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The Weirdest Thing About American Democracy, At Least For Brazilians

We get it, America. You guys praise yourselves about being a free and democratic country, never being anything but a democracy (except for when you were British), and having food chains that spread like the plague all over the Earth. Although it is important to focus on the second issue and how I would love it if you removed this food chain disease you have installed upon us, please and thank you, I’m here to talk about the first one: your democracy.

To foreigners, there are so many weird (and usually very absurd too) things about American democracy. For example, how a person can’t vote if they have been in prison before (this one is particularly absurd), how vote isn’t compulsory and election day is a work day (hello there, upper class’ privilege) or how the Electoral College doesn’t really follow the proportion between a state’s population and how many votes that state has. Still, nothing will ever be as weird and absurd as the fact that you don’t vote directly for your president

If that idea is way too weird to you, take Brazil as an example. While you guys vote for a candidate and your state’s Electoral College, in most states, votes for the same candidates the population voted for in order to formally elect someone; over here, it is as simple as voting. Seriously, that’s all it takes. We go to a certain place, we type our candidate’s number and, later on, the system counts the votes. Not the College’s votes, the vote of every single one of the Brazilian citizens over eighteen, and even some over sixteen. Our candidates can only win by popular vote, which, if you ask me, is a way more democratic system.

Here, the votes represent who the people actually want to be president. In the United States… Well, not so much, and I particularly will support the thesis that this is one of the reasons Donald J. Trump is president of the United States.

Of course, my estrangement could be due to how things are different down here, but it isn’t. I’ve been familiar with your electoral system ever since 2008, when Obama was elected, and I still don’t get it. Sure, I have my prejudices and problems with Americans, but you are still smart people. You made a global superpower out of your country and even I have to recognize that. I really don’t get why you are missing this very important point – even though, and I’m just being honest here, you miss many others, such as free health care, women’s rights, a prison system that favors rehabilitation, a constructive education and so many others; but I think Michael Moore’s Where To Invade Next will teach you better about what you’re missing than I ever could.

Besides the clear problem about winning by popular vote not meaning you actually won, there are lots of others. Did you know that, mathematically speaking, one electoral vote out of the 538 “represents” 592.936,803 people out of the entire population? How could one vote ever represent that amount of people? Thing is, it could never, so it simply doesn’t. There is also the issue that the Electoral College is, simply said, a group of people appointed by each state who formally elect the president and vice-president. Oh, wait, I remember another thing that sounds like that, where a group of people chosen by some reason choose the nation’s representative. It’s called oligarchy and it honestly shouldn’t still exist in the 21st century.

Let me give you a clear example of the impact of not voting directly for your president: while Hillary won by popular vote, Trump is president. If your founding fathers had actually made it about the people and not the states, though, we wouldn’t be having to protest about walls or muslim bans right now. And, if you, Americans, only realized this flaw in your electoral system and fought to change it when it first showed its face, back in 1876, when Rutherford B. Hayes was elected even though he only had 48% of the popular vote, we certainly wouldn’t be half as worried about the future of the United States the same way we are now.

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