I am really not interested in politics, but I keep reading news, occasionally. I wanted to create this GIF file and couldn’t find anything better to animate with. So it had to be Donald Trump and this Alien figure I found online.
I am aware that American election system is very different to European. I know it is bit too late anyway, but I decided to educate myself how the US system really works.
Below are my findings
An election for president of the United States occurs every four years on Election Day, held the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. The next presidential election will be held on November 3, 2020.
The election process begins with the primary elections and caucuses and moves to nominating conventions, during which political parties each select a nominee to unite behind. The nominee also announces a vice presidential running mate at this time. The candidates then campaign across the country to explain their views and plans to voters and participate in debates with candidates from other parties.
During the general election, Americans go to their polling place to cast their vote for president. But the tally of those votes—the popular vote—does not determine the winner. Instead, presidential elections use the Electoral College. To win the election, a candidate must receive a majority of electoral votes. In the event no candidate receives the majority, the House of Representatives chooses the president and the Senate chooses the vice president.
The presidential election process follows a typical cycle:
- Spring of the year before an election – Candidates announce their intentions to run.
- Summer of the year before an election through spring of the election year – Primary and caucus debates take place.
- January to June of election year – States and parties hold primaries and caucuses.
- July to early September – Parties hold nominating conventions to choose their candidates.
- September and October – Candidates participate in presidential debates.
- Early November – Election Day
- December – Electors cast their votes in the Electoral College.
- Early January of the next calendar year – Congress counts the electoral votes.
- January 20 – Inauguration Day
Electoral College
Unlike in other U.S. elections, the president and vice president are not elected directly by the people. Instead, they’re chosen by “electors” through a process called the Electoral College.
The idea of using electors comes from the Constitution. The nation’s founders saw it as a compromise between electing the president by a popular vote among citizens and electing the president in Congress.
The Electors
The number of electors each state gets is determined by how many members of Congress (House and Senate) the state has. Including Washington, D.C.’s three electors, there are a total of 538 electors in all. U.S. territory residents don’t vote in the presidential election and are not represented in the Electoral College. View the distribution of electors by state.
Each state’s political parties choose their own slate of potential electors. Who is chosen to be an elector, how, and when varies by state.
After you cast your ballot for president, your vote goes to a statewide tally. In 48 states and Washington, D.C., the winner gets all of the electoral votes for that state. This means his or her party’s electors in that state will vote in the Electoral College. Maine and Nebraska assign their electors using a proportional system called the Congressional District Method.
A candidate needs the vote of at least 270 electors—more than half—to win the presidential election.
Although the actual vote of the Electoral College takes place in each state on December 19, in most cases, a projected winner can be announced on election night.
The Constitution doesn’t require electors to vote according to the popular vote of the people they represent. But it’s rare for an elector not to follow the people’s—and their party’s—choice.
Infographic Poster: How to Become President of the United States
U.S. Constitutional Requirements for Presidential Candidates
The president must:
- Be a natural-born citizen of the United States
- Be at least 35 years old
- Have been a resident of the United States for 14 years
Any person who meets these requirements can declare his or her candidacy for president at any time. Candidates must register with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) once they receive contributions or make expenditures in excess of $5,000. Within 15 days of reaching that $5,000 threshold, candidates must file a Statement of Candidacy with the FEC authorizing a principal campaign committee to raise and spend funds on their behalf.
Why did Donald Trump won?
- The revolution was tweeted, not televised. Trump reached millions of Americans directly, on his schedule and without the mainstream media’s distortion filters. The turning point came in October 2015, when he realized he could speak directly to voters without intermediaries, reaching 25 million people on Twitter and Facebook for free. This technology allowed him to fill stadiums with 25,000 people in rural Alabama.
- By being utterly unpredictable and outrageous, Trump “gaslit” the mainstream media. Sending out his first provocative tweet at 6:00 a.m. meant that the media would follow him for the rest of the day. He thereby received millions of dollars’ worth of free publicity from a media establishment that clearly wanted him to lose. Every day he fed and taunted the drooling beast, and then made it chase him.
- Trump played offense 24/7. He took a line from President Obama’s playbook—“If they hit you, hit back twice as hard”—and then radicalized it. Consider his demolition of Jeb Bush, who knows how to play hardball but he was crushed by Trump. Then, during the general election, Trump out-Alinskyed an Alinsky protégé.
- Trump dared to say that the Republicrat Establishment had failed. An anti-politician who called America’s politicians losers and failures, he said that America was in a state of decline but that he would restore it to greatness.
- Trump’s unrelenting attack on political correctness appealed to millions of Americans who were sick and tired of being corrected and scolded by feminist dance therapy majors from Bennington College. As a great bonus, his aversion to political correctness set Trump apart from the bland, formulaic, risk-averse rhetoric and policies of establishment Republicans.
- Trump outworked Hillary Clinton. In fact, he may be the hardest working campaigner in American history, while she may have been the laziest politician to ever run for president. It is reported that Trump appeared at 132 rallies speaking to 963,155 people in the last 15 weeks of the campaign. By contrast, Clinton held 63 rallies in which she spoke to 109,220 people. Like Thomas Dewey in 1948, Hillary Clinton treated the election as a formality, a foregone conclusion. The voters made clear to each that they resented being taken for granted.
- Trump uttered the three best words of the campaign: “Drain the swamp.” By contrast, Hillary uttered the three worst: “Basket of deplorables.” The election was no longer Republicans vs. Democrats, or conservatives vs. liberals; it became “We the People” vs. “We the Government.”
- Instead of running to the center in search of moderate Republicans, Trump ran to his Tea-Party, right-wing base. Instead of looking for consensus, he provoked dissension and division. Instead of appearing moderate and judicious, he was provocative and outrageous. Instead of looking to the Establishment for support, he attacked it. Instead of courting the press, he mocked and insulted it. Instead of being a Teflon candidate like Bill Clinton, he wanted everything to stick to him.
At the I shall give a credits
I used the internet a source. For the Trump figure I used
The Alien figure can be found here
https://mbtskoudsalg.com/explore/sprite-animation-png/
The text is mainly taken from this site:
ZuzanaGraphics 