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The United States is far different from Germany, each state acts internally like a separate country in many ways, and we have a House & Senate to ensure the less populous states do not get drown out by the larger states. The electoral college was envisioned the same way, the founding fathers didn't want the uneducated masses electing the president directly, so they set up this arcane system where the governor of each state gets to appoint a certain number of electoral college voters, then they vote for president. They can generally vote how they please, to the point that a few have misspelled candidates names and not been counted as having voted for any candidate. What this system ends up creating is an area where in many states, your individual vote literally does not matter since a vote in California is worth nearly nothing compared to a vote in Florida or Michigan. Also, the US media loves to dogpile on this and erroneously call states and guess at electoral college votes months ahead of when they'll vote. Comparatively, where the United States has set up democracies we do not do this, such as Iraq. As to change, that is not going to happen short of people going out and taking action to fight for the future. Us americans are very depoliticized and non-participatory in our political parties, both major parties essentially lay dormant till national elections come around. We need to get out in the streets and fight for the future we want to see, Martin Luther King didn't sit back at home and wait for a better America, nor did the readers of Silent Spring. Change in America can be had, but it takes activism, which most Americans think of as a dirty, unfamiliar thing with serious risks (due to how our media portrays it). We need to mobilize & empower Americans to fight for a better future. |