With the inauguration of the 45th president of the United States this weekend, democracy has officially hit back!
The U.S. political landscape has always been a see-saw affair, with one party pulling one direction for a while until the other party swings back with a vengeance. It is in this give and take that we find our true democracy. No side of the political spectrum has ever or will ever monopolize the political discourse, and it’s probably a good thing.
Now, before you ask if democracy actually won in this election cycle because Clinton received more votes than Trump, let me dispel that right away. Democracy did win, because the United States is a state-by-state democracy. Democracy won in enough states to secure the victory for Trump. If you say it doesn’t seem fair, I would take you back to the 1960 World Series when the New York Yankees trounced the Pirates 56-27 over a seven game series. However, the Pirates won the series 4-3 by winning four games. The overall score is meaningless in American politics. It’s the way the founding fathers wanted it, and it’s a pretty clever system to distribute power throughout the county so everyone has a say.
Now that that is settled, let’s get back to the victory for democracy. Eight years of Obama leading the nation to the left will be followed by Trump leading us somewhere else. We will have to see where that is because no one knows for sure.
Obama’s election was a shift to the left from eight years of GW Bush. Bush was a shift right (in some respects) from 8 years of Clinton (who was fairly centrist in many respects). Clinton’s victory in 1992 was a shift left from the Reagan and Bush years of 1981-1993.
If you go back further in time, Harding, then Coolidge, righted the ship in the 1920s after Woodrow Wilson’s grand overtures overseas. That was followed up by Franklin Roosevelt’s election in 1932 which dramatically shifted the country left as the country sought relief from the crippling depression.
When a democracy shifts suddenly, it’s working. That means everyone has a seat at the table and everyone’s voice is being heard. Is it a slip-shod way to run a government? Sure is, but it’s much more preferable to an authoritarian alternative.
When you welcome Trump into the White House, whether you like him personally or not, you are welcoming a properly functioning democracy.
And that’s a very good thing.
