USA Elections

The ongoing election for a (new?) USA president is intriguing though the quality of the two candidates is in my view rather poor.

Intriguing because the count of votes appears to be continuing on and on and no doubt will be further exacerbated by  court actions over there. 

Quite why the two candidates are so poor is unclear. Donald Trump is a user of  twitter and the like which in my humble opinion is not the principal way in which a state leader should communicate with his or her country's people. Furthermore his on-line communications appear to have degenerated to such an extent that those providers have apparently had to censor or even close down some of his mutterings. I doubt that such would apply, so far at least, in the UK.

Joe Biden on the other hand is like myself  Roman Catholic, yet unlike yours truly favours abortion. He is also full of praise for Ireland even to the extent of virtually stating that there will be no trade deal between the UK and USA if he considers the UK to be in breach of the  Good Friday agreement. If there is a breach of such agreement and if Jo Biden is elected, his words make clear that the USA will not be the apt country to assist in mending UK/Irish fences on such occasion which would in my view, be unfortunate. I will consult further on this with mrs maytrees, who is from Dublin

More generally,  the USA election is convincing me that parliamentary democracy, is rather superior than presidential democracy. Yes the UK needs to abolish or substantially alter,  its House of Lords but the House of Commons, despite its many flaws is still a more democratic way of calling the government including the Prime Minister to account than the USA system. The Magna Carta accepted by the King  John of England in 1215, provides a good bedrock for the British system

Likewise the method of appointments of judges to the American Supreme Court being so political, seems rather inferior to the  stringent rules applicable to the appointments of judges to the UK supreme court which on their face at least, are not political.

Quite why the USA presidential candidates seem so poor this time is difficult to fathom. Presidential elections themselves can be very positive as in France with President Macron and Germany with Chancellor Angela Merkel. On the other hand President  Ursula von der Leyen the European Commission's President was not elected by the people at all nor was Charles Michel the President of the European Council. Had there been  EU elections even USA style, perhaps the UK would not have left the EU. 

Reverting to the USA, hopefully the success of Joe Biden will cause him to become more measured and statesmanlike than his predecessor.

One positive outcome of a Joe Biden success is that his running mate Kamal Harris is likely to be vice president. A black woman of Indian-American descent may even  become president quite soon, given that Joe Biden will be 77 years old later this month which is older than even I. The USA should have a good female president - the UK after all  has already had two women prime ministers and India's Indira Ghandi was Prime Minister there some years ago.