The unwillingness to acknowledge and value the opinions of people whose countries do things better is one of the worst aspects of the US character. Eventually, the inability to learn from others could cost us even our increasingly dysfunctional democracy.
This is a great thread. Thanks for the observations, everyone.
Here in Argentina, the normal-not politic-obsessed population is just vaguely aware of the elections, most are shocked when they learn that a candidate can win with less votes than his opponent (wich shows little historical accumen, since our own system had an electoral college until 1994 or so, when one of our worst presidents impulsed a change in the constitution in order to get reelected, the opposition went along but demanded we got rid of the EC in return).
Among the politically minded we are obsessing about it as I guess everybody with the same inclination around the world is obsessing about it.
Some in the left continue with the old “it doesn’t matter who wins, they are both the same” mantra, but surprisingly few.
Personally I am of the opinion that a Trump win (loathsome as he is) could MAY BE be better for us here than a Biden win, since he’s so easily influenciable and his attention spam being so short , not to mention his general ignorance, he probably thinks that Brasilia is the capital of Buenos Aires. A disengaged USA is generally better for this part of the world IMHO.
However, that said, I think the world itself would be better with a Biden victory, since he’s in regular contact with consensus reality and is not a fascist. (and to the extent that he pays attention to this part of the world he’s firends with that other fucking fascist, Bolsonaro.)
So, to be honest, I’m desesperately wishing that Biden wins, and obsessing over 538.com same as probably most of you 
:
As a Canadian, what I wish is that our media didn’t have to cover US politics so much. But, unfortunately, we’re pretty much stuck with you as our major trading partner, due to geography and demographic issues beyond our control. So we’re in the position that we have no actual control over what you do, but what you do can and will affect us, no matter what we do.
It used to be that this wasn’t so much of a problem, but the Trump Era has shown why we need to worry: You elected an idiot who decided that Canada was a threat to your national security, and that starting a trade war was a good idea. And there’s still a chance that you might re-elect the idiot.
If/When the US collapses, other countries will suffer some problems, mostly economic, but Canada will be dragged down the drain right along with you. There’s essentially nothing we can do to avoid that.
I didn’t really mean it in the sense that the US doesn’t listen to those outside.
I meant it more as that it’s easier with pretty much anything to get an overview from the outside than the inside.
Also, how much business has Argentina picked up in terms of agricultural exports to China that has been lost to the US due to Trump’s tariffs? ISTR South America has done quite well in this regard.
OK, I can appreciate that. But a large number of Americans do in fact deliberately eschew observations and, more importantly, progress from elsewhere. It’s probably a facet of our belief in our “exceptionalism.”
Maybe I’m the crazy outlier. When I used to follow sports and the local teams, I was always more interested in post-game interviews of the opposing coach and players than I was in what the home towners had to say. There’s an old joke in there somewhere, “Well, enough about me. What do you think of me?”
I don’t really pay much attention to the news but even with the limited exposure I have to the news, I’m going to say yes (with a bit of no). I wish that what happens in the USA wasn’t so dramatically important to the rest of the world, and, of course, especially in Canada. It is kind of sad to me, because America could be so great. Like legitimately great for its citizens and the world. It has the power and influence to be a true leader on the global stage and help address some of the global problems facing the world. And perhaps that’s an unfair burden to place on America and Americans (it did not take up the mantle as the world’s leader on its own, but it retains it by choice). I don’t know where I’m going with this. I had an idea, but it is gone now. Darn it was a good one too. Oh well, if it comes back to me I’ll followup.
A majority of US voters know that our election systems are, uh, antiquated and unrepresentative. But those very same flawed systems prevent any meaningful progress. Even on a liberal board like this, we have a component who will vociferously defend the Electoral College (that’s not a discussion for this thread btw).
“How did Nixon win? Nobody I know voted for him!”
I routinely meet Canadians who love Trump. Sure, it’s no more than ten percent or so, but it’s not hard to find them if you talk to folks outside your bubble.
Your oldest child left home for university and you had to sit her down to explain… the electoral college?
It’s been an interesting read, although not much of a surprise. The American system is strange and inefficient. There are a lot of questions in the thread, and I don’t know if they’re all just rhetorical questions or whether the inquirers really want to know.
Assuming that there are even a few who really want answers, I can take a shot at a few.
There are several factors that go into our odd system:
(1) The system was created at a time when there weren’t a whole lot of working examples of democratic republics or republican democracies extant, so the people who designed the system were acting on personal experience, personal biases, and theoretical speculation.
(2) The people who designed the system were affluent, educated white men, the aristocracy of the 13 colonies. They wanted democratic rights for themselves, but weren’t so crazy about giving it to their fellow residents, who might be poor, uneducated, non-white, women, or slaves.
(3) They set up a system democratic in spirit and in overall philosophy, but severely limited actual democratic participation. The only part of government that was subject to a popular vote was the House of Representatives, so one half of one of the three branches of government. They tried to keep the Senate and the presidency out of the hands of the hoi polloi. Over time, democracy steadily expanded: non-landowners, non-whites, women, etc., but expanded democracy still falls short of the democratic systems that some other countries have created.
(4) All governmental structures are based on the U.S. Constitution, which leaves a lot of things unsaid, meaning that a lot of matters have been handled by custom, and throughout American history, the white ascendancy has thrown custom aside whenever there was a threat to their maintenance of power. That’s why you have Senator Mike Lee denouncing “rank democracy” now. That’s why ever since 2000, you’ve heard conservatives asserting “a republic, not a democracy.” They’ve decided that the American ideal is really about protecting the power of rich white men rather than giving everyone the franchise.
(5) The judiciary is political because it’s appointed by political officials. The Constitution didn’t create a neutral functionary bureaucratic institution. It gave all the power to the elected officials. The Constitution even states this explictly:
[the President] shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
(Of course, it never really defines what “the Advice and Consent of the Senate” means. It has by custom come to mean that the Senate must vote to confirm all presidential appointments, but that’s not the only valid interpretation.)
(6) Although the U.S. Constitution sets forth some language on how certain officials will be chosen and how certain political bodies shall be constituted, it doesn’t give the federal government the power to make rules about elections generally. So, each state sets its own election rules. That’s why voting in the U.S. is such a mess. And, historically, many state and local governments have used their power to ensure that the “wrong” people don’t get to vote, or don’t get to vote easily. During the Johnson administration, the Civil Rights Acts and the Voting Rights Act did a lot to rectify this situation (although not solving the problems completely), and ever since then conservatives have been steadily working to take the teeth out of the Voting Rights Act.
The part that kills me about US elections isn’t any of that. Flags, money, sure, whatever. It’s that one side is openly, nakedly trying to prevent people from voting, and that anyone would ever allow the system to work so badly that people have to line up for hours and hours to vote. A wait of half an hour strikes me as being appalling, but if you live in a Democratic area anywhere Republicans are in control, you can expect to wait for hours. Especially if you live somewhere with a lot of Black people; then they might make you wait all day.
The longest I have ever waited to vote might have been ten minutes.
The fundamentally broken nature of US elections in all the aspects already covered is so bleedingly obvious to most anyone outside the US with even half a brain, even here in the Global South, it’s just not even funny anymore. And we know from bad elections…
Same for me. And I am sure no nationalist either.
That too, however Trump’s bellicosity may put the weight of the USA against future Chinese investments in the region, which could turn ugly for us.
All in all, I think the possible (local, to us) benefits of a Trump victory do not outweigh the existential threat to humanity and democracy that it would represent.
You may not know as you’re not in the US, but is there any kind of independent body organising elections in the US? Because it strikes me that if organising elections are down to areas controlled by political bodies, then of course, it’s going to corrupt the system. We have the Electoral Commission, a national body which organises and oversees elections (and party spending) precisely to try and stop this nonsense.
If I’m not mistaken elections are managed by each State.
And the system has been - and in many ways still is - corrupt. Consider Brian Kemp’s skulduggery during the last election, where he - as Secretary of State for Georgia - was in charge of the electoral process (including disposition of polling stations and machines) for an election in which he was running for Governor. In a sane country, such a blatant conflict of interest wouldn’t be allowed.
But that’s America for you. USA! USA! USA!
I am in the U.S., and I can tell you that the answer is “no.” There is no national independent election body. The reasons for that are suggested in my earlier post. The Constitution does not give the national government the authority to supervise or set standards for elections, so it is each individual state that does it. And I don’t know of any state government that doesn’t exercise some kind of political control over the system.
This is actually not true. The constitution basically says that states run their elections, but the federal government can regulate how they run their elections. Additionally, several amendments that protect voting rights explicitly give congress the power to pass laws to ensure that voting rights are upheld.
What the constitution leaves entirely to the states is how they appoint electors to the electoral college, although there is some court precedent limiting state power to make certain changes.
EDIT: Part of the issue with federal regulatory power over elections is that the founders designed a system that intentionally makes it tough for governments to be nimble and respond to change. The fact that we can see everything that has happened over the past few years and congress can’t even pass some milquetoast election security measures and some protections and funding for the post office shows the flaw in designing a government that way.
The federal authority is quite limited. It has some qualifications for federal offices–but it’s up to the states to apply them. There are some “negative” standards–you can’t discriminate on the basis of race, you can’t discriminate against women, you can’t discriminate against 18-year-olds. But again, it’s up to the states to implement these standards. The federal government has the ability to sue state governments that discriminate, but the federal government does not have the power to set standards generally for elections, such as X type of voting system will be implemented, polling stations will be distributed on a Y basis, etc. Those are all done by the states. As I said, the Voting Rights Act gave some policing powers to the federal government over state election systems, but those have been steadily worn away.