>>>>>>False dilemma. A non-vote or abstention is not the same as a vote for the opposition.
>>>>
>>>>I take your point, but my underatanding is that more than 60% of people over 65 voted to exit, while 75% of people under 25 voted to stay.
>>>>
>>>>The problem was that 85% of people aged over 65 voted but only 36% of those under 25 voted.
>>>>
>>>>Had the young voted at the same rates as their parents, Brexit probably would be a nonevent footnote now.
>>>
>>>I find it a little troubling that such statistics are available after a nominally secret balloting process.
>>>
>>>I wouldn't characterize those statistics, if true, as a "problem". As Yogi Berra might have said, it is what it is.
>>>
>>>>Hence my comment that the decision not to vote contributed to the result just as much as the high numbers of oldsters wanting to leave.
>>>
>>>No - statistically speaking, only a fraction as much. And only if the statistics are true and you're willing to slice the sausage in that particular fashion. What about Caucasian vs. others? Straight vs. others? Go down that rabbit hole and you can blame pretty much any group for pretty much anything you want.
>>>
>>>>Which in context is the same message to those here attacking HRC and DT for being the worst, the most hated, the whatever. If what you say is true- then it happened because too many people failed to exercise their right to be heard. Until it was too late.
>>>
>>>My take is that democracies always elect the best candidate. In that light I regard such attacks on any remaining candidate as amusing, besides almost certainly mathematically impossible (given the proven perfidy of other current and past American politicians).
>>
>>..but democracies do not always elect the best candidate - which is one of the pitfalls of a democracy like ours - where any clown who wants to can end up as a candidate. Surely you don't think that Trump is a 'best' candidate do you?
>
>Of course he is. A better one would have defeated Trump, by definition.
>

Seems to me that this is a semantic issue. Yes, by definition, Trump was the best _candidate_, but that doesn't make him the best possible president among those who ran. Of course, that's a perennial problem. The characteristics that make someone likely to win election aren't generally the ones that make them best to govern.

Tamar