Democracy

It is very difficult to define what democracy means.  It comes in all shapes and forms.  We would love to believe that America is a democracy and the UK is also a democracy.  In fact, it is not a black and white thing - it has different shades of meaning to it.  A lot of people lament that democracy in America is dead, because they have got a new president in Donald Trump.  They believe that the very fact that he has been elected the new president is sufficient to prove democracy is not working.

Obviously, without first defining what democracy means before going into all sorts of problems with democracy (whatever that term means) is futile and probably not worth your time reading this article.  Loosely, I think democracy can be said to be a political system in which people can freely vote and elect to be voted to public office without hindrance.  The voting system itself must be fair meaning one person one vote and each vote carries the same weight.  According to these principles, democracy is not a point but a spectrum.

For example, the US system would fail these principles.  Clinton won the popular votes but lost the collegial votes due to the fact that the presidential election is not a direct one.  Therefore, each vote in a smaller state would often carry more weight than one in a bigger state, say California.  This compromise is built-in in the US system so that smaller states would still have a say in the Federation.

Apart from the fairness dimension of a democracy, any political system including democracy (no matter what that means) must be able to regenerate itself from time to time.  Sadly, all system be it physical, biological or social will all become degenerate and corrupted over time.  You may probably call it the second law of thermodynamics - all orderliness will become orderless over time.

After the election, we heard that Clinton was blamming the FBI and we-don't-know-what for her loss in the election.  This reflects how detached the US elite of which she is a member has become over the past decades.  Clinton lost because she ignored the unfairness and the injustice of the system which has made the rich richer and poor poorer.  This only proves why she would never win this election in the present social context of uncontrolled globalisation which is the root cause of where we are at this point.

This is the beauty of the system - when someone so entrenched in the vested interest of the Establishment - the system will be forced to regenerate itself because they will be voted out of the office and, someone else would have a chance to start anew.  Of course, they may not succeed where others have failed and they will also become corrupted in time before they are in trun being voted out again.

In short, Donald Trump as the new president is not itself a problem.  It is only symtomatic of the underlining problems of the system.  Trump was elected because the system is corrupted and people want to have a real change from the status quo.  Ironically, this proves that the system is working, as it is trying to regenerate itself.