I still can't believe that someone with a functioning brain stem could think that China's system of selecting a leader by a small number of select people behind closed doors has as much legitimacy as ours where the outcome could have been swayed by even a small shift in popular numbers of 120 million people voting.
The Chinese rulers can hardly believe their system looks better to the world:
There’s another thing about the U.S. election that cannot have been comforting to Beijing: the contrast between the U.S. political system, which by all outward appearances rough and unpredictable yet deeply stable over hundreds of years, and China’s, which is ostensibly stable, but still young and currently rocked by scandal, dissension and slowly increasing public dissatisfaction.
Can you imagine crowds of people around the world sporting "I Secretly Selected" stickers on their cheeks?
AP photo from the linked article.
This is a soft power advantage for us. As much as I may resent this opinion for a president I do not respect, it is real. I hope he can use that opinion for our advantage.
Granted, the popularity abroad of President Obama's reelection is a two-edged sword. If President Obama can use his popularity abroad to rally support for our actions, that's a good thing.
But if our president refuses to act in our national interests in order to maintain that overseas popularity, he is simply handcuffing us.
Please reassure me that the man who prepared the "global test" won't become our next Secretary of State in the second Obama administration.
