When you have a situation where the winning candidate has fewer votes than the other candidate, that clearly leads to some saying it wasn't a fair representation of the feeling of the country.
I don't think many contested Bush in 2004, when he got a majority (not even just a plurarity) of votes. They might not have liked it, but it was a given.
Clearly in 2000 there were complaints, Gore got more votes, on top of that was the whole hanging chad fiasco.
In both 92 and 96, Clinton got the plurarity of votes, but didn't reach 50%. Most who voted, voted against him. Not as bad as not getting a majority of votes, but will lead to some resentment.
Now on top of that there's the whole "Hacking" the election, which is far more woolly, and isn't just because of Russia and Cambridge Analytica, it's also about how informed a population is, the ease of getting onto the voting register, the ease of casting a vote, etc.
All good points. I would add that democracy in the workplace, which affects most people's day to day lives far more than that of the government, has been decreasing for decades, with the decline of unions and skyrocketing of wealth inequality.
agreed though I think the appearance of workplace democracy affecting day to day more than governmental democracy is only historically (rather than inherently) true of post-war america. that standard could radically shift in the future and I'd also say that it's government policy or stagnancy that enables the context in which workplace democracy has declined.
I don't think many contested Bush in 2004, when he got a majority (not even just a plurarity) of votes. They might not have liked it, but it was a given.
Clearly in 2000 there were complaints, Gore got more votes, on top of that was the whole hanging chad fiasco.
In both 92 and 96, Clinton got the plurarity of votes, but didn't reach 50%. Most who voted, voted against him. Not as bad as not getting a majority of votes, but will lead to some resentment.
Now on top of that there's the whole "Hacking" the election, which is far more woolly, and isn't just because of Russia and Cambridge Analytica, it's also about how informed a population is, the ease of getting onto the voting register, the ease of casting a vote, etc.
Democracy is hard