Photek wrote:DML wrote:Meep wrote:Whilst his defeat this year is enjoyable nothing that happens now can change the fact that Donald Trump was president. He gets to be called president for the rest of his life and rub it in people's faces even though everyone including myself thought his campaign was laughable. So, yeah, the asshole strawberry floating "won" in the broader sense. However, I think the real anger should be preserved for the system of government and leadership that allowed him to do so in the first place. He is not some once in a generation genius. There will be more like him, probably more ruthless and more competent, unless there are serious changes both in the US and elsewhere.
If I was a Democrat president with House and Senate, I would only allow working politicians to apply to be President. If we had the same rules in the UK, we'd have had Farage as PM.
But you have Boris and the Conservatives in charge for 5 years...
I don't think DML is arguing that our system is somehow any good, or that it's resulted in a desirable outcome, from the point of view of anyone who considers wellbeing the most important measurable of a government's success or failure. Rather, I think DML is pointing out the comparative bizarreness of the American system, where the system of voting for their "parliament" is seperate from the system of voting for their ultimate leader (I avoid using the term "Head of State" as we're the backwater when it comes to democratically employing one).
So if we were to employ an American style system where individuals vote both for the representative of their area AND the leader of government, it's entirely plausible that Farage could end up being the PM, leading a majority Tory parliament.
There are obviously many other different factors to consider. If we had a presidential system akin to that of the US, it's very likely we would, in time, see our politics morph into a two party state, with only the nominated representative of the two major parties ever being plausible options on the ballot. As such, it would mean someone like Farage would be less likely to win a presidential style election to become PM, as he's not the Tory party's chosen nominee. But to extend the American metaphor even further, under an American style system the party leadership don't select it's presidential nomination, it's membership does. So again, not outside the realms of possibility Farage could have been chosen as the Tory candidate for PM, much as Trump was selected for, not necessarily by, the Republican politicians.
Our system is absolutely not perfect - the continued existence of the monarchy reinforces the persistent notion that some folk are simply born better, and our bloated second chamber is entirely unelected and serve for life; plus our constituency boundaries exist at the whim of the party in power, allowing for readjustment and gerrymandering - but if we were to further apply the American mechanisms here, you'd do away with our constituencies and introduce states of varying sizes, each with electoral college votes. Of course, as this is an American system, the number of EC votes given to each state needs to be wildly disproportionate, in order to ensure that the party of the 'ruling class' starts every election with a significant advantage. I'm thinking "Greater London" would be our California with 55 EC votes, and then Scotland could be New York. Northwest Yorkshire could be Florida, with the boundaries cleverly drawn so that the liberal-leaning cities are outweighed by the right-wing voices of rural areas and numerous small towns. South Yorkshire of course will need splitting in two, so that the Tories have a chance of winning at least one of those states. And sparsely populated Conservative heartlands would need to be states in their own right.