Principal

Regardless of your personal reaction to the result of yesterday’s US election, it is a moment for students to pause and zoom out to the wider view of the process. I like election days in Australia, they are for me the most tangible and immediate reminder that we live in a society where power transfers freely and without violence based on the will of the people as a whole. I was pleased to see this process in action again yesterday in the US as well. 

The US is the second most populous democracy in the world, after India, and yet is a relatively young one in its current form. This enormous and enormously important nation only coalesced into ‘these United States’ 250 years ago. Prior to that time it was a series of colonies ruled mostly as part of the expanding British Empire. It is remarkable to me that, from these roots, a system has grown where each person has a vote of equal weight, and that every four years over 160 million eligible voters have the opportunity to choose who will hold executive power over them and govern. Given all of the historical and possible alternative forms of rule, this is an extraordinarily good and unlikely system. 

Of course, its history is marred and complicated, but I think every election is an opportunity to marvel that a system like this even exists and to commit to the support and protection of democratic processes around the world.