So is the American
political system completely dysfunctional.
I suppose the easy
answer is to say they elected Trump so case closed, but of course it
is much more complicated than that.
What advanced developed
democracy cannot manage to keep it's government functioning.
The obvious answer
should be “none” but of course we know that is incorrect.
Even countries that
require months of negotiations after elections to form a coalition
government do not let their governments shut down. They understand
that government is more than just politics, that government is a good
thing that provides vital services to the people. They have processes
to allow the everyday work of government to continue while the
politics is sorted out.
Take Canada for
example. If a government cannot get its spending plan (in the form of
an Appropriation Act) approved it is considered a loss of confidence
in the government by the legislature and an election is called.
However the Prime Minister and Cabinet (whom are all Members of the
legislature) retain their positions and what are referred to as
Governor Generals' Warrants are issued to fund the day to day
operations of government. Government continues in a caretaker mode
with no new policy initiatives undertaken until a new government is
formed.
However the American
system seems designed for deadlock with no confidence mechanism to
break deadlocks by electing a new government. They have an executive
with a Cabinet appointed and led by a President that is not
responsible to the legislature and a bicameral legislative process,
requiring the two legislative bodies and the President to agree for
legislation, including government funding bills, to become law.
Currently the two
legislative bodies are controlled by two opposing parties and the
President who, while nominally the leader of one of the two main
parties, is in reality a rogue actor with no political allegiance
except to himself and no discernible political philosophy except for
his own incoherent version of populism. This is a recipe for the
chaos that is the current American political situation.
I can only suppose that
when the founding fathers drafted the American Constitution they put
a great deal of faith in the good will of the political participants
to put the good of the American people ahead of petty politics.
Now let us look at the
American electoral system.
We will start with
Election Day when most (but not all as there are variations between
states) Americans vote for federal, state and local officials. They
could not design a better way to overwhelm voters leading them to
take the path of least resistance and vote a “straight party
ticket”. Just the mechanics of voting for that many officials
(including many positions that should be public servants), without
even considering the time and effort to consider local, state and
federal issues and make meaningful voting decisions, must be
completely overwhelming to voters.
Americans also elect
prosecutors and judges. This raises the whole other issue of the
politicization of the justice and judicial systems all the way up to
a very politicized Supreme Court. This could be the subject of a
treatise all by itself.
Looking at elections
for federal office we have the absurd situation where the states set
the rules and procedures for federal elections and these vary from
state to state. So a federal election is not a consistent process
with consistent rules for all Americans.
But the most egregious
fact is that it is state politicians from the state's governing party
that control the federal election process in that state, including
the drawing of the electoral map with that infamous American
institution of gerrymandering (to manipulate the boundaries of an
electoral constituency so as to favour one party). This also includes
the use of various voter suppression methods to reduce voting,
usually of black and other minority voters.
Then we have the
electoral college system which routinely elects Presidents that are
not the choice of the majority of American voters. The system is
somewhat designed to do that by giving smaller states relatively more
electoral college votes but is made worse by the fact that in most
states all of a state's electoral college votes go to the candidate
with the most votes in that state. So if a presidential candidate
gets 60% of a states votes he gets 100% of the states electoral
college votes further skewing the results away from the popular vote.
Another concern is the
primary system used to select the individual parties candidates,
including the presidential candidates. Again we have an inconsistent
system of primaries and caucuses that are different for each state.
But perhaps the biggest problem is the timing of these primaries at
different dates for each state. It makes for great drama and
entertainment but the results of earlier primaries cannot help but
affect the results of later primaries. There is a reason election
results are not released before all the polls are closed – so that
earlier voters do not influence later voters. The primary system
seems designed to do just that.
A consistent federal
election process overseen by an independent non-partisan agency
(similar to Elections Canada) would go a long way to solving the
structural problems with the American electoral system. The cultural
problems of political corruption are another matter.
And we have not even
looked at the role money plays in American elections which is a huge
subject all by itself, especially the role of wealthy donors, PACs
(Political Action Committees) and SuperPACs. No one in American
government can possibly govern without constantly thinking about
where the money is coming from for their next campaign. It is very
hard to argue that that will not affect their decision making.
And it is almost
impossible to do anything in the form of political financing reform
as the Supreme Court has ruled that money equals free speech,
effectively ruling that the wealthy have a greater right to free
speech than ordinary citizens and a greater ability to promote their
preferred candidates for election.
So with all of these
fundamental problems how can American elections be fair. If American
elections are not fair, they are not democratic, and if the electoral
process is not democratic then the whole governing structure is not
democratic.
American democracy is
fucked.
