If you’re talking about media outlets like the BBC - they are not ‘government media’. They are a public broadcaster funded by the taxpayer. That’s it. It’s standard practice for the government of the day to whine that the BBC are biased against them, to the point that Johnson even stopped his ministers talking to certain BBC news programmes before Covid hit.
It’s the same for the CBC in Canada. Yes, it’s a public broadcaster funded by the taxpayer, but it does challenge the government when the government needs to be challenged. In addition, we have two national private broadcasters that are not accountable to the government at all. Then, we have a free press that is not accountable to government in any form, as is expected in a free country.
“Government media” is something that belongs in Communist China (The People’s Daily), the Stalinist USSR (Pravda), Cuba (Granma), and North Korea (Pyongyang Sinmun). All of these are published, with no competition, in order to propagate the government’s point of view. Those are government media.
State-supported media in free countries (BBC, CBC, ABC (Australia), and others), compete with private interests. If the single government media outlet tells us that we have always been at war with Eastasia, while our sixteen private media outlets tell us that we are currently at war with Eurasia, guess who we’re going to believe? Hint: not government media.
When Trump was elected, many countries thought it was a weird aberration that would be corrected at the next election. It hasn’t been.
Whatever the final result, America has not repudiated Trump decisively after seeing him in office for four years. Half of America has voted again for lies, delusions, inequality, and hatred. Half of America still wants to be ruled by a sociopathic strongman and would-be dictator, after having every opportunity to see him for what he is.
America is still a huge economic and military power, but it’s now decisively in decline.
I think a lot of confusion in Europe about American politics is that we don’t understand why the prosperity and power of the nation seems to be more highly valued than the people within it. Since the world wars, European countries have drifted towards measuring political success by the happiness of its citizens. The US doesn’t seem to do this or even care about it. It’s become obsessed with being the most powerful or being the wealthiest as a collective seemingly with little regard for how Americans are themselves affected.
Sorry you didn’t ask for opinions about the philosophy of US politics but it’s really fascinating.
Very true, and very frightening. It’s almost as though the population had the opportunity to take a nation-wide, combination psych- evaluation/IQ test, and half of the test-takers failed.
Why do you think that strange? She knew all about the Canadian electoral system, but where would she have heard about the electoral college? As someone pointed out above, it wasn’t until 2000 that the EC made much of a difference in who won.
To get back to the OP, I just had a long conversation with a friend who was asking me how Americans could have chosen Trump. I really could not give him an answer. But on some other occasion I had explained to him that everything in American politics has to be viewed through the prism of race and mentioned that to me this morning.
The EC is a weird system. I can see needing to explain it to someone who grew up in Canada, and that person finding it difficult to grasp.
People understand the political system they grew up in, and can have trouble understanding other political systems.
I did a guest lecture gig a while ago in New Jersey and one of the students commented that the Westminster parliamentary system was the hardest thing for him to get his head around in his polisci classes. He said he still wasn’t sure if he understood it.
In Australia, many people can’t understand the outcome of the American election process: I try to explain to them that Americans are foreigners, like Greeks, or Nigerians, and that they shouldn’t expect to understand the outcome of the American election process. (Most Australians think that Americans are stupid Australians, not really foreigners).
The election process doesn’t look that strange: we have long slow counts, we have divisive politics, we have rare lost ballot boxes. Many Australians approve of first-past-the-post voting systems. We don’t have an electoral college, but if that had to be explained — we have a parliamentary government system, which has a very similar effect, and causes similar angst. We sort of think that we understand the place of the courts in the American system (but don’t actually: that’s part of what Australians think they understand but don’t)
The heavy media coverage gives us a comfortable feeling that our system give better outcomes – your system elects an American as president! but in detail it doesn’t look wrong – the closer you look, the more you can see the trees instead of the woods, the paint marks instead of the picture, the better it seems.
I am perfectly willing to admit that there is a lot that is screwed up about the American election system. But I have to ask - some of you have mentioned not having to wait in line or finding a wait of 30 minutes appalling. How are elections run where you live that you expect not to have to wait at all? I mean, if I lived in some town with 20 voters, I wouldn’t expect to wait more than a few minutes - but where I live, if I get anything done in 30 minutes it’s practically a miracle unless I’m doing it at a time when most people are at work.
Why would this be a thing you “sat her down” to explain upon her departure? Was this a personal safety thing?
As an American, this has always been my experience too. It’s only in recent years that I’ve heard about people in other areas having to wait in line for hours to vote.
You just make it a priority to have enough polling centers logically distributed. There are several things preventing that in the American system, the absence of a unified, national voting system being one.
How do you do it? There are many ways, or many combinations of things. First, you might let people use any polling location they want. Second, you might make every public building a polling location. Third, you might make voting day a holiday. Fourth, you might make it more than one day, say a Saturday and Sunday. Fourth, you might analyze residential patterns and distribute locations logically according to them.
Implement the right combination of these and other policies, and you can create a situation in which no one ever has to wait in line. It’s just a matter of will to do it.
I can’t speak for the whole world, but this is how it’s done In Germany. I never ever had to stand in line for an election, and I’ve been voting for 34 years with average of one election per year:
As every German is registered with his home address at their local Einwohnermeldeamt (I don’t think there’s an exact English translation, but I would say bureau for citizens’ registration), their basic data are known and everybody gets sent a Wahlbenachrichtigung (election reminder?) about four weeks before the election automatically by snail mail. No registration of any kind necessary. With this, you have three options: fill in a form to request the ballots for Briefwahl (postal voting), request postal voting ballots online (there’s a QR code for that) or wait until the elections for in person voting. You’ll get sent the post ballots within a few days, cast your votes and send them back free of charge. Or else, on election day, which is always a Sunday, you go or drive (it’s always near enough to reach by foot) to your local Wahllokal (polling place), which usually is a restaurant, school, fire department or similar and is opened from 8 AM to 6 PM. There’s one polling station for about 1000 citizens. so there’s enough time to handle all of them comfortably in a 10 hours span. You step into the polling station, handle your voting reminder you got by mail to the voting personnel, get handed the ballots, step behind the voting cabin, cast your vote (with a pencil on paper), stuff it into an envelope and throw it into the urn. Done. In three minutes.
Easy peasy.
Because it was an aspect of American culture she would not have known about and there was an election coming up. I guess so she would not appear ignorant in front of her classmates. The whole system is so bizarre (just look at the results posted on any election website today where a change of a few tens of thousands of votes in three or four states will determine the final result) that I thoughts she should know about it before getting immersed in it.
In my local Federal electorate of Reid (NSW) there are a bit under 100k voters. Covers and aarea of 55 sq km (22 sq miles)
There are 45 fully staffed polling stations in schools, some church halls and public facilities plus two teams that tour the hospitals, respite care facilities etc for those unable to get to a booth … if they haven’t voted either absentee or mail-in.
The flip side to mandatory voting is that the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC whom the US really should take a few minutes to listen to) takes whatever steps necessary to make it as easy as feasible to cast your vote.
Ain’t rocket science, just cardboard boxes, paper and pens, and the intention to collect and count all the votes
I think it’s a question of resources that your electoral authorities are prepared to put into it.
In a thread last week, someone from New York said that there were 300 advance polls in New York State, for a population of about 20 million. So, 1 advance poll per 66,666 people.
My province had just run a provincial election, and by my count we had about 240 advance polling stations, for a population of just over 1 million. So, 1 advance poll per 4,500 people.
Now, there were differences, so it’s not a straight numbers comparison. My province is way bigger than NY state in terms of land area, so more polls are needed to cover the territory. Plus, we only had advance polls for 5 days, while New York had then for a month, so people had more time to vote in New York, so maybe you don’t need as many polling stations.
But still: 1 advance poll per 66,666 New Yorkers, compared to 1 advance poll per 4500 Saskatchewanians. That strikes me as a greater investment in making sure people could vote in my province. And more polling stations reduces wait times and length of lines.
One other difference is that our ballots are way simpler: it’s just for the local member of Parliament, or for the local provincial member. (Federal, provincial and municipal elections are all run separately.) One X and I’m done, outta there. Shorter time to vote means you can push more voters through more quickly.
But still: 1 polling station per 4500, compared to 1 per 66,666.
I live in a city and I’ve always been able to walk to our advance and regular polling stations. Country folk will have to drive, but that goes with living in the country for other things, like shopping, hospitals and schools.
While the political and legalistic interference seems shocking to me, I must say I’m impressed with the (apparent) professionalism of the workers at the polling and counting sites from what I’ve seen. It’s good to see normal Americans having such respect for their democracy and it gives me hope for America.
Well, to reply to the OP, seems like Canadians are generally anxious:
But fear not!
You can send for your “emotional support Canadian”!
Bear in mind that most first world countries tax higher than the US, and as a consequence have governments that are better funded.