mistermack wrote:America has a stupid system. So-called checks and balances are a recipe for inaction and any loony having a chance of winning the white house.
Well, typically, when one looks at a complex system and declares it "stupid" it's very likely that one does not really understand it.
America's system is different than the European parliamentary systems, but that doesn't make it stupid. The major systems all function on some manner of separation of powers, designed to distribute power rather than centralize it. That's the overarching concept, together with each center of government power being limited or balanced in some way, so that they can't simply act with carte blanche.
In the US, the system conceptually has a legislative department, which is the Congress (House and Senate), to make laws, declares war, and such. The judicial department, which rules on cases and controversies, and the executive department, which enforces the laws and acts as commander in chief of the armed forces and such. And, there is push and pull among these separate-but-equal branches of the government. The laws are made by the Congress, and the judiciary makes sure the laws are applied in conformity with the constitution, and the executive branch enforces them. Over the years, it's gotten a bit more complex with a de facto fourth branch, which is the administrative branch, resulting from the legislature delegating rulemaking authority to the executive branch -- like with taxation - congress taxes and spends and makes the tax laws, but it has delegated the authority to the executive branch to make rules and regulations governing the nuts and bolts of the tax system.
The President is elected by the States, who send electors to vote for the President on December 19. The popular vote is taken and utilized as the states see fit. Technically, a state could make the popular vote advisory, and have the legislators in a given state decide who the states electors will support, or it could simply let the electors do as they please.
That's the way it's always been, and there is nothing "stupid" about that. Think of your own Parliamentary system. You don't even get to vote for your Prime Minister, at all, which is the head of the government having most of the powers that our President has. You have a Queen as head of state, but that's largely a figurehead position. The power really lies in the PM. But you don't vote for him or her. You vote for your member of parliament (equivalent of our Congressmen and women), and then they choose the Prime Minister. So, if we were to switch to a system like yours, we would just continue to have the people vote for their Senators and Representatives in Congress, and then those elected legislators would choose the President like the Prime Minister is chosen. Would that be "smart?"
mistermack wrote:
We've had the inaction, now we have the loony.
And a loony elected by less votes than his opponent. It's a nasty situation, where one half of the country now hates the other half.
Hey, so what? You have a system over there, where a guy can be prime minister without anyone in the country having a say over it, except those in his district or riding. He gets to be PM because he holds sway within his party, and his party gets more seats in the House of Commons.
Do you think that none of your prime ministers would lose a direct election, if the people got to vote directly for him or her to serve in that post? Hardly.
And, the electoral college system is created in the US to acknowledge that we live in a federal system. People don't like to think of it this way, but it's like separate countries in the EU. Each US state has a head of state, called a governor, and there is a legislative branch which makes laws and a state court judicial system to interpret and apply them. There is federalism, in that the states have power and authority over matters not delegated to the federal government. So, the equal dignity of each state, big or small, is recognized by affording each state 2 electors, equal to the number of senators it gets. The remainder of the electors are based on a proportional share of the total population. So, the popular vote is recognized by that proportional share, but the existence of the states is recognized by the 2 electors each gets. It's like our Congress (parliament) - we have an upper house called the Senate, and each state, big or small, gets 2 Senators. The House of representatives (like the house of commons) is based on population, so California has many representatives, and Wyoming only a small number, because of the population difference.
This is not "stupid." This is a recognition of the actual structure of the nation. Georgia, Florida, New York, California, Michigan, etc. -- these are not meaningless labels for convenience or so we can have different sports team allegiances. These are legal boundaries with significant meaning. There is sovereignty among these States, who are --by agreement - bound together as one nation, with a federal government that has been given power and authority from the bottom up.
mistermack wrote:
Isn't it funny, that Russia is in a better place, democratically?
Now there's something stupid. Russia is essentially a dictatorship, where the ruling authority is known to killed and jailed political opponents.
mistermack wrote:
It has a popular government and leadership that has the power to do stuff.
Dictators do tend to have the power to get shit done. That kind of power is, however, fleeting.
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar
indeed