is that they were a bit closer to having the right idea at the start than most countries. Doesn’t mean they did of course, but compare to how the UK was “founded”, or Greece, “the birthplace of democracy”, and suddenly it really doesn’t matter.
As for whether it is currently a democracy, a flawed democracy is still a democracy. Trumps a terrible choice but he did get a lot of votes by ordinary people, and whilst their system is skewed by being a shitty fptp setup (just like the UK sadly) and their crazy elector system, it is nonetheless fairly democratic, in the sense that most people can vote, they didn’t pressure or threaten voters much, they didn’t fake lots of votes, and the flaws can only influence and skew the result to some extent, rather than being the deciding factor. But it isn’t the best democracy in the world, we can all agree on that. I hope they manage to replace it in our lifetimes with something that would allow for more than 2 parties (UK too).
He got a lot of votes, but he didn’t actually get the majority. He got a plurality.
Unless all people can vote it isn’t a democracy. It totally reverses the power dynamic of democracy - rather than the People choosing their leaders, the leaders choose who gets to be of the People. It’s completely backwards! As long as the enduring legacy of settler-colonialism can choose who is allowed to vote there will be no democracy.
The way electoral districts are drawn, the way voters get purged or have to go through hoops to get registered, the way people can have their right to vote taken away, the way noncitizens and disenfranchised citizens in federal prisons are counted by the census for the purpose of allotting representatives, the efforts to keep voter participation as low as possible, it’s all rigged to produce undemocratic results.
It’s useful for us to recognize that this isn’t democracy. Not yet.