Analytical program "However" with Mikhail Leontiev
We have become accustomed that the next president of the United States will be Donald Trump. 8 on November elections took place at which Trump won. But formally the US president is elected by an electoral college. And this act will take place tomorrow. Theoretically, they can elect Clinton.
The unsubstantiated delirium that Obama carried during his farewell press conference is apparently the last attempt to put pressure on the electors, who on Monday have to vote, formally, for the elected candidate. The probability of an unexpected result is extremely small, but the process itself is interesting.
However, hello!
The US Electoral College is a two-stage presidential and vice presidential election system, approved by the Convention in September 1787. Electors from each state must vote as a bloc for the candidate who won in that state, and naturally, all belong to the party that won this state. To do so is bound by political tradition, not law. There is no federal regulation on this subject. In 24 states, “apostates,” as the rebellious electors are called, are punishable by law, which has never been used.
There are no such laws in 21 State. Only in two - the voices of the “apostates” are annulled. For all history The US has 129 "renegades", of which 71 "retired" from dead candidates. There is a single case of solidarity “apostasy” - in 1836, the Vergina delegation voted against the victorious Vice President - Democrat Richard Manthor Johnson, who openly admitted his connection with his own slave Julia. It's funny that the current agitators against Trump appeal to this very precedent, hinting at Trump’s dubious moral character, who was accused of allegedly pestering women.
From the film Gone With the Wind:
“You were kicked out of West Point, Mr. Butler. Not accepted in any decent Charleston family, even in their own ”.
The current campaign of handling Republican electors is unprecedented. Campaigns and fundraising organizations have been created, bombarding the electors with tens of thousands of emails. While one Republican elector from Texas, Chris Suprun openly refused to vote for Trump. The Politico publication refers to Harvard Professor Lesig, who claims that 20 Republican electors can “step back” from Trump.
Once again: there is practically no chance of demolishing Trump through an electoral rebellion. But the current political confrontation, which clearly does not end with election day, threatens to undermine the political system of America, which, perhaps, has never been so strongly polarized since the days of the Civil War. America is a divided nation!
They usually refer to the existing division of the "blue" and "red" states, which traditionally vote for Democrats and Republicans, respectively. Everything is much more serious, according to Colin Woodard, whose sensational work was quoted by the Washington Post back in 2013.
“The United States,” the Washington Post quotes, “are divided into separate nation states with their dominant cultures explaining electoral and behavioral preferences and characteristic value systems.”
As Woodard writes, the 11 borders of American nations are reflected on a variety of maps, including maps showing the distribution of linguistic dialects, cultural artifacts, the prevalence of various religious denominations, and even maps — broken down by how districts voted during all of the tense presidential elections in American history.
For example: "New Holland" - New York, in the first place. Since its inception, it has been the center of global trade and, historically, the region, which has hosted most of the countries pursued in other countries. "Yankid" founded by the Puritans. These are the Northeastern States and the industrial Midwest, where residents are prone to government regulation and value the public good. Midlands, the so-called Rusty Belt — from Quaker territory to the west through Iowa — is pluralistic and focused on the values of the middle class.
Here, government intervention is discouraged, and ethnic purity is of little value. "Deep South" - Dixie - the common name of the southern states. Still retains its roots in the caste system established by slave owners. They appreciate the rights of the states and are struggling with the intervention of the federal authorities. The Great Appallachi: from West Virginia to north Texas. Descendants of Irish, English, Scottish settlers. They value personal freedom; aristocrats from the south and Yankee intellectuals are treated with contempt. The “New France” around New Orleans is one of the most tolerant in the whole continent. Unusually tolerant of all racial, sexual, and other minorities, and supportive of government regulation.
“Conclusion - there has never been America, but there have always been several Americas. And today their 11! ”- notes Woodard.
11 states are not much easier than 15 of the Soviet republics. Five years before their collapse, few could have thought of such an outcome.
One of the founding fathers of America, Alexander Hamilton, justifying the advantages of the current electoral system, wrote: “It is especially desirable to minimize opportunities for violence and unrest. This evil is by no means the last one to be wary of when electing an official to play such an important role in government as the president of the United States. The choice of several to create an intermediate electoral college will shake a much smaller community with unusual or violent convulsions than the choice of one, which itself will be the object of public desires. ”
It is especially funny that the current initiative, inclining electors to "unusual and violent convulsions" call themselves the "Hamilton group". Recall, if someone forgot that the tumult of Soviet perestroika, also began with calls for a return to the ideas of the founding father and the true ideals of socialism.
Trump's unexpected, antisystemic victory is, in fact, a salvation for the American political system. Clinton's victory, continuing the analogy, would mean the arrival of Chernenko. That is a complete failure of the system from any response to external calls.
But the mission that Trump has signed up for is fraught with enormous risks. If, even before the start of his presidency, his opponents show readiness for very "unusual and violent convulsions."
Information