Comment by kergonath
12 days ago
I have a lot of sympathy for the American people, and many personal American friends. Still, in a democracy everyone is collectively responsible for the government. "It’s not us, it’s our government" only work for so long.
That's assuming that the population has any power, which in pretty much all countries in the world is not true. "Democracy" isn't just a value to behold, if the population has no power, it has no power and a country can't be called as such out of nowhere. Now, the people might have no actual power, but it's in their hands to get it.
True, there is usually the caveat of the electoral college and gerrymandering. That can excuse the impotence of Congress, but Trump won the popular vote. By any measure, it is a democratic result.
It's not a democracy (by definition)
Trump won the popular vote, so even without electoral college shenanigans, he would be in power.
It’s a representative democracy, in which the people delegate their legislative power to representatives and the executive power to, largely, a president. Its executive branch is stronger than a lot of democracies, but that itself does not make it "not a democracy". It turns out that its constitution is not as much of a guarantee than some people expected but, again, it does not prevent it from being a democracy. It’s on its way to Orbanization, though, which is very concerning and a sign that it might not be an actual democracy for too long.