Every time Labour loses a general election, they attack the electorate for being brainwashed by Rupert Murdoch, conveniently forgetting that Murdoch newspapers supported Labour for twelve years. Oh, but that was when Tony Blair was leader. So it does not count, apparently. I am sure that is how it works. Labour believes that abusing people who vote for other parties will somehow win them votes. That way Leninism lies.
But recently, there has been a new twist to the narrative of leftist sore losers. The Left have lost so many elections in the 783 days between the Scottish independence referendum and the US presidential election that they accuse democracy itself of being broken. It isn’t. People are just disagreeing with a leftist opinion at the ballot box. So the Left are propagating some myths about the election reverses they have experienced. Yesterday’s blog covered the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, the 2015 UK General Election and the EU referendum. But there’s more to bring us right up to date.
Scotland did not vote to Leave the EU – there must be a second independence referendum/independence/a special EU deal for Scotland
It is true Scotland did not vote to leave the EU. The United Kingdom did. The referendum was a binary vote covering the entire United Kingdom. The counting and results were declared locally, and this is where the confusion lies. It is the UK that acceded to the Treaty of Rome. It is the UK that will renounce the Treaty of Lisbon. Nicola Sturgeon tried to curry favour with some EU leaders for special consideration for Scotland in a mission to Europe. But she is not a head of a government recognised under European treaties with the same standing as Mrs May. It was not a success.
This an example of the SNP using any kind of excuse to advance their cause. Had it not been this, there would have been another. Lift the needle off that cracked record. Move on.
It is a debasement of democracy to keep holding votes. The EU are adept at plaguing people with referenda until they get the result they wanted. But then Europeans do not do democracy as well as we do here. It was Britain that used its blood and treasure to give democracy back to Europeans when they could not recover it themselves. We use national referenda here sparingly and should continue to do so. If people are plagued by requests to vote, they may eventually vote in a person who promises to abolish voting.
Hillary won the popular vote
This is irrelevant. The American people have had 227 years to alter Article II of its Constitution to reflect the popular vote nationwide as a factor in determining the outcome of a presidential election. Article II has been amended on numerous occasions, but it is very clear. American voters elect members of an Electoral College. It is these College members that cast the vote for President. The majority of College members voted for Trump.
This means that every state has to be contested instead of the entire country as a single constituency. If there was just a popular vote, this would mean that a party would only have to please only a portion of the country where 51 per cent of the votes were concentrated and could ignore the rest. The current system means that a majority in every state has to approve or reject the President. A popular vote could mean that, in this case, the Democrats could continually shower largesse on the East- and West-coast states safe in the knowledge that they could neglect the middle ‘flyover’ states forever and always win. That would be divisive. Now, the Democrats will have to chase votes in every state and alter their policies to do so to please the voters. And have a better candidate than Hillary Clinton.
It is ironic that people who voted for a person who would swear to uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States object to the portion of that upholded and protected Constitution that details how that person gets into that position. Constitutionally, Donald won and Hillary lost, fair and square. If they have a problem with that, Demoaners should take it up with Congress to amend the Constitution instead of polluting the media and marching in silly hats on Washington.
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“No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time”
These words were spoken by Churchill in Parliament twenty-six months after his leadership restored freedom to Western Europe.
Democracy ensures freedom. The current results offend the sensibilities of a liberal elite. It forces them to accept that there are people who disagree with them whose opinions actually count for more than theirs. But it is a characteristic of liberal elites that they refuse to accept opinions contrary to theirs as other than crimethink.
This is not a reason say democracy is ‘broken’. People do not like these liberal elites, their closed opinions and objectionable behaviour, and have voted accordingly. These liberal elites should get used to not being liked or change their act. Moaning just makes them look silly.