America's electoral system was stronger when the sun rose on Wednesday than it was the morning before.
— But it's not just because President-elect Donald Trump won the White House. Nor was he left undeadly injured.
Two things are essential for election administration to work. 1: Votes must be counted and reported fairly and accurately. 2: The public must believe that it is true. If the first system fails, it is no longer representative. Even if the second one breaks, it doesn't matter anyway. Accuracy and trust are essential foundations of a free society (this is the main reason why “democracy” cannot be easily airlifted to Iraq, Afghanistan, or other places where the governance of honesty and mutual trust is not pervasive in society) ).
Democratic Party believers were not asked who would be the candidate, they were only told. The experts knew better, and perhaps they did?
Entering Tuesday, both struggled in the United States. The last presidential election was plagued by “glitches,” new regulations, broken rules and questionable counts. How 129 million people voted in 2016, 137 million in 2024, and a whopping 155 million in an election during the coronavirus pandemic that lasted days without mail checks It's probably impossible to understand what happened, so let's not dwell on it any further. Either way, trust has been shattered.
The key to rebuilding trust was not simply a return to predictable numbers, but a quick decision to vote while Americans were awake.. It's a difficult thing to pull off, but to their eternal credit, election officials got it done. Counties that have attracted suspicion (rightly or wrongly) have publicly said that counting the votes could take days or even weeks, but results have generally been obtained.
Even better, urban counties keep up with rural counties. Again, rightly or wrongly, large-scale late-night voting that changes elections from partisan cities seriously undermines the opposition's confidence that the election is being run fairly and properly.
then there's money. Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign and friends raised nearly $1 billion in just a few months — That's nearly three times the amount raised by Trump and others. Since the dawn of American politics, people have wisely complained that money can buy elections. Just like 2016, 2024 also dealt a blow to this rule. It doesn't mean that the person with the most money should lose. — But it's healthy to see it happen every now and then.
Then there are powerful intereststhey have earned a reputation as the roughnecks of the republic ever since slave-owning planters first feuded with merchants in the Northeast. While Mr. Trump won the widest and most high-profile support of his political career, Ms. Harris attracted the support of most of the country's rich and powerful people. That billion dollar campaign wasn't built on $5 donations.
Sometimes the rich and powerful are right about which direction the country should go, but again, it's important to know that they can't always make that decision for us. is a good thing. And that's where we start to see the bad parts of American democracy: what democracy means and how it works.
There are powerful forces within the American elite. Federal and state bureaucracies, as well as international and international governments whose strategic interests, programs for children, new notions of equity and justice, and opinions about morality, science, gender, and sex are important. In the vast world of national non-governmental organizations. That is the correct “democratic belief.” In this framework, opposition to their policies is “anti-democratic.”
This idea can be found across the United States, the Anglosphere, and the European Union. The United Nations is a particularly egregious offender. Like it or not, the overarching message since January 2020 has been that experts don't care what you think, and what's more, they will tell you what you think. As an exercise, the next time you hear someone complain about Trump's “attack on democracy,” try replacing the word “democracy” with “elite policies” or “bureaucracy.” There it is.
Harris' nomination is a prime example of this, contributing to the worst point in the past four months for this expert rule since the coronavirus pandemic, as well as the second wave Democrats have inflicted on American governance. It is also a second wound.
Democrats were not asked who their nominee would be. — they were told. The experts knew better, and perhaps they did? After all, the primary was going to be messy, and the money already raised needed to be protected. The transition from President Joe Biden to his running mate may have been forced by an old man, but it will need to appear peaceful and seamless in public. But when Democratic voters revealed who they chose, they weren't completely convinced.
Worse still, it has set a highly undemocratic precedent. Things didn't work out for Harris and the Democratic Party, but we've now officially decided that if it's clear that a candidate can't win, they can replace them without holding an election. That's not great. It undermines the system and trust at the same time.
Of course, few of the guilty parties are willing to talk about it, even if they are aware of it. There is no introspection or autopsy. Ms. Harris, as usual, will be criticized as a weak and lazy candidate. Mr. Biden will be denounced as an old, power-hungry man who has shown a decline in what he once was. But the people who put it there don't try to look inside. After all, everything they did was for the sake of democracy. You don't want to be undemocratic, do you?
Sign up for the Bedford Newsletter
Sign up to get Blaze Media Senior Political Editor Christopher Bedford's newsletter.
