Poignant Lessons from US General Elections
2016
Democracy is a slippery political
concept. Many definitions abound, but none particularly helpful in furthering
understanding. Many advocates of democracy attempt to define democracy in real
life; dressing it up with civil liberties, popular elections, free press, free
speech, right to bear arms … etc. In
post-2016 general elections, it seems natural that Americans have difficulty
grasping the nature of its model of democracy. Democracy empowers Governments to
promote the welfare and well-being of its people, and not the development of its
own political concepts. Functional
democratic processes can facilitate positive and progressive national development.
Otherwise, democracy would face irrelevance, or change and even oblivion.
Myth of The Popular
Vote in US Democracy
During the US General Elections, the
States holds concurrent democratic elections on the 8 November every 4 years to
choose their preferred Presidential Candidates by assigning “Electors” to
represent the State in accordance with its population size at the Electoral
College who convenes on the following 19 December to “elect” the winning
Presidential candidate officially.
In 2016, the Electoral
College, represented by all the 50 States, elected Donald Trump by a margin of 306-242
to be the 45th US President for 2017-2020. President-Elect Donald
trump is also the most popular Republican President to ever receive 62.4
million votes.
The overall popular
vote does not matter in the election of the US President. The overall popular vote is
immaterial and irrelevant in the US, unlike countries like Mexico, Austria,
Australia, Germany, France, East Timor and several others.
The US electoral landscape consists
of 50 States and 3,112 Counties (or Constituencies). On 8 November 2016, Donald Trump won 2,622
Counties (84%) to Hillary’s 490,
and won 30 States (60%) compared to her 20, garnering an average of 56% votes
in those 30 States to 53.5% by Hillary in her 20 States.
The State of California
voted massively for Hillary
by over 4.3 million votes is effectively responsible for all of Hillary’s 2.8
million popular votes over Trump.
Without the moderation by the Electoral College, that one State alone,
California, would have over-whelmed the entire national vote and
disenfranchised all other non-Californian American voters. When
Californian votes are excluded, Trump’s 58,474,401 popular votes exceed Hillary’s
by 1.4 million.
Clearly, in the context
of American politics in 2016, the Electoral College provides the US
Presidential Elections with a more democratic outcome in determining the more
“popular” President, where using the national popular vote would have failed to
properly articulate the democratic aspirations of 128 million US electorate for
a President Donald Trump....
Michael HENG
25 comments:
That Trump being a billionaire, besides speaking up for ordinary Americans, also helps a lot in his winning.
If any of our Sinkie opposition leader can be as rich, and in Sinkieland "money talks", this may also help in uniting the opposition to be strong and ready to be govt. Then majority voters may have voted opposition to govern Singapore.
Too bad, the Sinkie opposition is pathetic in terms of resources as well as unity. In other words, there is no Sinkie Trump. In contrast PAP, besides being incumbent for so long, is also very rich and so they won despite not doing a good job protecting the interests of ordinary true blue Sinkies in the past decade.
A country with bad karma. The price for arrogance
If any of our Sinkie opposition leader can be as rich, and in Sinkieland "money talks",...
10:04 am
I think you are naive lah. U know what happened to the late tycoon Tan Lark Sye in the 1960s?
So why would any Sinkie billionaire be so stupid as to join the Sinkie opposition? Sinkieland is not America, u know.
That's why opposition did not, and will not succeed in Sinkieland. Smart and rich Sinkies either join PAP (if they are interested in politics) or emigrate. And left with those not so smart or rich Sinkies in opposition, majority Sinkies, who for obvious reasons did not vote for them in 2015 , will also never vote for them in future. That's why Chee Soon Juan could even lost a by election in 2016 because majority voters do not think he and his party has the resources and stature to serve them well. Sinkies are pragmatic and rightly so.
"If not, democracy should get out of the way as we journey toward a better, more prosperous, fairer and equal society of one Singapore and one nation. "
Lengthy with MULTISYLLABLE words, the entire message was to use Hillary family s influence on "pay for play" as a way to condemn choice of government by words.
I totally disapprove the ".." statement by the author. Make it simple: to have intercourse to produce a baby, it does not come with the guarantee the baby will be patriotic, upright, non criminal, but generous, not greedy, not foolish, stable in mood and excellent in health, fit to do all kinds of work and under all kind of work pressures. The author ask for all of the conditions to be positive. Possible???
Democracy to me is: voters have unrestricted in choosing candidates to form the governing body and drafting rules and regulations. The governed willing to accept the rules because they are the same people choose those writing and enforcing the rules. Democracy is valid because, every 4 to 5 years, the voters must make choices again. This is a valid democracy to me. How it works out, depends on the governed and the governing. The system is not fixed, it evolves.
I think people cannot demand results from a simple system of choice, using some extreme example like Hillary s influence to disapprove democracy. I believe people know Hillary was the main brain to implement globally the "borderless concept". It was something i saw in wikileaks Hillary s words on her dream to have a borderless world. I was really puzzled by her intelligence. The world tested it globally. China makes big gains from it. USA made big losses from doing it. It has nothing to do with democracy in USA and China s communism one party system.
The Norway prize winner this year Deston and Case, his wife, had an article from Princeton, that white mem and women committed suicides were alarmingly higher than other races, citing data from 1999 to 2013. It is very recent and it is enough for Obama to learn what he had done to USA economy. The USA manufacturing jobs shifted outside of it. The trained professional white men lost their jobs and could not survive in Hillary s borderless nation for USA. Learn this fact: dearest NS men.
UK people voted to get out of EU to reclaim borders. Trump promised to build a real border between US and Mexico. These voters of UK and US are well trained well educated and experienced high technology works or writing such text books for university students world wide. China do translate their works in chinese to educate its people. They voted to close the border in order to survive the educated population ie the middle class. Or to reduce the suicides number for the white men and women.
It is a simple world if you believe my observations. Only Singapore do not believe that close the border and excel on your research and manufacturing industries will bring fortune. Singapore is now the only country to want 3rd world staff to fill the positions of its manufacturing, and even civil service, for cheaper labor cost, so tht rental can project upwards further.
It s 2017, its time for show down. Open border vs close border. I bet US and UK will continue to excel in manufacturing, making innovative products to beat china s equally strong products but lacking new ideas. The left out country is singapore, cannot produce even a router to sell to the world market and excel on it. Router is no new products, I made a mistake to buy one made in singapore. I learn this lesson: never buy made by 3rd world stuff from singapore made.
Democracy is choice for candidates to form government. Do not change it. Do not ask for more if singaporeans are not willing to work hard to innovate, and the governing pap is not will to see singapore industries to grow with quality. The pap needs to be changed with votes casting for other parties. NOT the system of choice.
There is no point justifying a political system over the other when all had failed miserably under the rule of men.
It only shows you are an idiot
Agree, it is man that fails a system by manipulating and changing a system to suit his own interest. They keep changing the system when the system does not work to his favour. You no need to see too far.
Some jokers are thinking that Asean is like another little piece of rock, not happy with the outcome, change the rules of Asean.
Democracy is failing everywhere. And man is the biggest culprit.
Ant the biggest cowpricks are the ones that are from higher learnings followed by people of lower learnings.
Democracy is putting these two groups of people to dedide on the fate of humanity. No different in Sin. People chose PAP over the others.
The Man of Sin
"Let no man deceive you by any means; for that day shall not come except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition."
You are idiots...easily deceived
even in authoritarian gov, idiots chose idiots to be rulers. no different. lol
Well, Singapore best in science Maths and England..lol..best brains highest paid ministers and civil serpants...they know all the answers lah. Just shut up. Let them solve it
Look at how this Sin City treated a boy who tells them RUDELY they are wrong?
They only care about "proper manners'
Be careful when you are overly right
I think the subject of this boy needs to be examined. My view is that he needs to do NS to gain legitimacy for other NS men to treat him equally.
I do not buy that he was forced to run away. He finished his games. Its time to be adult and no more a "special" "new human" boy from singapore. Eventually, as he becomes adult, you will agree with me my observation might make sense to this boy: very intelligence but brought misfortune to himself and family because he saw himself too important and too big, If he scaled down himself, he can achieve big things when the next few centuries are no longer the familee s world. In US alone is hard to survive, hardly can take bus there, not to talk about mrt in US. Its a wrong choice.
You are focusing on his character and therefore easily deceived. We are talking about his content. He screwed with idolatry which is protected by the people and those with core interests.
You might as well embrace a timebomb in your home.
He attacked Christianity. Big big issue in Sin City. Are you deceived or the boy is deceived?
Anyone can comment whatever about that boy.
The boy well deserved any adult s respect. Because he was shown red cards and he took the penalty. He did not run away. He completed the whole game. Then he wanted to go somewhere. I still think it is not correct for not fulfilling the constitutional liability. He is like those PR s sons living abroad. I cannot accept those PR as equal friend as NS men because they work here for the money, the keep their sons away.
That boy now in my eyes, is the same. I have no support to such NS boys as the same I have no support the local PR. They are the same, do not do NS but escape it.
Man Made stone head. So stoned, anyhow stone people. Killing with stones.
Haha.....
The Best Educated and High Scoring Ignorant Scholastic
ldiots.
Knn,
CANT even differentiate Despot, greedy leeders from
less evil leeders.
Or
at least have the Commonsense
to put in more parliamentarians from different parties to prevent a major party from abusing or misuse the Mandate given to them.
Daft Sinkies said the Horrible
Man.
He was brutally frank and spot on.
patriot
When you have a nation of people who said...boy, shut the F up and eat your chicken rice quietly, you know you are in church
Tarlex lorries might have high level attentions besides HK CY Leung. When Xi met CY, Lizhanshu and Sun chunlan were present. Li is Xi close aid, Sun is head of party front line or tong zhang. From HK s problems involving international affairs. One was independent movement and foreigners embassies supports. One was tarlex lorries unloaded at HK harbor. Singapore will received China s utmost attention. Its such an honor to have punched above its spur weight. Singapore should continue to help US to defend south china seas freedom of navigation, monitoring China submarines and must expand training in Taiwan to train up saf. That is what singapore should be as leader of south east asia countries.
First thing first. This world is not perfect. Man is not perfect. Do we agree? Anyone thinks this world is perfect and man (including woman) is perfect?
If no man is perfect and the world is not perfect either, then it follows that any system conceived, devised, developed and fine-tuned by any man will be imperfect.
If any system is imperfect, how can there be a perfect political system?
If there cannot be a perfect political system, then why must we try to convince others that Democracy, Guided Democracy, Communism, Dictatorship, or Benign / Benevolent Dictatorship is better? Every system has its pros and cons, positives and negatives, benefits and deficiencies, good and bad. Each system works according to the era, situation, the environment, atmosphere, era and background of people in each country. One system may work well in one country but may not be so in another.
However, whatever system a country may adopt, it will finally evolved into a personalized system by a strong domineering leader or group of leaders in that country. It will finally be some kind of dictatorship.
Even the US is not a Democracy. It is a Republic based on personal liberty as the guiding principle of the whole government. It limits the power of government and terms of leadership because it recognize that power tend to corrupt; therefore, not a single person or organization or political party shall have unfettered powers and unlimited period of governing over the country and people. However, due to the greed for power, status and money, several elected presidents did not follow the US Constitution. They simply tried their very best to do things their own ways by outright lies, committing frauds and treason. They were/are actually dictators in disguise.
Regarding the Terrex Toys, there are TWO Key Questions one must ask:
1. If the 9 Terrex armored vehicles were in transit from Taiwan to Singapore, then why were they seen farting around at Xiamen port in the first place?
2. If the American President Line (a name that denotes probable ownership by the US Government) ship had intended to stop at Hong Kong Port during the transit of Singapore Armed Forces' armored vehicles from Taiwan to Singapore, why were the armored vehicles unloaded? Couldn't they just remain on board while in transit?
These two unanswered questions begs suspicion of hidden intent, no matter what the Singapore Officials tried to explain.
Hi The Dragon Fly,
Far East Run container line in transit usually all these ports in rotation before Singapore.
So, at Xiamen before HK not unusual.
Transit Cargo of not sanction cargo or for friendly countries usually no need advance clearance from transit ports.
They detained for a reason.
By now should be very clear.
Cheers
But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
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