Democracy won in America

By Nana Asibey

Democracy according to the former US President Abraham Lincoln says "the government of the people by the people and for the people".

Historically, Americans take pride in their democratic traditions, and academics have agreed that democracy in America is special. From Alexis de Tocqueville’s 1800s classic “Democracy in America” to Almond and Verba’s groundbreaking 1960s study “The Civic Culture,” astute witnesses argue that Americans’ political attitudes make U.S. democracy particularly robust.

These works describe Americans’ underlying belief in the legitimacy of the U.S. democratic system, regardless of whether they like or dislike current officeholders. The real Americans historically respect the democratic rules of the game and tolerate people with conflicting viewpoints.

If one has a problem with US pattern of voting particularly just ended election, one can blame democracy.

Some have argued that the right candidate was not chosen. I will agree with them at some point by emphasizing on the Greek philosopher Plato who never believed in democracy. He claims democracy could sometimes pander to the whims and caprices of voters, leading to distortion of value. And that is what we just experienced.

Too much premium is putting on voting thereby promoting mediocrity over excellence, amateurism over professionalism and ignorance over true knowledge. That is the ugly side of democracy.

If this weren't America, Hillary Clinton would be president-elect today. But American democracy isn't a one-person-one-vote democracy like it is everywhere else. Here, voters don't directly elect their president. Instead, they elect electors to the Electoral College who then elect the president on behalf of the voters. It's a weird, convoluted and, frankly, undemocratic electoral system that non-Americans (and even Americans) have a hard time wrapping their heads around.

Let me briefly explain how it works.

Each state is allotted a number of electors that corresponds to the number of representatives it has in Congress. Since most states have a winner-takes-all system, any candidate who wins a plurality of the votes cast in a state, even if this is just by a vote, gets all the electors. In effect, the votes of people whose candidate lose the plurality of the vote don't really count.

Interestingly, in a 2012 tweet, Donald Trump wrote: "The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy." Today, ironically, he is a beneficiary of this "disaster for democracy."

Some Americans and most countries around the globe wanted victory for Hilary Clinton because of the radical altitude and ideology of her opponent, Donald Trump. I can say emphatically with no equivocation that the realist personality of Donald Trump made him a winner which co-equalize the realist nature of the native Americans.

I argue from the point that we come face to face with two major ideals in the world; what we call idealism and realism, and when these two concepts clash, they go for realism.

Let's support Trump and I think there will be something good to write home about in his administration irrespective of his ideology.