Well, wondering what will happen, I just turned on the television. While it turned out coronavirus news was putting aside, the American presidential election is instead much more discussed than expected.

Even though it is either totally a story of foreign country, or the heated debate between Donald and Joe in this presidential election is being too much American style, still, there should be a lot to think of. Frankly speaking, if we review this process as onlookers from where we have been blocked during this breakout far away, anything, from history and economy, to this election campaign, can be seen only very interlinked that can never be divided.

America consists of 48 states in its mainland besides from Alaska and Hawaii regions. The Star-Spangled Banner with 51 stars was prepared for what will probably to be added in some day. Also, in terms of states in the mainland, I have been there where there are five minor states between the beautiful State Maine (approximately the same scale as Hokkaido Prefecture) located by the border with Canada and the State of New York. At this time of year, the coastline around becomes really gorgeous with maple trees shining in the sun, though it is where dirty conflict is happening.

The picture above (source: 4travel.jp) is picked up from the travel homepage with gorgeous maple trees. They blossom starting from the state of New Hampshire to Maine stunning along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. Different from Kyoto’s maples, well-known for their delicateness, the maples trees here typically cast an overwhelming impression on visitors.

Starting from the State of New York, five states lie along the east coast among which none has a much bigger geographic area. New York City which is the largest city located at the border between the State of New York and Joe’s state as well as the state of Pennsylvania. While capital city Washington D.C., bordered by the State of Maryland and Virginia. Not as what is often shown in a Mercator type of map, this area actually is really very small. However, for the reason that it is located close to the first landing point for the original migrants coming from Europe to establish the states, this small colonised area became a kind of important place for its historical impacts. The movement of immigrating toward the mainland of America began with the release of colonisation strategy. Symbolised as the forerunner of modern civilisation in leading the Industrial Revolution, British (Indians) carried out its colonisation plan from the conflict with its imperial rival France in the mid eighteenth, to the War of Dependence against the local colonised army which the British people lost (there were thirteen states at the very beginning as the number of lines in the Star-Spangled Banner indicates), further the famous Civil War in the nineteenth century and history afterwards took place in the process of colonisation as well. Also, it is reflected in the phase after the dependence with the leadership of Washington who devoted to the beginning victory in the Revolutionary War and Lincoln in the 16s. (source: History of America, etc.) At the same time in Europe, Industry Revolution and domestic conflicts occurred, democracy was enhanced as the wake of colonisation, likewise pushing the French Revolution led by Jeanne d'Arc fourteen years after the Declaration of Dependence in about 1790.

The Civic War, in the first place, is a conflict between the north and south who recognises the slavery while the other doesn't. North won then its leader Lincoln became the president, who is an African American Republican president, opposite from the Democratic Party based in the south. However, interestingly, African Americans protesters launched “BlackLivesMatter” hitting the street recently, also the 44th president Obama actually belongs to Democratic side.

Moving to Hokkaido unpredictably, I kind of understand the people in this region who always being uplifting and think highly of freedom. Currently, instead of the relation between the north and the south, it became a conflict surrounding the central part of continent and coastal zones by the Pacific and the Atlantic, as you can see from the picture below, the red zone (Republican Party) in land and the blue zone (Democratic Party) by the coastline. Because territory of America can be seen 23 times larger than Japan (approximately 3.8 million square metres) shown with the Mercator projection, it is used here for illustration together with GoogleEarth (right, source: GoogleEarth) whose display is similar to Mollweide projection (left, source: Image of America).

And as you can see in the image on the right, the west, central, and east part are captured from Google GoogleEarth and collaged up-here. It may look different from what it is (it was purposely made noticeable to the differences), the area ratio was adjusted to approaching the actual one. In this way, the states in the east part can be known not as small as when they are under the Mercator projection.

Let's see this election from numbers of obtained states. At this moment in Japan, 0 pm, November 8, 2020, American time should be 14 hours late which is November 7, Saturday, 10 pm in the evening. Eleven states in the east coast with one more Virginia bounded with Washington, 12 states in the east, adding 4 states in the west coast, and some in the central part, Colorado, New Mexico together with Arizona, 18 states in total are obtained. Plus, since Trump broke his words, another 4 states in the rust belt zone that used to depend on the steel and coal industry as well as the automotive industry but declining these years, are exceptionally taken into account. And one more Hawaii made it 23 states backing blue in total. Thus, seeing from the number of states, Donald should be definitely winning.

It says the process of posting voting is already legislatively valid, but still Donald is noisy. In my view, it is partially illegal. Usually, in the process of election, the number of creditable voters is determined by the population ratio from each state, which is 538 at the moment. The total population in America is approximately 330 million, among which there are 250 million people who have the credit to vote. Let’s say 70 percent of them gave valid votes, it should have around 170 million rather than these current 538 number of people, who are the only pieces in the Othello board to have the right to decide the president. This is because that once votes in one state clarified, all transfer into either blue or red that wins the game. Instead of black and white pieces in the Othello game, red and blue are used here. The small six states are provided with 33 seats, important states have 76, plus 3 more from the special district of Washington D.C., in total 112 seats (41% out of 270) are expected at this moment. Therefore, the first one and two days later when Joe already gained 253 seats, plus 6 and 11 from Nevada and Arizona getting 270 seats, even if the counting stopped, it is obvious that Joe has won the election in the political sense.

While still, there is something about the disadvantages of the two-party system. When the argument between the two parties becomes increasingly heated and turning into a litigation battle: 1) According to Wikipedia, the president is determined by vote from each state instead of from each member in the Parliamentary. In this way, the president will be determined when more than 2 out of 3 seats are occupied in Parliamentary. 2) The side who is accused of being illegal by the Supreme Court loses.

Two possibilities can be assumed as above. If the presidential inauguration is held until January 2020, a big mess is predicted in February. For one, 50 states stated above, at the current moment, will be obtained by Donald. Of course this will only happen when the seats from the 4 statesーAlaska, North Carolina, Georgina, and Arizona, not yet clarified now, finally go to Donald's. As for another alternative, the consensus should be made by the 9 judges, 3 people among which are liberal democrats against Donald. One of the conservatives, Judge Barrett, was recently appointed by Donald, which even made him infected with coronavirus. Accordingly, still, chances are that Donald will ultimately win by 6 vs 3 at worst, which is remarkably powerful.

Aside from talking about the merits and demerits in Japan's Democracy, it came from the Democracy system of America, who dropped the atomic bomb for which matter there is a lot of hatred being against even today. However regardless of that, the top level of freedom, somehow degrading now, was brought about by it either, sort of unintentionally though. This made it even more upsetting when seeing what is happening in America these days. There is a terminology saying heterogeneous describing something that can not be integrated or shared. From the experiences of a visitor who has been experienced in various countries, Thai people and Americans are the most domesticated, easiest to get along with and not being heterogeneous. This means that when you are touched by something and crying happens to be accompanied by some foreign people around, they are probably from Thai or America. With this regard, despite what Americans have done, the current situation made me feel even worse when realising most of them are good enough to feel the same way with people. Anyway, no one is to blame here, but hopefully people could get back to the days with BBQ, Beer, and free T-shirts with logos as they used to have.

sources: almost from Wikipedia; important sources already marked in the article.