YOU'VE GOT TO BE JOKING, USA!!

The thing is @ARMANDII, we cannot credit everyone with the same intelligence that we have, which may be why some people cannot see or work out the consequences of a protest vote.

The really worrying thing is that the political elite (and not just in this country either), still do not "get it" - - - and the writing has been on the wall for years. We ended up with a coalition government, yet still the politicians carried on they way they always did;

The Lib Dems blew themselves out of the water by going in with the Tories, whilst at the same time Labour committed suicide by electing Mr Bean Milliband as their leader, who then failed to listen to the then leader of the Scottish Labour Party, leading to their resignation and Labours death in Scotland -- that allowed SNP in (extremists if ever I saw it!). The Westminster crew dismissed this, presumably believing it to be 'just those silly Scots', and carried on as they were.

The breakup of the UK was narrowly avoided, and in my personal opinion that was a lot closer than it ever should have been - and that was simply because so many people in Scotland were as sick of the Westminster crew as most of us in England are. But still, the Westminster lot carried on as they always have.

UKIP gained in popularity, partly because of the fact that people were starting to get really fidgety about the sheer numbers of immigrants coming into the country whilst budgets for services were being cut left, right and centre, but also because many of those who would normally have voted Labour had nobody else left to vote for. But still, the politicians carried on regardless.

Cameron and Co got in at the last election, not because they were any good, but because it appeared that they were the least incompetent of the lot, and because they dangled the carrot of a referendum on Europe. Thoroughly fed up with both the UK political elite AND the EU political elite, people voted Tory to get the chance to express their feelings.

Cameron went to the EU lot to get a better deal for Britain, and was essentially shown where he could stick his request, and the UK/EU politicians carried on as they were.....

By now, the immigration situation had gotten so out of control that the general public in many EU countries had simply had a gutful; combine with that the terrorist attacks being foisted on the residents of these countries by people from other countries, and the feelings about the immigration situation were only deepened. And yet, the politicians STILL could not see what was coming.

Then came the Brexit vote, where our great political faces proved themselves to be nothing more than juvenile, bickering idiots - the shock that followed, for me, sent the clearest message yet to politicians the world over; this was closely followed by Hitler II Angela Merkel who took an absolute drubbing in her own local elections, and yet the politicians soon returned to form.

Labour, the Tories and UKIP decided to turn themselves inside out, with only the Tories managing to get some semblance of order back in a reasonable timeframe. I wouldn't trust Corbyn to run a bath, let alone a country, and UKIP are alongside the Lib Dems as being a wasted vote.

Meanwhile, the troubles from ISIS, Syria etc continued growing - to the ordinary folk on the ground, it appeared that little or nothing was being done to resolve the situation, and a lot of them (myself included) felt that the time was long overdue for someone to wade in and sort if out for once and for all.

More recently, our political elite have continued true to form, with many of them even trying to scheme ways to overturn the democratic decision that had been made by the electorate that pays their wages.

So yeah, I understand perfectly why people will make a protest vote; and, to some degree, I can even understand why Trump is proving as popular as he is - - - sure, a lot of it is down to personality and advertising, but there is a huge part of it is down to one simple attribute that he has displayed, and that is that he is hell bent on kicking some arses to make things change, and he does not give two hoots who he offends in doing so. In short, people are liking him because he has shown a bit of balls - it is just really, really sad that the more conventional politicians have chosen to ignore the signals that they have been given for such a long time.

We are still pretty much at the start of a great upheaval as far as I am concerned.

 

I have no claims on any quota of intelligence, FC, and, in fact, I have worked with and known a lot of people who's IQ was up there in high blue yonder but when it came to common sense, an ability to make a decision in their own Life, I wouldn't have sent them to get a tin of beans. A high level of intelligence is no guarantee that a person has the spirit, courage, or worldliness to make a decision and actually act.

 

There's a lot of discussion and disagreement about the interpretation of that news.

 

Sorry to disagree, longk, but the way the American Constitution is constructed means that, one way or another, one of these most undesirable Presidential Candidates must win So, again, a protest vote, or a spoilt vote, [called a residual vote] would have no substantial effect even if made.
There are other "major" political parties other than the Democrats and Republicans such as the Libertarian Party, and the Green Party........but they just don't figure in the Presidential Elections so you're left with only two candidates from the two inevitable, long standing political parties, that have actually been in Government,in the Finals. Just to make things worse, the way each State has an Electoral College vote varies from State to State depending on the volume of population in a particular State, but the winner of that State election doesn't just take the votes he/she won but takes all the votes on a winner takes all basis. I think the only two States that don't have a winner "takes all" system are Nebraska and Maine. So protests votes and spoilt votes in such a system just have no effect.

 

I think it's even restricted in choice/options over in the USA, Pete, as their present Political situation and choice of Candidates shows. At least in the UK one small Party [UKip] has made political history by being the keystone in changing Britain's relationship with the EU.

 

Well, the court judgement is one thing, but the subsequent actions of the politicians is another. IF they decide to ignore the result of the referendum, that will essentially prove that democracy is dead. Should that be the case, I would hope that there would be something of a revolt to oust the over-paid, pompous ar5eholes from Westminster.

 

With regard to the judgement it only says that Parliament can decide about giving approval for the triggering of Article 50. I don't think there is any doubt that the House of Commons will vote for Article 50 action, but there may be some resistance in the "other place" the House of Lords. As has been said by both the Politicians and the Legal System the Referendum was, "technically", advisory but both acknowledge that politically BREXIT has to, and will, happen and that all the passing of the necessary Bill will do is to drag out the process.