COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
Really, this is an idiotic column.
America's way of electing governments has never been what
could be called democratic.
Indeed, the Founders went out of their way to call the new
political entity a "republic" rather than a democracy. And the word
"republic" is one of the most undefined terms in political science,
meaning little more than government by some kind of representatives, however
selected, and the absence of a monarch.
America has had many minority presidents, including the very
George W Bush you mention, in 2000.
It is because of the Electoral College system set up by the
Founders in the Constitution. These were mostly men who did not trust democracy
and wanted safety valves against popular votes disturbing the privileges and
wealth of the upper class.
Until 1913, the Senate, that most powerful body in the
American government, was an appointed body for the same reason that the
President is not directly elected by the people. All that grand pageant through
the Nineteenth Century of American history, involving many famous and infamous
names of Senators, was in fact about appointed officials, a fact few Americans
even know.
The Electoral College system of election could be changed,
but the Founders deliberately made it exceedingly difficult to change the
Constitution they were creating. An amendment would require approval of the
Senate, the House of Representatives, the President, and a vote in all fifty
states. That’s a lot of effort and political capital spent to correct something
that only pops up to irritate people once in a few decades.
The matter has never generated the intense public and
political momentum necessary. Hillary Clinton, after Bush's minority win in
2000, said it should be abolished, but, as with so many things Hillary said,
she never did much about it.
What your column boils down to is a statement something like
Trump was elected exactly according to the rules for American elections with an
added sentiment, owing to ignorance of history and the rules, of "Gee,
that ain't democratic."
No, it is not, but then neither is America.
Added thoughts.
As a reader below has pointed out, does the rising Clinton
total of popular vote include the 3 million non-citizens who are said to have
voted, completely illegally?
This behavior was definitely a form of vote fraud, and it
was encouraged and enabled by Obama and Clinton in a kind of burst of faux populism
put on just to keep their losing cause going.
