John Oliver Explains How Deeply Screwed Up The US Presidential Primaries Are
When will these things END.
While Australia collectively groans at the prospect of an eight-week election campaign, spare a thought for people in the United States. The US Presidential primaries have been running now since February, the race itself is more than a year old, and neither the Republican nor Democratic nominees will be officially chosen until their respective Party conventions in July.
Dragging out democracy worse than the last few seasons of Scrubs might be more bearable if everyone involved managed to run the process smoothly and fairly, but America can’t even manage that. Inexplicable and arcane rules that vary wildly state-by-state; anachronistic and exclusionary electoral practices that don’t reflect what voters wanted; all-in bunfights over allegations of vote-rigging and institutional corruption. The US Presidential primary processes are the Spanish-lady botched Jesus restoration of democracy: it bears some superficial resemblance to the real thing, but only if you’re being exceptionally generous.
On the latest episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver digs into just how bizarre, chaotic and fundamentally undemocratic the race for the highest office on earth actually is. Next time you can’t wait for the federal election to be over already, be thankful you don’t live in the US (unless you do live in the US, in which case, hi! And also, sorry).