(NewsNation) There have been incessant negative political ads this campaign season. At the end of the worst, most negative, hateful, least productive election cycle in history, it’s easy to lament just how dysfunctional we are.
To quote Winston Churchill, “Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
I’ll take it one step further: The American form of democracy, a representative republic with three co-equal branches and no aristocracy or monarch, might be even better.
For as dysfunctional as we are, at least we aren’t Israel. They just had their fifth national election in four years. Can you imagine going through that?
Benjamin Netanyahu just wouldn’t quit, and after five elections in four years, he’s likely to be prime minister once again, his third time in office.
- Benjamin Netanyahu: Nov. 2022 -???
- Yesh Atid: July 2022- Nov. 2022 (5 months)
- Naftali Bennett: June 2021- June 2022 (12 months)
- Benjamin Netanyahu: May 2020- June 2021
- Benjamin Netanyahu: April 2019- May 2020
But think about the elections in April 2019, September 2019, March 2020, March 2021 and now November. The Israelis tried to elect a Parliament that could then form a government. No dice.
The Israelis have more than a dozen political parties. Nobody ever wins a majority, so the parties trade political favors and patronage in a way which could teach people like former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich or former Vice President Spiro Agnew a lesson about how to do corruption right. It’s filthy and a mess.
In fact, Netanyahu winning allows him to effectively end his own criminal corruption trial. He’s charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust.
He follows Ehud Olmert, the former prime minister of Israel and mayor of Jerusalem who served 18 months in prison on bribery charges.
Things got so dysfunctional earlier this year, at one point Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid formed a government. It would be the equivalent of a co-presidency between Ted Cruz and Elizabeth Warren …
that, predictably, failed.
It’s sufficient to say, the American system is far, far better than the Israeli one.
Next up for submission, the United Kingdom system.
For a long time, they had the queen, now a king.
But just in the past few months they went through Boris Johnson, then Liz Truss and now Rishi Sunak as prime minister. At least watching Parliament is a little more exciting than speeches in the U.S. Congress.
To be fair, the Brits made their system only slightly more functional a few years ago. But they still have coalitions, no-confidence votes and then snap elections about dissolving Parliament.
We think government shutdowns are annoying, and futile congressional hearings bad, but it could be a lot worse.
Back to King Charles. I can’t get used to writing that. … He can technically order elections at the request of the prime minister.
Can you imagine that in the United States? We know Charles loves green energy projects, imagine that: “Pass my green energy agenda or I will dissolve you.”
With no disrespect to Mr. Churchill, we’ll take it a step further: American democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
The views expressed in this article are those of the author, and not of NewsNation.