Congratulations to President Donald Trump for winning the 47th U.S. Presidency. There is no question that it is a win by MAGA, the great slogan of making America great again. Trump's victory is a call by Americans (more blue-collar, conservative citizens and young men than elites) who recognize that America is in decline, the government is ineffective, the economy is going to be worse, and the current Administration has failed both in domestic issues as well as in foreign policies. The decline of US influence on the world stage may not have a direct impact on American citizens, still, the shrinking buying power due to higher inflation and bad trade policies does correlate with the U.S. economy. The poorly planned sanctions against China (Such as tariff, trade, export restrictions, and advance technology sanctions are backfiring and hurting Americans), ill-conceived foreign wars (such as the Ukraine war against Russia and Israel-Hamas conflict against Middle East peace), and unnecessary aggressive effort in creating a new Cold War by leading NATO to Asia and initiating new military alliances. All demonstrated a failed hegemony foreign policy dragging down U.S. prosperity.
MAGA is an inspiring slogan that helped Trump to win the 2016 (45th) U.S. Presidency. As a dark horse (not a member of the establishment), Trump surprised the establishment and won; he tried to act on his intelligence and instincts (along with his personality) to lead the country. He did some things right and some things wrong; he has learned a lot in his four years in the White House and revealed his 'apolitical' manners (words, gestures, and deeds). Trump narrowly lost his second-term bid to Biden because of that, as well as the impact of the COVID pandemic. Trump felt he deserved a second term and vowed to retake the presidency despite the media’s low ranking in opinion polls. Trump worked very hard for the past four years, first by convincing the Republican Party with his MAGA strategy and then by winning the grassroots of the party members spreading through the working class. Despite the lawsuits he faced, Trump demonstrated that he is a fighter, an intelligent fighter who never caved in to external pressures or political or judicial forces. So, Trump's victory represents a resonance with the Americans who look beyond Trump's faults, particularly his bad manners, and recognize his fighting spirit very much needed in the MAGA movement.
Trump won the electoral votes by 277+:226+, a healthy margin. He will have a strong republican Senate of 51+:43+ and a House of 191+:169+. At the time of writing of this article, Trump's campaign team is celebrating a victory party at Mar-A-Largo. House Speaker is flying to Florida to join the victory party. Although every presidential election is a historical event, Trump's win of the 47th U.S. Presidency can be said to be historical with a worldwide impact since the future of the world has been at a crossroads regarding how to face the rising China. Trump may have an opportunity to fulfill the early goals of MAGA as well as to lead the world into a better future. One of the most important international relations is the US-China relations. While the US election politics has created an atmosphere of blaming China for the U.S. problems, unfortunately, with a bi-partisan united stand, in reality, political elites around the world (including some well-known Americans) know very well that China's rise was peaceful, and its projected future path would also be peaceful if she was not threatened by any major foreign power, for example, UK, Russia, Japan, U.S. or India in the past. Therefore, Trump has an opportunity to correct a false anti-China strategy to lead the world with a win-win China policy, which can enhance MAGA and initiate a MAWGA (Make All World Great Again) future.
The title of this article covers three parts; the above addresses the MAGA victory. To many Americans, democrats and some republicans, even many international citizens, this election sends a message that democracy failed. Harris campaigned with a slogan, “Defend Democracy,” but she failed with the Democratic party and the full U.S. Administration behind her. In this article, the author emphasizes that the phrase “Democracy Failed” means a fundamental failure of the U.S. democratic system: its principles, processes, and primaries, after it has been practiced over two and half centuries. The principle of democracy should be 'majority rules,' the processes of democracy were supposed to be galvanizing opinions and forming consensus, and the primaries should be effective in educating the voters so they would and could make better judgments. This author has written previously about the need for a revamp of the election/voting system, which must adhere to the 'majority rules' principle, utilize technologies (including a smart voting phone for each eligible voter) to make sure that citizens are assisted (with technology) to make intelligent and informed votes and the entire voting population would engage in the voting process with multiple (almost unlimited within technology capability) primaries to gain knowledge, to galvanizing consensus opinions, and to cast an informed vote.
The current US democratic system cultivated under liberalism is fundamentally a divisive system over-protecting individual ideas and rights and diminishes the principle of majority rules (primaries and elections could not galvanize opinions, and votes did not make majority-ruled decisions). With today's technological advances, the entire democratic system can be revamped with the following changes: 1. Each voter is guaranteed to be given a government-certified and supplied voting (smart) phone with three APPs, one to conduct and participate in private and public polls and two to search officially registered campaign information and no-Ads media election-related news and three to participate in the multiple (educational and galvanizing) primaries and greater guaranteed majority-ruled election processes and results. 2. Each citizen is obligated to register and receive an intelligent voting phone. Legislation should be made to require each citizen to use the voting phone to vote so to allow big data processing (same as obligations to pay taxes). All elections are run with government funding. Candidates are qualified and filtered by election law and multiple primaries to guarantee capable candidates appear on the ballots.
The talks about violence and post-election unrest were intimidating in the recent presidential elections. Thank goodness, the outcome of the U.S. 2024 presidential election was peaceful, but we knew the deficiencies of our current system: The dependency on fund-raising and how money could influence elections, how ineffective current primaries are, and how media under the influence of private money are making unfair impacts on the election processes. The lack of a galvanizing process not only divides society but also encourages violence, such as assassinations. We do not get good candidates for each election, and we produce election results that do not always follow the majority rules principle. (a simple example is that we cannot get a high-speed railroad built for the majority's wishes, a devastating problem for upgrading the U.S. infrastructure.) As we are celebrating the successful election of the 47th US president, let's look forward to improving our election system by adhering to the election principles and improving our voting processes and primaries.