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Cross posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17835203
Fuck, the U.K. got several new PMs without even an election during the last few years!
That's not a good thing in a democracy.
Shh shh, just let them have this one. It's bad enough to be in the UK as it is. :p
People don't vote for a prime minister. They vote for local representatives, the representatives are in parties that negotiate with each other to build a majority and form a government, and the Prime Minister is effectively the person that the representatives agree will lead the government. They don't have presidential powers, they are just a leader of the negotiated government.
Don't worry, electorate made their feelings known when it was time.
When Kamala wins, I'm curious if it will encourage a shorter election cycle, so people are still excited about their candidate when voting starts.
I don't think anybody actually wants our elections to be perpetual. I imagine it'd be easy to fix, except for the fact that longer elections cost more and this means the richest have more sway. I bet they'd resist.
Time to stop handing control of society to rich people who lack experience of being a normal human being.
It was time for that fifty years ago, but today would be fine too
Nobody handed it to them, they took it thousands of years ago and have had it ever since.
That, plus like everything else in America, an entire business has sprung up around running federal elections. Longer campaigns require more staffers, strategists, pollsters, advertisers, etc. It's a billion dollar industry unto itself.
I think the parties and the companies that own them want the elections to be perpetual, to keep us distracted and fighting each other. It also gives the companies a lot more time to ~~bribe~~ donate to candidates.
Honestly, if it wasn't one of the most powerful and influential countries of the world, it would be helluva entertainment. I'd invest in popcorn stocks.
On the other hand, if it wasn't one of the most powerful and influential countries in the world nobody would care.
When Kamala wins
Love that optimism.
But honestly though, I wonder how many "liberals" (let alone people who were undecided, even though it's hard to imagine they exist) won't be too happy about a black woman as the candidate
When Kamala wins
Love that optimism.
OC might be non native speaker. There is e.g. in German a conjunction (wenn) which is used to indicate both, temporal (when) or conditial meaning (if).
Today I learned! That is a useful bit of help for daily life. Danke.
I wasn’t a fan in 2020, but just seeing her now is kinda relaxing. 80+ President? She held a place of reassurance in that.
.
We’ve had so much chaos and stress. Against that context, seeing her relaxes me, has for a bit now.
.
High odds Whitmer will be the other side of that ticket after August.
Hopefully a few of them remember not voting for Clinton in 2016 with loathing and shame, and see this as their chance to make amends.
Too short election terms make for a dysfunctional government. With the usual 4-5 years most countries use half of that term is already spent campaigning for the next, forcing the government to do anything unpopular (but often necessary) during the first years, and then tone it down and do popular things else they have no chance of getting re elected.
If you shortened that further the politicians would be forced into a perpetual state of pandering to the voter base instead of actually governing.
I think they're referring to the length of the campaigning season, not the presidential term
In parlimentary systems the election is less about the person, and more about the party itself. You don't need 6 months to present a candidate.
On the other hand, those coalition talks can take months or longer with the old government continuing to run things for sometimes over a year after the elections. Looking at you, Belgium
Northern Ireland had a crisis which lasted a few years too some time ago.
But if you want good political drama now, look at France
It was genuinely a news item when we won the world record from Iraq for the longest period without government during the 2010-2011 government formation.
Its also possible to not have government for years!!! YU's political diversity must blow poor muricans' minds!!
It's really not. When we say "no government", what we usually mean is "no new government has been formed out of the elected new Parliament, so the old ministers stay on.
It's not like US government shutdown where everyone literally stops working.