"This is why we must never vote

for a President in a republic," one of the dog walkers has just told me.

It is very chilly out this morning. It was around 3'C when this conversation took place - I was putting the full to overflowing bin out. The dog, one of my "friends", was in a good thick coat but still looked cold. I wanted to get inside too but the other human seemed impervious to the cold as he stood there and told me this.

He was of course talking about the "attempted assassination" of Donald Trump. The event took up most of the news last night, so much so I ended up muting the sound and waiting for the analysis I knew would come.

The idea that the election in the United States of America is now as good as over really alarms me. If that really is the case then America is not a democracy. Nobody should win because someone has attempted to kill them. It would be better to ask why that happened. 

The analysis from David Smith, an Associate Professor at the University of Sydney's United States Studies Centre, was about what I expected. This will do Trump's campaign far more good than harm. It may well be that the race is over, especially if the current President does not drop his bid to be the candidate. It will cause further divisions in American society. He went on to talk about other likely consequences. None of it made good listening. 

The dog walker agreed with this analysis. I do as well. I know I should not be commenting on American politics like this but I don't believe either man is fit to be President. It is a huge responsibility. 

One man is simply no longer able to hold down the job without visible and often embarrassing failures. I never want to say someone is "too old" but perhaps he is. He is not like the Senior Cat's father who worked until he could no longer see well enough to do his job. The Senior Cat went on teaching until three days before his death at ninety-nine. There was an Emeritus Professor at my law school who was well into his nineties, still very academically able and advising the High Court. The father of my cousin's partner was out doing field work in geography (something to do with land forms) several weeks ago. He is ninety and has only just given up his own office at the university. I would like to be as alert as them at that age.

The other man is, at least in my view, not fit to hold any sort of public office. He is a very poor loser. He has a serious criminal record. He lacks judgment and is impulsive with it. It also seems he believes he can act alone, that listening to advice is not necessary. He reminds me of the person who was once appointed to a position she could not cope with and how the rest of us suffered. Yes, she apparently had the qualifications for the position - on paper. She was the token female and the token person with a disability but it seems nobody looked at her track record. Had they done so they would have seen a litany of complaints about the abrasive way she handled people and her highly autocratic behaviour. 

I thought of all this. No, we do not vote for "President" in this country. The Governor-General is appointed by the parliament and the monarch of the day agrees. We have had one or two G-G's who have not been satisfactory but generally they have taken their duties seriously and done an excellent job. The latest appointment is a very political one but that comes as no surprise given the attitude of the present Prime Minister. Even so the new G-G may find there are constitutional restrictions that will not allow the Prime Minister to ask her to do as he would wish. Those things will go to the High Court - and that is, for most purposes, genuinely independent.

It is all very different from what goes on in America. I think I prefer it our way. There are serious flaws in our electoral system but we don't have to find those millions upon millions of dollars and vote for a President.