Sunday (11/29): Wisconsin's Dane County completed a ballot recount of the state's presidential votes, as requested by President Trump - a negligible 45 votes were gained for Trump due to the recount. With an earlier recount in Milwaukee County granting 132 votes to President-elect Joe Biden, a net 87 votes were added to Biden's favor in the state, providing a fairly trivial reassurance of Biden's victory.
However, the POTUS and his legal team continue to deny Biden's victory, claiming voter fraud in the form of illegal ballots despite the failure of such claims to hold ground in other states such as Arizona and Georgia. His attorneys filed complaints citing alleged widespread fraud, and Trump himself continued his antidemocratic rhetoric in a recent interview on Fox News with conspiratorial rantings of a "well-coordinated attack" on the election proceedings.
Although the election results are not yet officially certified in Wisconsin by the bipartisan Wisconsin Election Commission, it's clear among experts and the official count that there is no evidence of widespread fraud - why then, is President Trump attempting to overturn the vote?
Trump is not a politician - he was and is a businessman. From his stay in the Oval Office, it is clear from his conduct he holds no respect to the traditions of the office. He does not place particular importance on the smooth transition of power, but instead seeks to get ahead by riding his populist wave. I don't believe that Trump's approach is a direct threat to our democracy, as our nation has survived far worse - the polarization of the election of 1800, the sedition acts, even the Civil War: we have always been disjointed on political issues.
However, I think that increasing American polarization itself and the popular support for Trump's rhetoric is a byproduct of an already failing democratic system. The historic two-party system resulting from our first past the post (FPP) system of voting, for one, dissatisfies a majority of people every election cycle because of FPP's tendency to drift towards two broad parties. I think steps should be made to move towards instant-runoff voting (IRV) in order to encourage multiple parties in American democracy, which would offset the polarization between two clearly defined sides and allow trust to be rebuilt in our systems once again because more representative options are available.
Two questions to start off with, but feel free to add on...
(1) Is Trump actively threatening our democracy with his actions?
(2) What are some other effective ways to try and address American polarization?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
Delete1. I mean... I guess? His actions in my opinion aren't significant enough to be "A threat to American Democracy." I think that he is setting awful precedents for future presidents who do take office. But no, I don't think Trump will be the downfall of "American Democracy." I use air quotes because I don't want to turn "Threat to American Democracy" into a buzzword like-term like "fake news."
ReplyDelete2. Yikes... where to begin with this one. I think the two party system did us fine in the past, both parties had a lot more common goals, interests, common enemies (USSR), etc. But increasing radicalization makes getting stuff done harder. I think our friends in Europe that use a multi-party system do an interesting job, it's something worth studying and considering an option at the least. Either way, good luck convincing politicians that benefit from a two party system to change the workings of the government to one that wouldn't them. I say this a lot but... the media needs to be fixed. I think the media is what is pushing the right and left further and further from each while dehumanizing the other side. I think half the mainstream news networks should be called for what they are. They're political talkshows, that take a biased viewpoint of the news and present their vision of the facts to their audience. Calling that for what it is I think could help fix the broken political rhetoric in America. The media is honestly an hours long conversation, but I think it needs to be seriously re-evaluated. I think that it's important to understand that most people right and left, believe in what they believe because they think it is what will fix the country, not because they hate it. Understanding someone's political position is important even if you don't agree. It's impossible to do this question justice in a comment box, but it's a problem that needs to be addressed more.
P.S. Sorry for deleted comments, those had some serious typos I needed to flesh out
There are a lot of awful precedents being set. I hope no more boundaries are pushed, I would hate to see something like the court getting packed.
DeleteIn my opinion, there is hope though - more and more people are realizing the problem with the media and striving to support independent news organizations; more people are looking at both sides, and for the first time the echo chambers are being fact checked and questioned. We're on the path to being better.
The media is indeed "an hours long conversation" but we elementarily agree. Taking one step out of centre into either side of the political spectrum takes into an echo chamber that radicalizes you further into hatred of the opposition - not even through the merit of that side's ideas, but simply because the opposite side is vilified. We all want the media to be fixed, but the problem is the same as what you mentioned with politicians - with such convenient bases of support growing for both those media outlets and the politicians on their side that benefit from it (especially Democrats, as the mainstream media skews left fairly heavily), it would be nigh impossible to honestly fix the media.
For the first question, I think that Donald Trump has not undermined our democracy enough to be threating towards it. It's been shown that despite all his pardons and claims of fraud elections, the elections are still very fair. As long as we are able to have votes counted and see who wins then I think the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy is very small. For the second question on how to fix polarization I think it can be fixed by the attitude of politicians. Instead of seeing the other party as an enemy of America I think they should learn and promote the idea the other party simply has another vision of America. I don't think spliting the 2 party system would fix the problem as there will still be people who view the other side of the political spectrum as destroying America.
ReplyDeleteCertainly - speaking from the future, with lawsuits for Trump failing left and right and "partisan" judges such as ACB staying true to neutrality, it seems our democracy itself is doing just fine.
DeleteThe idea that our deep-rooted conflict wouldn't resolve from multiple parties is an interesting one. You are correct in saying that people would still view the other side as the enemy; however, I think that having multiple parties would lead to better talking points from politicians because it's more difficult to attack a bunch of different parties all at once effectively, especially when some are in your quadrant of the political spectrum - politicians would effectively be forced to argue for their ideas, and not against others.
This post is closed.
ReplyDelete