The reason Americans are so deeply interested in the presidential election is that their political system works far better than any other in the world. It is a nearly perfect union of 50 states with limited sovereignty whereas all the nation-states of the world with full sovereignty work imperfectly and some so badly they are near collapse. Americans want the right president for their system because he is the only official in the whole system who exercises individually sovereign powers. He is not at all like a leader however of a nation-state because he by no means exercises all sovereign powers. He has full power only over the military and diplomacy and he can exercise these powers only in relation to foreign states, never in relation to American states. His only other great power, his right to veto legislation sent to him from Congress, is limited because Congress can vote to override his veto. So the real issue of the presidential election for Americans is who is most qualified individually to keep the system in good order. For foreigners in nation-states it is generally impossible to understand our political system. Foreigners are used to one leader in one state embodying all sovereign power. Some Americans who understand neither their own political system nor American history believe erroneously as do most foreigners that they are voting for the leader of a state. Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton cannot become the leader of a state because the American Constitution does not set up the Federal Government in Washington in the District of Columbia as a state and it is not located in any state. American history is very complicated and very difficult to understand. It alone can explain how a government in Washington that is not a state and not located in any state and possesses no national territory can nonetheless own territories, buildings and military bases within American states and also own military bases in many national states all over the globe, military bases that the American president controls with full power. But American history is perhaps too difficult for anyone to understand. The typical American voter doesn’t care about it. He wants only that his grand and nearly perfect political system continue working for him with the right president fixed in one corner exercising bits of a sovereignty spread out in portions to other corners of Washington’s government and to corners throughout 50 state governments.
Daniel McNeill
Click on this url for a display of Daniel McNeill’s books:www.amazon.com/author/graceisall
Click on this url for the website of The United States of the World: www.usoftheworld.com
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