这次美国大选竞争激烈，周二选举到了周末结果才出来：拜登当选。川普仍然质疑大选结果，但我估计即使重新审核票数，也不至于反转最后结果。华盛顿邮报这两天有几篇不错的专栏。资深专栏作家David Ignatius 指出虽然这次大选紧张激烈气氛火爆，但所幸选举本身没有发生大冲突[1]。Fareed Zakaria 从自己的亲身经历指出民主党仍旧没有懂得少数民族[2]。Kathleen Parker 认为这次大选失败的是民主党[3]。因为虽然川普很多问题，他在少数民族中比上次还增加了一些选票。同时她指出拜登可能成为一个成功的总统。我基本上同意这些看法。
我在前一篇文章里担心美国的分裂问题[4]。前些时著名评论员 Ian Bremmer 在CNN GPS一段评论指出问题的关键在左派[5]。Ian Bremmer 指出大多数左派不贬损黑人，西语系人，穆斯林，却取笑白人农工。而这次疫情又是这些人受害最严重。
我想提醒读者注意几点。1）民主不是必然的，不像一些人认为是普世价值。2）古希腊民主只持续了一百多年，而且还不是完全民主。3）古罗马推崇一种混合制（共和）[6]，实行了大约五百年。4）美国国父们的意愿是建立罗马式的共和而不是民主[7]。要使美国民主持续，需要各方的努力。这正是 Victor Davis Hanson 一次访谈的主题[8]。录像时间不长，值得认真看一看。大陆人非常需要学习一些政治基本知识。
注释：
（1）David Ignatius WaPo 11-6 We remain a divided country, but look at the ...
（2）Fareed Zakaria WaPo 11-6 Once again, Democrats have misunderstood mino...
（3）Kathleen Parker WaPo 11-7 Joe Biden can save us from the precipice Joe Biden may have won the presidency, but Democrats plainly lost the election. …….
Democrats and their media cheerleaders were shocked by Trump support among Black people and Hispanics. In Texas and Florida, Trump won 4 of every 10 Hispanic voters and perhaps a bit more. He performed better in many red states than he had in 2016. He even improved, as a percentage of the vote, in a number of blue states that he lost four years ago. Very few votes will separate this likely loss from a win.
（4）韩家亮：川普与基督教会 https://hx.ciaos.org/?p=190006
（5）CNN GPS 2020-10-25 https://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/2010/...
BREMMER: It makes it more divisive. It delegitimizes it. It makes both sides feel like the system is somehow rigged when the other is in charge. And I mean, it’s one of the things that’s been good that Biden has tried to continually say that he wants to be president of the red and the blue states.
He is not disparaging Trump voters. But much of the left is, and I think that’s a real worry. I mean, if Biden wins and wins big, they need to learn the lesson that for so many decades the working class in the United States and the white working class in the United States has felt like they have been treated like cannon fodder.
And that was true for 40 years of Biden in the Senate. It was true for eight years of Biden as vice president. I mean, I am still stunned that there are so many people on the left that would never disparage blacks or Hispanics or Muslims and they are completely comfortable mocking rural working whites in 2020, and I think that especially because coronavirus is going to hit that group so much harder in 2021, that it hits you and me and those on the panel, they are going to be so much angrier that if we don’t find a way to actually make America work for them, then the populism that you and George were talking about in the last segment is going to get a lot badder and a lot sharper in the United States. Not better.
（6）Terence Ball, Richard Dagger, Daniel I. O’Neill, “Political Ideologies and the Democratic Ideal,” 10th Ed. Routledge, 2016.
（7）James Miller, Can Democracy Work? Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018.
（8）Victor Davis Hanson | The Future of Democracy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBwvndRyBu8