A Canadian Look at American Politics

James K.A. Smith presents a look at American politics from a Canadian perspective:

Take, for instance, the shape of federal politics: an American presidential campaign is basically 2 years long. In short, an elected president is just barely halfway through his term before he needs to begin campaigning for re-election, kicking into gear a massive PR machine that will run for two years, eating up unbelievable amounts of time and money. In contrast, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper just announced that Canada will have a federal election this fall–October 14, as a matter of fact. While the American press is focused on the “60-day homestretch” of the years-long American presidential campaign, the Canadian federal election will be announced, contested, and resolved in 38 days–total! And, of course, as a parliamentary system, the election is not so completely fixated on the election of a chief executive. In fact, Canadians can’t select who will be Prime Minister; instead, they vote for members of parliament whose party they believe will best lead the country. (In fact, if the party leader–say, Harper–fails to win the seat in his riding, he can’t be prime minister.) (Permalink)

I think this points to the idiocracy of American politics. We must remember that we were the first version of the democratic republic, and that we should be humble enough to admit that the system has begun to burst at the seams and show it’s holes. We can’t put new wine in old wineskins anymore. Time for a change. Or for all of us to move to Canada.