Originally Posted by germanaviator

It's still a democracy just not as democratic as it could be. Sure, just how democratic it should be is open to debate. But democracy is not black or white. There are several ways to implement democracy, and what was deemed the most appropriate way 250 years ago may not be the most appropriate today.

A more direct form of democracy may involve electing the president directly or at least proportionately, but it may well be that a change of the constitution should only be allowed if two thirds of elected representatives agree. This is common in other democracies. All I'm saying is you can protect constitutional rights and still achieve most of the intended aims of the constitution whilst at the same time avoiding a situation where a candidate becomes president without winning the popular vote. I think we need to be open to the idea that the current system has flaws which can be fixed without introducing unwanted side effects which could outweigh the advantages of reform.

I say to this as a citizen of the federal republic of Germany. Our system is also not perfect, but to my knowledge has never resulted in us having a chancellor whose party did not receive the majority of the votes of the people. Typically that party cannot rule alone as they normally don't have an absolute majority, making a coalition government necessary. That could either be a grand coalition of the two most successful parties such as the social democrats and the conservative christian democrats (current situation) or a coalition between one of the two big parties plus a "junior partner" such as the greens or the liberal democrats. All these combinations have been in power in the last few decades. It makes for more nuanced and more inclusive policy making, requiring compromise. Not a bad thing in my opinion.