T42D: US Election
Rodders gets political …
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After all the hype, television debate and mud-slinging the American people will finally go to the polls this week and chose their president.
Orson Welles said, “Popularity should be no scale for the election of politicians. If it would depend on popularity, Donald Duck and The Muppets would take seats in the Senate”.
According to many British pundits, the American people had the choice between a rock and a hard place in the 2016 election and it seems again this year that views are deeply divided.
In an article, written by Henry Deedes in the Mail on Saturday,[31 October 2020] he writes, “Now, three days ahead of one of the most bitterly fought elections in America’s history, the political reality could not be more different. And so as polling day approaches, Americans have a stark choice. A Joe Biden presidency is hardly a prospect to savour”.
Considering it is the world’s most important political job, you could be forgiven for thinking the American presidential election has at times descended into farce.
It is also the moment for the electorate to reflect on the events of the last four years, with the significance of the choice between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, and considering what could be in store for the US in the next four years.
A record surge of coronavirus cases in the United States pushed hospitals closer to the brink of capacity just four days before the election. Plus, the United States documented its 9 millionth case to date on 30 October, of the coronavirus, representing nearly 3 per cent of the population, with almost 229,000 dead since the outbreak of the pandemic early this year, according to a Reuters tally of publicly reported data.
Due to the electoral system, each state is allocated a number of electoral college votes. So while in 2016 Hillary Clinton won the overall vote, with 65,853,625 it was Donald Trump who was elected to the White House, who had only 62,985,106 votes. In effect, this means a handful of swing states will hold the balance of power.
Because of the way the American voting system works, even if there is a clear victor, they could still lose in the Electoral College — just like Hillary Clinton did in 2016. When Americans go to the polls they are voting for the Electoral College in that state. The job of the group of people elected is to choose the President and Vice President. There are 538 electors in total and for Biden or Trump to become president they need to win 270 or more votes.
I came across this quote, “Every two years the American politics industry fills the airwaves with the most virulent, scurrilous, wall-to-wall character assassination of nearly every political practitioner in the country — and then declares itself puzzled that America has lost trust in its politicians!”
I came across this amusing quote by Adlai Stevenson, [5 February 1900–14 July 1965] who was an American lawyer, politician, and diplomat. “I offer my opponents a bargain: if they will stop telling lies about us, I will stop telling the truth about them”.
In Britain, we get to vote not for the person but usually for the party.
However, despite our own political leaning we too have a choice to make.
However, this choice will affect our eternal destiny and so it is vitally important we make the right decision.
If we decide to live our life without God, like Frank Sinatra sang, “I‘ll did it my way” then as the Bible puts it, “There is a way that seems right to a man but its end is death” [Proverbs 14v12].
In the last chapter of Joshua, we read that he called all the people together and issued a challenge to them. “But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” [Joshua 24 verse 15].
The Children of Israel had a choice to make, in fact, one that would have eternal ramifications.
So who are you going to vote for?
The Bible again puts it this way, ‘Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.’ [John 3v36] The dictionary definition of ‘believes’ is ‘to take as true, real etc.’, ‘to have confidence in a statement or promise of another person’, ‘to have confidence or trust in’.
So the Thought for Today is we can make that choice today and change and join the ‘Jesus Party’, by simply acknowledging our wrong doing and accepting Jesus as our own personal saviour.
Don’t put it off because “now is the accepted time behold now is the day of salvation”. [2 Corinthians 6v2]
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Rodders
