Dear
Americans,
in 1949 you
brought Germany the first real democracy in our country. After the failed
attempt during the Weimar Republic, which led to the election of Adolf Hitler
and through him to the Third Reich and World War II, you brought us one of the
most stable and efficient democracies in the world. We are very grateful for
that (apart from a few right-wingers and a few hopeless people who live in the
past).
With your
2016 election, you have, however proven that you are in dire need of a true
democracy yourself.
You have
been holding on to an old institution called the ‘Electoral College’ for too
long, for one thing. An American friend I spoke to recently thinks it serves to
make sure stupid people (or uninformed people, as it is put officially) don’t
take too much influence on the election of your president. Well, that either
means you’re wrong or it means even intelligent people voted for Donald Trump.
I choose to believe the first one, because I can’t imagine any person who is
intelligent would vote for a con-man who has no plans and will destroy everything
his predecessor, one of the best presidents you’ve had, has built up in eight
years in office. The bottleneck of the Electoral College means that a lot of
votes go unnoticed every time. It doesn’t matter whether a party wins a voting
district by a few votes or by several hundreds. If it wins, the other votes
cast don’t matter for the rest of the electoral process. It also validates the
technique known as Gerrymandering - a way to make sure as many voting districts
as possible will go to the party the person doing the Gerrymandering favours.
Get rid of the Electoral College and just count out all the votes. Overall, you
might get different results.
You make
the electoral process look like a huge party. You make it extremely focused on
entertainment. And you make it extremely important that the candidates (and
their parties) raise a lot of money. It’s no wonder the candidates in the end
were both extremely wealthy. But how much do people with millions in the bank
know about the struggle of the common citizen? Not much, usually. Yes,
candidates should speak about their plans for the presidency. They should take
a stand on political and social topics so the voters know where they stand and
what to expect from them. They should not make a show out of it. The showman is
close to the con-man (not all showmen are con-men, but all con-men are showmen)
and will rarely keep his promises after the votes have been cast. Cap the
amount of money candidates can invest. Like this, money isn’t that important
for becoming a candidate.
Make sure
the polling places are controlled. Not to avoid voter fraud as a such, but to
make sure people are not bullied (for example by armed people standing outside
and threatening those they think will vote for the other candidate) or are
turned away, even though they have the right to vote. Having a system which
gives every citizen the automatic right to vote might help. Make sure everyone has
the chance to get a photo ID (meaning making sure everyone can afford one) and
make the photo ID mandatory for voting. To get a photo ID, you need to be a
citizen - which means a person with a photo ID is eligible to vote.
Many years ago, you brought a country
you had just defeated in war the wonderful gift of democracy. Please do not
allow things to go badly enough this country needs to be part of a UN mandate
during the next elections to make sure America stays a democracy.
