The documentary struck me as a commentary on both politics and culture. Starting with the culture, I was shocked by the interactions between the parents and children. Coincidentally, I watch a YouTuber from South Africa who has lived in China for several years, and his assertions (that due to the one child policy, children, especially urban children, are extremely spoiled) echoed in my mind. It was unbelievable to me the way Cheng Cheng literally pushed his mother out of the room, it blew my mind! This led me to think that these children made for the perfect stereotyped politicians—dirty and only in it for themselves. It was the contrast between Cheng Cheng and Luo Lei that spoke most to me (for some reason, I didn’t get much of a vibe from Xiaofei in a political sense). In my earlier Machiavellian phase I would have predicted Cheng Cheng to be the winner. After all, he did everything and anything to get elected (including dirty tactics). I was both surprised and relieved when he lost, but why he lost isn’t fully clear to me. I am also not sure our models of democracy fully apply at this scale, as those were derived from situations with millions of voters, not 30-something voters. However, my theory would be this: Cheng Cheng’s willingness to do anything to get elected was his downfall. To some extent, the appearance of virtue is important to get elected, and with such a small electorate so close to the candidates, it became obvious who was the virtuous candidate, and who was just saying whatever it would take to get elected.

Now, was this a democratic outcome? Although this election clearly was not on a level playing field, as Luo Lei was an incumbent with two years of experience, this does not make it undemocratic. The incumbent advantage is featured prominently in U.S. elections, yet we consider the U.S. to be a democracy (we may not all agree on this). Luo Lei was the reasonable choice, the Hillary Clinton of the class election. In this case, the class wanted continuity and law and order, so Lui Lei won in the democratic process. In the U.S. there was obviously a different outcome, but the theory still applies. Of course there were shady dealings going on behind the scenes, but this is featured in all elections to some extent, and it shouldn’t necessarily mean that the process is undemocratic. The premise of a democracy is that the people decide, and in this scenario, the people picked Lui Lei.