{"id":663,"date":"2017-12-02T21:10:09","date_gmt":"2017-12-03T02:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/?p=663"},"modified":"2017-12-02T21:10:09","modified_gmt":"2017-12-03T02:10:09","slug":"democracy-in-please-vote-for-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/uncategorized\/democracy-in-please-vote-for-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Democracy in “Please Vote for Me”"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Please Vote for Me” illustrates a system that is flawed, but still unequivocally democratic. The system encapsulates the key tenets of democracy—candidates are chosen by popular support, and votes are cast by secret ballot. The election may not have been “fair”, but it was still democratic. The candidates received different levels of parental advice and influence, and Luo Lei’s father allows his son to give gifts and a field trip to the class. This is reflective of a real world democracy where candidates come from different socioeconomic backgrounds; candidates with more money are able to run more extensive campaigns. The election potentially veers from pure democracy when Cheng Cheng promises positions to his classmates in exchange for a vote. However, the ballot was still secret, so Cheng Cheng had no way to verify who voted for him. In a way, this is comparable to candidates in the United States who make promises to their voter bases like targeted subsidies or more lenient regulations. Because Luo Lei was the incumbent, he had power and force (ability to beat children) up until the election. However, the election appeared to make Luo Lei less forceful rather than more forceful; he appeals to the class by saying “I can change,” and his classmates testify to his decreased use of force. Again, the ballot was secret so Luo Lei had no way to correlate force with voting outcome. The election also demonstrates Tocqueville’s “tyranny of the majority.” When Cheng Cheng starts insulting Xiaofei, the entire class jumps on the bandwagon and starts insulting Xiaofei (the minority in this case). It undermines Xiaofei’s campaign and it also temporarily helps Cheng Cheng’s campaign. Although Cheng Cheng didn’t ultimately win, this scene demonstrates democracy’s susceptibility to electing a demagogue.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Please Vote for Me” illustrates a system that is flawed, but still unequivocally democratic. The system encapsulates the key tenets of democracy—candidates are chosen by popular support, and votes are cast by secret ballot. The election may not have been … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1752,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13],"class_list":["post-663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-fifth-blog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1752"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=663"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":665,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663\/revisions\/665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}