Carl Johnson
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I am an American who has lived and worked in Mainland China since 2011.1y
If the PR China government is so confident that the people support it, why don’t they allow regular free and fair elections to confirm this and legitimize their rule?
I am a 57 year old native born American. I served in the military. I have traveled to many countries. I currently live in China.

A few years ago I had an epiphany, a realization. What makes us, the people, think that we are qualified to elect the people that will solve our problems and lead our country? Think carefully about this.

Do you know enough about international economics to know when a candidate is proposing a good plan?

Do you understand the financial markets well enough to know when a proposal makes sense and what the consequences of policies will be?

Do you understand social engineering, law, domestic production, international trade, tax policies and their impacts etc etc etc.

If you are anything like me, you have very little understanding of the topics that are involved with running a country. Exacerbating this problem is that you are likely a person who has very little time to really research a candidates platform to truly
understand if it makes sense, because you have a job, social life, kids, and problems of your own that take up most of your time and energy. I wont even go into the fact that we have a horrible press that can’t provide us with good information.

What makes a democracy (or a republic) work, is a well educated and a well informed people. Since the majority of us are neither, I would argue that we are not well equipped to decide who is capable of fulfilling our goals and objectives. Since we don’
t have time or the knowledge to decide on who is the best person to lead we rely on the pretty words and promises that political candidates offer. We rely on how someone speaks or how they look. And that leads to choosing poorly.

I think it explains why we have had more TV personalities, and actors in politics and why our congress has a consistently low, ~20% approval rating over the past 30 years. We, as a population, are really really bad at choosing leaders. (As a side note,
when a voter lacks the ability to know when someone is putting forth a plan that is good for the country they will default to choosing the person who puts forth a plan that will personally benefit them, that is why we vote for people that will lower our
taxes, give a check etc etc)

If your loved one had a serious medical problem, and you were looking for a doctor for them to save their life, you would do some pretty specific things. You would probably read up on the condition your loved one has, you would find out the doctors
background, where did he go to school, where did he practice, and most importantly you would find out how many people with similar cases he treated and how many he successfully cured. You might then ask how he would go about treating the patient Then you
would compare those doctors and choose, right?

What you probably would not do is choose the doctor who just says nice things and is charismatic because it actually matters to you that he knows what he is doing and has a proven track record. Also you would not try a choose the guy based on how you
think the treatment should be done. In other words, you have a problem, you have a goal so you want someone with experience AND a track record of achieving that goal.

What do we as voters do, we choose people with little or no relevant experience, no track record, or worse, a track record of disappointing us. We choose poorly but it is OK because in 4 years we will vote again, and do it poorly.

As a nation we are not happy with the results, it does not work. In my experience, most of the Chinese dont care about voting, they care about their goals being known and being achieved. So long as that is happening, and so far it is, they don’t think
they are better at choosing leaders than the the current system. The current system is, in a nutshell, a group of well educated, experienced people with a track record of achieving goals for the people, who choose who will lead. By and large, it seems to
be working. Will it last? Who knows, time will tell. But for now it is working for the people.

So the danger in the premise of this question is that they could end up with a candidate party that promises the people unrealistic things, giving them some money and the promise of a much much better life with no realistic plan to achieve it, people
being people will vote for their own, short term self interest and elect a party that will destroy the country to the long term detriment of the people. Think about it, is this what is happening in America now???? You really have to think hard about this.

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