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by Beltalowda 1406 days ago
I am somewhat optimistic about the UK situation; in the end, Boris was at least held accountable, and by his own party. It was too late, and he got away with far too much in my opinion, but in the end a line was drawn and was told to bugger off. Incidents with "colourful" PMs are not unheard off, e.g. Churchill was widely criticised for various antics which are not all that dissimilar to Boris' antics. This of course ended up being overshadowed by his status as the war PM.

In the US the situation is quite a bit more dire, and roots of the current situation are also quite a bit deeper and go back longer beyond just "this asshole got elected to office".
1 comments
blibble 1406 days ago
it's all from the property of parliamentary systems that the leader can be removed easily

presidental systems are really quite awful in practice

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Beltalowda 1406 days ago
I actually think that's a comparatively minor detail, and not all that important here. The biggest issue that has often been discussed is the first past the post constituencies/districts/states both systems share. Neither Trump nor Boris would have become President or PM without that, simply on account of voters having more options to cast a meaningful vote for (UK also does a little bit better than the US in this regard).
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blibble 1406 days ago
it's the important detail

in the UK the electorate don't pick the leader

the electorate vote for an MP, and the group of those that form the party alone select the leader (and they can dismiss them just as easily)

the party has power over the leader, which is absolutely not true in most presidential systems

(and as to your second point, yes, under some hypothetical system that doesn't exist it's possible things may be different)

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