The American Presidential Election

The American Presidential Election is right around the corner. In this blogpost I will try as a Dane tounderstand this election.Now, I know that the US has a Constitution, which purpose it is to specify the powers and duties of the government. To make these powers and duties more obvious, the Constitution defines 3 separate branches of government – the Congress acts as the legislative branch, the Presidency as the executive branch and the Supreme Court as the judicial branch. Each of these branches act as a check upon the other two to ensure the system can maintain its balance.
The Congress consists of two chambers – the House of Representatives and the Senate. No one elected to either chamber can be appointed to any other government job at the same time.There are 435 representatives in the House. Every state has at least one congressman, but otherwise the distribution of seats is based strictly upon population. Therefore, the state of California will have more representatives in the House than the state of Wyoming. The representatives are elected for a two-year term. Each member of the House comes from a district within a state, where he must seek re-election every two years, as previously mentioned. There are no legal limits to re-election of representatives. Representatives are the most immediate link between the local and federal government and people often turn to them for help.The Senate is more evenly divided with 2 congressmen from each state – making it an even 100 senators in the Senate. These senators are elected for a six-year term. Presidents, however, are limited to two terms of four years.Americans vote in three different sets of elections – local, state and federal. Voter turnout is very low compared to Denmark, for instance. A combination of factors seems to explain this. In order to vote, Americans must register in a central office in order to be on the list of eligible voters. The “winner-take-all” system of elections means that when opinion polls predict a clear winner, many feel it does not matter whether they vote or not. Americans are also not required to vote. Some may feel that by refusing to vote they demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the candidates and partiesNow, I know quite a lot more from social studies, but my intention is not to bore you –as I probably already have. More so I want to tell you a bit about a lecturer we recently had come visit my school. The lecturer, Niels Bjerre-Poulsen, is a specialist in American politics and very involved in this and former presidential elections. He is a great lecturer and I learned quite a bit from him. To understand a political system like the American, when you are used to the Danish system, is quite a challenge, but Niels Bjerre-Poulsen managed to explain it amazingly well. I have a greater understanding of American politics after his lecture and I thank him for it.Now, that I can say I am a small specialist in American politics and elections (this is a joke), my “job” would be to announce which one of the candidates I would vote for if I was an American citizen. And here I must declare that I simply do not know. Donald Trump is far too extreme for me, but he still has some valid points and the same goes for Hillary Clinton, though she is not extreme. On some points I agree with Clinton, on others with Trump. I would say that my vote for president would also depend on where I lived, what I would do for a living and my values. If, for instance, I was a factory worker and had lost my job, because the company had moved the production work to another country, I would vote for Trump. Some may say that Clinton is more human than Trump and I would agree to a certain extent. In the end it all depends on one’s individual values. To foresee which candidate will win is next to impossible because of this. So only time will tell.