[vrganj]

So is the US president (Electoral College), the UK PM (Parliament) etc etc, yet you never hear complaints here from the same types.

Their opposition is ideological, democracy is just an excuse because their true views would be too unsavory to say out loud.

[sampo]

> So is the US president (Electoral College)

It has never happened, but if there once would be enough faithless electors to swing the election (choosing a different president than what people voted for) it would be a huge scandal and it would be widely condemned as undemocratic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector

[mdp2021]

(Did this not happen in 2016? I understood the absolute aggregate count in the popular vote and the majority of the electoral college differed.)

[sampo]

I mean, if the electoral college would have enough faithless electors to swing the result away from the president whom the majority of the electors had pledged to vote for.

There has been so far 5 elections where the electoral vote chose a different president than what the popular vote count would have chosen. But this is a different thing than what I was talking about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presiden...

[jandrewrogers]

In the US the President explicitly does not represent the people. It is the President of the States and only the States vote for President. Until the 20th century people weren't even involved in selecting who their State voted for.

Many people are confused by the fact that only States can vote for President. The most a person's vote can do is provide input into their State's votes for President.

[inigyou]

And the EU Council represents the governments.

[mattrighetti]

The criticism is about accountability, not whether the system is democratic.

The UK pm and the POTUS are both ultimately accountable through elections. In the UK, a general election can change the government. In the US, people vote specifically for presidential electors, even if it’s through the Electoral College.

The EU commission is different. People don’t vote for commissioners or the president, and they can’t vote them out in the same direct way.

[8note]

Im having a hard time following what is making the US presidental system different from the EU commission?

the US president is appointed by politicians who are elected, and the only accountability mechanism for president is impeachment, which is again, indirect via elected politicians.

[munksbeer]

The EU Commission does the bidding of the elected EU Council. The Commission is sort of a civil service.

[briandear]

100%. This is why many of us have a problem with the EU. And world governments in general — the more power they have and the further away from the elections that keep them accountable, the more tyrannical they become.

[surgical_fire]

Again, it is the member states governments pushing for the thing you are calling "tyrannical". It is the EU parliament constantly blocking it.

If anything, the EU is curtailing the undemocratic tendencies of member states.