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The American conception of democracy does not, by any means, refer to an ability to get the government to carry out the will of 51% of the populace. It is even
by cvoss 4y ago
The American conception of democracy does not, by any means, refer to an ability to get the government to carry out the will of 51% of the populace. It is even specifically designed _not_ to do that, on purpose, for very good reasons. Here are some:
- 51% of people can do wrong against the other 49%.
- 51% of people can do wrong against themselves by making an uninformed decision.
- Tomorrow the 51% become the 49% and vice versa. If unchecked power was given to whoever was currently 51%, it would spell whiplash and chaos.
So you structure the whole thing into smaller deliberative bodies where people (who are periodically selected by 51% majorities) have better information and means to strike good compromises that are unattainable through raw public opinion. A fuller and more appropriate name for this is "a democratic republic", for which "democracy" is used as a shorthand.
Some of these bodies have authority only over local areas, because you can make a more tailored decision when you have fewer things to deal with. Some of these local bodies, as another commenter noted, may conduct referendums to decide whether to make a law. Other bodies have authority over the whole land, but only over coarse-grained topics with only highly limited authority over the smaller local bodies.
And at the highest level, there is one body where people's very local representatives have a vote and another body where people's region-wide representatives have a vote, and these bodies must agree in order to do most things.
And you make one small body almost completely insulated from public opinion so that you can task it with protecting not just 49% from the whims of 51%, but protecting one individual person (yes, even a guilty criminal individual) against the rest of the government and against whatsoever the remaining 330 million people may think of this person.
And yes, the vote for the president is not a raw popular vote. There is a level of indirection through another body that often does, but may not, yield the same result as a popular vote would. But it does not logically follow that Americans do not vote for their president.
And you don't let the president make laws or rule on cases or send the country to war.
The guiding principle is not to let one person or one group of people have too much power. A majority of Americans having consensus on a given issue is one such group whose power is intentionally limited.
Could the whole thing be designed better than it is? Of course. Will people always screw it up no matter how well designed it is? Of course.
- mlyle 4y ago> And yes, the vote for the president is not a raw popular vote. There is a level of indirection through another body that often does, but may not, yield the same result as a popular vote would. But it does not logically follow that Americans do not vote for their president. I think this is an interesting way the criticism was phrased about the electoral college. I mean, across world governments, it's pretty dang common for the executive of a government to not just be chosen by the populace.
- Dalewyn 4y ago>And yes, the vote for the president is not a raw popular vote. There is a level of indirection through another body that often does, but may not, yield the same result as a popular vote would. The Electoral College does, in fact, always reflect the popular vote: The popular votes of each respective state. Critics of the Electoral College fall flat and demonstrate their sheer ignorance because they keep trying to apply the nationwide popular vote when the election for President was never about that. To explain in more detail for the uninitiated: A state's Electoral College votes are determined by the state's popular vote, with the winner taking all (except for Oklahoma and Maine which split their EC votes proportionally). The Electoral College itself is a facsimile of Congress: There are 538 electors because there are 435 Representatives, 100 Senators, and an extra EC-only 2 Senators plus 1 Representative for Washington, D.C.. The Electoral College exists as a means to tally up each state's political will for President in a way that weighs each state's political power appropriately and keep Legislative influence out of an election concerning the Executive. Congress (aka the Legislative) only gets involved in the election if and only if the Electoral College fails to do its job. Constructive criticism is always welcome, but there are reasons why things are done the way they are. The least anyone can do in the process of criticizing is first understand and respect what they are criticizing.
- kthejoker2 4y ago> that weighs each state's political power appropriately Define "appropriately" in the context of Wyoming and California. Also explain what happens if only a single person votes for the same candidate in the 41 states and special districts wth the least EC representation,and 100% of the people in the remaining states vote for the other candidate. The Electoral College is a hugely flawed mechanism both in terms of reflecting the will of the people vs the will of arbitrary land boundaries, and the actual division of "political power" due to forcing everything to round to the nearest integer and setting a (completely arbitrary) cap on the number of EC votes.