FREEDOM FRIES

French woman wants the right to vote in American elections.

I was nine years old when I first seriously pondered the result of a US presidential election. It was 2000 and my father suggested we bet on who would win the 2000 vote – George W Bush or Al Gore. In the kitchen of our apartment in the Paris suburbs, I bet a piece of gum that it would be Gore. Two months later, the Supreme Court decided otherwise, and I didn’t realise until many years later how close I had come to being right.

Boy, that takes me back.  I still remember all the international political discussions my family and I used to have just about every night when I was nine.  We'd sit around for hours at a time arguing about whether the Progressive Conservatives could hold on to Alberta, whether the Tories would ever be competitive in Wales or Scotland, how that new conservative government in Italy would work out, things like that.

The single worst row my dad and I ever had was when I disagreed with his assertion that Germany's Christian Democrats would lose Baden-Württemberg big-time in some German state election or other.  He and I loudly went at it hammer-and-tongs and when I turned out to be right, he didn't talk to me for about a month after that.

I'll take "Things That Never Happened" for $2000, Alex.

One election after the next, we have seen how much the results of the US presidential vote impact not just the 50 states, but the rest of the planet too. And if the future of foreign countries is shaped to a significant extent by what goes on on US Election Day, shouldn’t they get a say in who gets to lead the most powerful nation in the world for the next four years?

Unless you want to officially become a US citizen, I'll go with "HELLS NO!!"

Perhaps it helps to imagine America as the pot

A "melting pot?"  No?

in which tomorrow’s ideas are brewed, for better or worse. Perhaps it helps, too, to look at the more tangible signs of how US politics contribute to shaping all of our lives. The most convincing example may be global warming, and Donald Trump’s overt skepticism when it comes to climate change.

It goes without saying that whatever the US does or does not do to limit the effects of global warming impacts every single being, human or otherwise, on this planet.

Perhaps it also helps to imagine those statements as yet another example of Europe expecting the US to do the heavy lifting, keep its mouth shut and enter the house only by the servants' entrance.  Gosh, you bail a continent out of two world wars and this is the thanks you get. 

Then comes the economy: in June last year, we were warned that tensions between the US and its main trading partners could precipitate global trade turmoil similar in scale to the 2008 financial crisis. Whoever gets to sit in the Oval Office, then, plays a major role in shaping the state of our wallets as well as the state of the planet. Is it really that outrageous that people around the world might want to have a say on who runs the show?

Uh...yeah?  Is this a trick question? 

I am, of course, aware that the US is extremely unlikely to go along with my idea.

If "extremely unlikely" means "snowball in Hell," good observation.

This isn’t a country that’s particularly known for avidly seeking external input.

Kind of why we're who we are and France is Monaco with delusions of believing that anybody still gives a crap what it thinks about anything.

And of course, there’s the idea that the right to vote is intrinsically tied to residence,

You spelled "citizenship" wrong.

and that those who don’t live in a given country aren’t qualified to make a call on what goes in said country.

Which you've pretty much proved.

Except things are more complicated, and more nuanced than that.

I thought they might be.

Take, for example, the idea that living in a country is a condition to having the right to vote there. Permanent residents such as myself, also known as green card holders (also known as people who aren’t US citizens but live and work in the US full-time) pay the same income tax as US citizens, but don’t get to vote.

What part of the concept of "citizenship" is tripping you up?

Naturally, US citizens (like citizens of many other countries) still get to vote for their president even if they permanently move to a different country. All this to say: there is an established disequilibrium between who gets to vote in the US presidential election and who arguably has the most skin in the game.

Napoleon sold us Louisiana, you know, so in a way, all this is kind of your own fault.  If you'd kept all that land and all those natural resources west of the Mississippi, I'd have to tell people that I lived in Sawn LooEE and France might still amount to something.  Damn Corsicans, amirite?  So if you want to complain, go throw escargot all over Bonaparte's grave or something.

How would it work, then? If the US were to entertain the possibility of letting foreigners participate in the presidential vote (and again, I’m not holding my breath), how would we make it happen? Does each foreign country get the same weight as each of the 50 states? Surely, that would be giving too much weight to the outside world. Do we restrict the vote to member states of NATO and/or historical allies? This seems slightly more realistic – as realistic as it gets in this purely hypothetical scenario – but also somewhat unfair to those whose voices would be left out.

I have clearly disclosed my status as a French citizen, so I know the question will be raised: how would I react if someone proposed to let other countries vote in the French presidential election? Well, France is currently about five spots behind the US in the ranking of the world’s most powerful nations,

Who came up with those rankings?  France Doesn't Suck Quarterly?  White Flag Review?

and its GDP is more than seven times lower.

Ever stop and ask yourself why we matter and France doesn't?

But sure, should France ever have the kind of political and cultural influence the US currently yields, then I’d be inclined to let others have a say. In fact, I might even vote in favour of it.

The word is spelled "favor."

What if we start here?  If the French want to vote in American elections, Paris has to give the US total veto power over French legislation as well as the power to change or discard any French laws it doesn't like, the power to establish French tax rates and what that revenue is spent on and the power to change the French constitution in any way Washington sees fit.  And the same goes for any other country in the world that wants the same thing.

Deal?  Thought not.  But it's actually nice to know that even to many modern Europeans, Americans are still thought of as Europeans who couldn't make it in decent society.