Displaying items by tag: elections

The "crucial" Upper Hunter by-election has come and gone.  There are myths, and there is the reality.  A Gladys miracle?  Not really.  There are deeper stories here.  A version of this article appeared at The Spectator Australia's Flat White.

The story of the US election can be told as a tale of four cities.  As Dickens might have put it, it may just be the worst of times.

The United States of America are broken.  We knew that.  But are they corrupt as well?  There are many questions about this election that need some answers.  Americans this week should be wearing black.

The case for Kings has long been voted out. The problem with Democracy is that all votes are equal, so the vote of the King was (is) worth the same as that of the average taxpayer. And the half-wit who does not know her/his own gender, the mentally deficient dole bludger who holidays in Bali on the taxpayer benefits he gets fortnightly, and the Muslim fellow down the road who wants all Infidels to do as Allah said 1400 years ago, or else: and his four wives, who will all vote as he tells them or get a beating. He and they are all on benefits too. The taxpayer weeps. The King too. Then we have the election process. The pre-selection of toadies: branch stacking; gerrymandering. The average punter has little effect on who is being voted for. And 'the system'. Designed by clods in order to conflate. More weeping and gnashing of teeth have been heard from America in the past few weeks, such that normal conversation in the Tavern has been all but drowned out. The Land of the Free has never been known for clean elections. They have barely moved on from the  Rotten Boroughs that blighted Britain.

On November 6 America had its mid-term elections, As the name implies, it comes between the presidential election cycle (in this case, between 2016 and 2020). This year all 435 seats in the House of Representatives were up for grabs, 33 of the 50 Senate seats, and 36 of the 50 governorships. Republicans held sway everywhere before the election: a Republican President plus a Republican-controlled House and Senate, and a majority of state governors. While we do not have the final numbers yet, it appears that the Republicans have kept three of the four, with the Democrats winning back the House.

[With the Tasmanian elections to be held in just over a week, voters are doing their due diligence in order to make a moral choice at the polls. That task is quite difficult, given that abortion is part of the platform of two major parties, and permanently pencilled-in by the third.