Call For The Vote

Along with the rest of America, I've been breathlessly following the caucuses. I cringed when Huckabee won Iowa, shrugged when Obama did, sniffed sympathetically with Hillary Clinton, cheered for McCain in New Hampshire and sorted out my mixed feelings over Romney's Michigan win. And no, I'm not an independent. In fact, I have no voice in the American presidential election at all. I'm not a US citizen. And yet, like millions of other non-Americans, most of whom do not even reside in this country, I care deeply and passionately about who the next commander-in-chief is going to be. This is, therefore, my formal request for the extension of universal adult franchise in the presidential elections of the self-titled global champion of democracy, to every non-American. In this age of American empire (albeit an empire in denial as Niall Ferguson famously put it), it is a call to separate US citizenship from the right to vote.

Admittedly, my dissatisfaction with my disenfranchised state was fostered on more petty grounds. I married an American citizen and promptly lost the benefits of a nifty Indo-US tax treaty which allowed me to save most of my graduate student fellowship. Thereafter, like clockwork every April, my husband and I engage in a battle of the taxes. Rebelliously muttering "no taxation without representation", I tout the advantages of tax evasion and just as strongly (and unreasonably), he insists on filing the entire details of our meagre income. But the domestic and foreign policies of the Bush administration post-9/11, the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, Guantanamo, have not only polarized Americans, they have starkly highlighted the incredible reach and the consequences of American power for a global audience. Suddenly, pax americana
seems more real than just the tentacles of Hollywood culture, the evils of multinational (mostly American) companies and the general nuisance of having a sole busybody superpower around.

Growing up in India, Kenya and the UK, I was familiar with anti-US exasperation (and its paradoxical companion, anti-US envy), which is very different from today's discussions of anti-US hatred. The US always stuck its nose in where it didn't belong--this was a well-known fact. But you got over it--presidents like Bill Clinton for example, a thorn in India's side during his presidency, acquired the status of a superstar after his term. But it all changed post-9/11. The "with us or against us" slogan lent a menacing edge to that interference. Clearly, in the wrong hands, the hegemon unleashed could be terrifying. Sovereignty and individual rights now seemed violable--Iraq today, your country tomorrow. And the disquiet has only grown.

This explains why the other day I found myself in deep discussion with a friend about the candidates over lunch--he's not American either but is just as deeply concerned. An Israeli, he worries about the Middle East and the commitment of the candidates. And this is evident in the Christmas email that my husband's distant German cousin, living in a remote part of Germany, sent to my mother-in-law (outraging some of her more conservative relatives in the process): "we all look forward to 2008 when you will elect a new President. Will it be Hillary or Obama? Anyway it can't be worse than now. This President did so much damage in Europe and all over the world, and that takes time to heal." And it explains why newspapers and magazines all over the world are scrutinizing the US primaries down to the last detail. In the last elections, The Economist, a British magazine, declared it a choice between "the incompetent and the incoherent" and plaintively urged Americans to elect Kerry. The sense of outraged helplessness was and still is, palpable.

So here's a way to advertise America's benign intentions, floor the detractors and truly spread democracy around the globe. It's simple and it's brilliant. Give us non-Americans the vote. Keep every other benefit of citizenship. Every empire has held out lures to those it's governed. Under pax romana, citizenship was a reward to be doled out to individuals who met the criteria. Pax britannica held out the theoretical option of non-Britishers joining the powerful civil service. Pax americana has its coveted citizenship of course, but the country is constantly divided on the issue of immigration. Separate the vote as a tool of diplomacy, however, and in one stroke, you spread your core values, enhance your image and appease critics without stoking domestic fears of a huge influx of foreigners. And it would go a long way towards bringing back the days of happy exasperation. In the meanwhile, I will continue obsessing over elections news and attempting to swing my long-suffering and apolitical husband's vote in the right direction.

Comments

[Herrington]

Relax, everyone in the world will have crawled across the desert, even figuratively, and become a U.S. citizen by 2020.

Seriously, though, we know there is a problem here. It has crept into the consciousness of even the most hardboiled political zealots. The problem is their very zeal.

What has not yet registered is that the zealotry was cultivated in the interest of decapitating the American electorate. It has succeeded. We have spent 18 full 2 year election cycles on nonsense dredged up from the Christian fundamentalist movement. It poses a problem to governance in this country as intractable as Muslim fundamentalism has been in the Middle East.

You cannot make progress on secular issues, foreign policy, economics, education or healthcare, even war and peace, when the public discourse is held hostage by the infantile issues of fundamentalists.

Which begs the question, just as a mental exercise, of who in the rest of the world should be allowed in a proposed extension of an American franchise to global citizens. Should we include or preclude the religious of other countries from participating in our the political process? And in the act of deciding, will we violate the tenant of separation of church and state?

[oldpotsmuggler]

I just thoroughly enjoyed this. This lady could vote in my world anytime and every time. I got the message that she’s willing to limit the extension of the franchise to only various world citizens who are residing legally within our boundaries, but I'm truly intrigued by how many other "outsiders" there are who have such a broad global view. And also why there are not more of us Americans about whom the same could be said.

We truly do fit together, all of us who ride this sphere through the heavens on a daily basis. If you think not, you're welcome to try to get to another planet. But that ain't ready to happen and I'm genuinely curious about the kind of person who is here, but insists on believing that "here" is such a great number of very different places that it only makes sense that we can't, and shouldn't even try to, live together well.

Do you want to be on top of the heap? I, personally, don’t really give a shit about that. The world needs a leader because that’s the way that human systems are. Call it “empire in denial” if you will, but we’re currently at the front of the pack and we truly ought to do our best to use this position for the greatest benefit of the largest number, just because that would reflect well on ourselves. To have an opportunity to better the condition of our species, as is really the main theme here, and to squander it would be to throw away the kind of opportunity that can eventually only lead us down the path of mediocrity.

[Desiderata]

CORRECTION:

It is not that we aren't smart about who we vote for, but we can't vote for the justices of the Supreme Court that canceled our votes for their own.

And keep in mind that, truth be told, it is not the voters that count, but how the votes are counted.

[Desiderata]

My, you of other nations think yourselves so much wiser than us.

Please keep in mind that the majority of votes in 2000 went to Al Gore and, in 2004, to John Kerry.

It is not that we are smart about who we vote for, but we can't vote for the justices of the Supreme Court that canceled our votes for their own.

And keep in mind that, truth be told, it is not the voters that count, but how the votes are counted.

[Pquilson]

I do not actually care what other countries, or their citizens think of us, or our elections. I did not care when Germany elected its leader. I did not care when England elected its new leader.
I do care who we elect to be our leader. I am not pleased with any of the candidates, on either side! They all have serious shortcomings, in my view. I am not a socialist, nor a fascist, but an American. A hard working, tax paying, play by the rules American. I see no representation of any values I consider important in any of the candidtates. I fear for our nation.
Have a Happy Superbowl Sunday! Go Giants!

[Spookcatcher]

Your article was really good. I wish though perhaps you would have scrutinized even harder towards the truth. That maybe the American People should vote and start the hard fight back towards a Democracy in Our own Country first and quit the charade of elections that are more richly expensed and choreoghraphed than any around the world. The US has not had a truly free and accountable election since the 1930's for FDR! The charade, and election process that only guarantees Ruling Class Politicians, like your example of Kerry vs Bush, and today especially with the trumpeted "History making" cosmetology of this one, may prove to be the last days of American credibility in anything, except in its prosecution upon the World of excessive greed and Our pursuit of other Nations resources and cheap labor. The EU really has a legitimate chance of becoming a safer, more transparent leader of Nations, and China might be a more patient and less Imperial Super Power, as the US self destructs along the same lines of causes that the USSR did: Corrupt overstrecthed government tied to Industry (only here it is Fascism not a fake Communism), recession of Citizen's freedoms, a 100 year War prosecuted in the Middle-East, coupled with Military Industrial Complex Industry overexcessive expendiatures, and an economically unsupported crushed middle and lower class. We can use all the illumination and scrutiny on our politics we can get by the Nations that have looked up to us, to spur the people of the USA to not just vote but make their votes accountable by actively policing the Leadership they put in office.

[Semaj51]

Okay, but only if we get to vote in your elections.