This blog post isn't about the relative merits of either candidate or associated political parties. It is not about the information warfare techniques used during the election. It is not about the electoral college.
This blog post is about the inherent stability of the United States of America's governance structure, and why that structure has caused discontent in the American populace, and concerns for global stability in people worldwide.
In the interest of pithy expression, I'm going to raise 5 points, and ask one question.
1. USA's government is designed to be inefficient
2. USA's government has always been a blending of competing interests
3. Concerns of the people in the USA
4. USA strives for global stabilization
5. People are afraid of the unknown and this is nothing new
1. USA's government is designed to be inefficient
The founding fathers constructed the government to resist the capability of any one individual or organization to exert excessive and persistent control of the government.
2. USA's government has always been a blending of competing interests
To operate, then, the government must cooperate within itself and convince the people (of the USA) to vote for the representatives. To accomplish this, there's a short cycle of immediate interests to demonstrate "value" to the people the representative needs to vote for him or her. Simultaneously, this representative must attempt to coerce the opposing party to give some concession. Usually this concession is in exchange for a mutual concession.
As such, no one is really pleased with the government. The government is a raucous contention for control.
3. Concerns of the people in the USAThere's an interesting statistic I have seen from this election. I have two sources I found from wikipedia, but I'm not certain of the true, authoritative source for this number. But, the statistic is that roughly 60% of the eligible voters in the USA voted in this election.
links:
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/turnout.php
http://www.electproject.org/2016g
The electproject.org site has links to the source of their data, most of which are to the state's website.
I'll offer two hypotheses which explain this, you're welcome to add competing hypotheses in the comments. If enough people are interested, we can construct an ACH graph representing this.
Hypothesis 1: Eligible voters in the USA who didn't vote are opposed to either of the viable (Democrat or Republican) candidates for President and thus didn't vote.
Hypothesis 2: Eligible voters in the USA who didn't vote think that the system will prevent either viable candidate from substantially affecting change.
4. USA strives for global stabilization
I'm a citizen of the United States of America. In case that's not readily apparent form this post thus far. My biased opinion is that the USA's global military presence is in fact intended to maintain a peaceful balance of power and contain opposition without conquering it. As opposed to a military with the intention of creating fealty among all adversaries.
5. People are afraid of the unknown and this is nothing new
I'm of the opinion (derived largely from psychological, biological, and philosophical studies plus my personal observation) that individual human actions are primarily motivated by: avoidance of pain, avoidance of death, and the search for pleasure. I think the individual expresses these in varying order of priority.
The unknown impact to this election was a topic of substantial inquiry last week while I was in Australia. Every non-American I spoke with asked me about the election results. My canned immediate response was intended to diffuse immediately, "What election?" With a gigantic smile. But, of course, I elaborated. I shared my thoughts on each candidate if asked. I shared my thoughts on what I think is a system capable of withstanding any megalomaniac who gets elected, intending to assert massive change.
I rarely talk about politics, even when asked. Which is why strangers typically talk only about the weather. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTG4746_Fgc
My question to you is, not that we can do anything, what will we do?
This question is quoted from Bruce Mau's project "Massive Change." I chuckle to myself to think that this is a marketing company. Some other blog post I'll discuss why I don't like marketing, and that I've chosen to specifically forgo a tremendous volume of content to avoid it.
He was not the first to ask this question, he won't be the last. People worldwide are called upon daily to answer it. The project of responding to this question is the expression of your legacy. I sincerely hope that the designers of the government of the United States of America's legacy is that the government they set in motion is capable of maintaining its dignity and global position in spite of ugly politics and substantial discontent of the people.
That's the best I can do for being pithy and apolitical. ;)
