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| Pic courtesy EF.com |
I'm surprised, gentle reader, at the outrage generated by the speech given to the United Nations by the incumbent POTUS.
We share democratic values with the Americans, but we certainly don't share democracy. About a third of them don't vote, and those that do are often pretty ignorant of anything beyond their district.
Nothing expressed on that occasion at the UN should come as a surprise to anyone who understands the USA. It's revealing to look at a few statistics gathered recently about American culture. They explain the bizarre platform that drives what currently masquerades as the GOP.
Gallup Polling indicates that 67% of Americans identify as Christian. Of those, 33% are Protestant. Of those calling themselves Christian, the Pew Centre found in 2021 that within Protestantism, evangelicals continue to outnumber those who are not evangelical.
Currently, 60% of protestants say "yes" when asked whether they think of themselves as a "born again" or evangelical Christian, whilst 40% say "no" or decline to answer the question.
Now Evangelicals hold pretty rigidly to some core concepts. They include a belief in divine healing, and by a wide margin, evangelical leaders surveyed reject the idea that human beings and other living things have evolved over time due to solely to natural processes.
As recently as 2005, the issue of the teaching of Creationism in public schools was before the courts in Louisiana. It was declared unconstitutional, but recent surveys show that between 12 and 18% of high school biology teachers teach it as a valid scientific alternative, or give mixed messages by endorsing both Creationism and Evolution.
In other words, a fair slice of US voters, particularly in the South, have been taught anti-scientific theory at school.
So Americans are prone to accept a range of simply preposterous notions because they basically know no better. Twenty-three percent of Americans have never left their shores, and as a consequence have little understanding of foreign cultures or value systems.
There are other more pragmatic reasons for the dissemination of the opinions expressed by the POTUS. They include the necessity to gain and hold attention, the capacity to pick up on prevailing social anxiety, and a mercantilist view of the world.
All of these factors coalesced on September 23rd. They revealed the gulf between the values held by mainstream Australia, and those who elected the 47th President.
Such an individual would never be elected in this country, due to the strength and stability of our democracy. We have, in this country, the blessed trinity which underpins it.
This blessed trinity includes first of all, compulsory voting, introduced in 1924, obliging governments to deliver ballots into every citizen's hands. which ensures complete civic participation, legitimacy, and majority consensus.
Then there is preferential voting (1918) which eliminated vote-splitting, ensured representative majoritarian electoral outcomes, responded to popular preferences, and encouraged policy dialogue amongst both niche and broad political interests.
The institutional element of this trinity is the Australian Electoral Commission (1984), which professionalised and depoliticised electoral management, provided impartial electoral management, and maintains voter rolls and facilitates fair redistributions.
None of this should be taken for granted. If ever it is, we would deserve the dysfunction and chaos we observe across the Pacific.
