Republicans in Congress have complained that Donald Trump, until 2009 a registered Democrat, does not espouse what they consider to be “Republican” ideas. I wonder if Trump’s success thus far is a good example for why other countries use the parliamentary system rather than our mob-rule Democracy. In Britain, for example, and countries that have imitated its system of governance, the prime minister must be approved by a majority of legislators from that party (Wikipedia). A Trump v. Established Republicans situation could simply never arise.
Related:
This is a feature not a bug. If one party really screws up, voters can dump either the executive or the legislative officeholders without necessarily dumping the other. It’s part of the checks and balances built in to the system, and it’s especially necessary in systems where the legislative seats are locally chosen rather than proportionately allocated, because legislative majorities are much “stickier”. In the USA the party in executive power changes quite regularly, while in the UK, which also has locally chosen legislators but no separately elected executive, the governments tend to hang around for too long.
Also, it’s awfully premature to say that Trump’s nomination represents a “failure”,. Reagan used to be a Democrat too, and Trump succeeded because Republicans voted for him (some states had open primaries where voters could choose which party to vote for, but that can’t have mattered much this year because the Democrat side has been very closely contested and therefore Democrats have been unlikely to cross over and vote for Trump).
One of the great advantages of this country resides in its great political system. No democracy is perfect but the American one is among the best, in my opinion.
Parliamentary systems have their own set of problems. Spain has not been able to form a government since December for lack of a clear majority in parliament. The new summer elections may not change the situation. Belgium I believe was without government for as long as a year (I’m no expert on Belgium).
Our system has its pluses and minuses compared with a parliamentary system. A plus is that power is diffuse. But that is also a minus because lots of individual actors have the power to block legislation and that leads to the particularly American form of corruption of influencing legislators to block legislation that is in the general interest.
I would not be so sure about how great American democracy is. Lots of countries seem to do a lot better than us in the basic things that are important such as education and health. Many or most Americans are dissatisfied (or should be dissatisfied) with how these services are provided but the political system is unable to solve these problems. We all know that the public schools and healthcare system in the US are pretty mediocre by world standards but the citizens don’t have the political power to change things — because of the public sector unions in the case of education and corporate interests in the case of medicine. That these interests have the power to block what is in the general good is a function of the US political system — see para. 1, supra.
Going to direct election of senators was a huge breaking change to the structure of our democracy. The state level political machines used to have a much stronger hand in the form and function of D.C.
> Lots of countries seem to do a lot better than us in the basic things that are important such as education and health.
race. race. race. race. race.
Every racial and ethnic group in America does way, way better than their bloodline ancestors. America works exceedingly well when measured correctly.
Finns are allegedly great at education. Well, they do even better in America. Japanese are even healthier and richer in America. West Africans are way better in America.
America is a multi-racial and multi-ethnic country. The relevant bin for direct comparison is Brazil and Argentina and South Africa. Not Japan or Finland. This is such a critical point, but it can’t be discussed openly because I guess “I have a dream!” I dunno.
The parliamentary system brought socialism to England a lot faster than US. Of course, if the goal is to be more effective at achieving the natural will of the human brain, the parliamentary system was more successful at achieving the will of the people to enslave themselves.
“Many or most Americans are dissatisfied (or should be dissatisfied) with how these services are provided but the political system is unable to solve these problems. ”
That’s because people are pretty evenly split between completely opposite “solutions”.
bobbybobbob:
It sounds like you’re obsessed with race. People are people. Americans enjoy a much higher standard of living than their ancestors, but that’s true of people all over the world. If you want to compare the USA to multi-ethnic societies, Canada and Australia would be better choices.
Also, your apparent criticism of Dr. King’s famous speech doesn’t speak well of you.
Vince- I think you made part of Bob’s point for him. He said his opinion is unpopular because it’s not PC, then you ad hominim’d him apparently for not being PC.
Sam
I would say that Bob’s statement was just a bunch of nasty claptrap. I notice that when people make such statements they often try to defend themselves using acronyms like PC and SJW without explaining what those terms mean or why such attitudes are so objectionable.
At least now I know what SJW stands for…