Elections in America
For over 225 years America has won all the elections it has held
For over 225 years Americans have had nothing but success in peacefully choosing people to represent them. People run for office because they believe they can help make America better. In an election I always hope that I can choose between two well qualified candidates. Why is it that after the election is over and the results are counted do we say someone won and someone lost? What did one of them win and what did the other lose? The election is not a game or contest – it is a process for the people to choose who they want to represent them.
The person chosen has been given the right to represent ALL for a given amount of time and has the responsibility to represent ALL. The individual chosen does not win the office; they don’t get to keep it. They are elected to the office for a designated time period as a steward of that office to make this great nation even better.
The person not chosen should immediately embrace the one chosen to provide advice and counsel to the person chosen. After all, we should expect the one that wasn’t chosen still has a lot of great ideas and together with the person chosen should team up to make America better.
People that enter public service are owed a tremendous amount of respect by ALL as they chose to serve and make America better. This respect should be universal and include both those that are chosen and those that are not. This respect and belief in character is reflected when we address people in Congress by “The Honorable”.
One thing that is very confusing to me is that sometimes some of this group of people that we owe our respect to don’t seem to respect the other members in their own group. We need to remember that those presently serving ALL were chosen by the will of the people. Anyone disrespecting those chosen are in fact disrespecting ALL that are represented by them.
Our government is run by the Democrat and Republican parties
Our current partisan processes put the power of the government in the hands of two political parties that don’t like each other. Just watch “election night” coverage. The scoreboard doesn’t care about which people are chosen – it only cares about what party has control, and the strength of that control, over two houses of Congress (every two years) and which party controls the presidency (every four years).
Just as important is the turf map. The turf map shows down to the county level how much turf was won and lost by the blue and red teams. There is much analysis of the changes in occupying forces and what strategy was used to take over various pieces of turf. Details are given as to how many armies and how much money was spent to defend or take the piece of turf. Kind of reminds you of the game of Risk.
We elect people to Congress based on Party and/or fear
I believe that 2/3rds of the country gravitates toward the middle with each person being towards the “right” on certain issues and towards the “left” on other issues. I believe the other 1/3 is equally divided with 1/6 on the “far left” and 1/6 on the “far right”. I also believe that well over 90% of Americans are law abiding people that really want what is best for America.
The political parties on the other hand seem to want to be as far away from the other as possible (not quite a unifying force). Those that get elected must follow the party that brought them to the dance. So, while you may want to vote for someone that is in the middle, they either will not be on the ballot or will not be on the ballot as a Republican or Democrat and most likely will lose.
So your “choice” is to vote for the Party that you believe will do the most good and/or the least damage. The human name next to the D or R generally doesn’t matter because once the “winner” gets to Congress they will be controlled by the Party leadership.
The Constitution gives no power to either the Republican or the Democratic party but effectively these Parties are governing America. The strength of the imbalance of power during each two year cycle determines who calls the shots.
How did President Trump get elected?
Donald Trump was elected President because 63.0 million people filled in a circle which created a majority in the electoral college as per the Constitution. Those that filled in the circle next to his name did so for various reasons:
· They really liked him and wanted to see him become the President and/or
· They did not want to see Hillary Clinton become the President and/or
· They voted along their party line regardless of who was running and/or
· They did not want to see a woman president and/or
· They wanted a change from the past eight years of Democratic leadership
Can anything be said about all Trump voters with certainty? Yes, they filled in the circle next to his name. Anything else? No. Why does the media ascribe all kinds of negative attributes to those that filled in the circle? Propaganda.
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