| Second Highest Vote Total |
But, unlike in 2000 when Al Gore won both the Popular Vote and the Electoral Vote and the Republicans outright stole his victory, Trump can claim to have won the Electoral College.
Conservatives are slowly seething as Americans have rallied for the past 4 days to protest Trump's so-called Election Victory. Conservatives are also sensitive about him losing the popluar vote. That's why you see the county by county map showing huge swaths of Trump red throughout the South and West and small concentrations of Hillary blue in select spots. Of course, those blue spots are were Americans actually live; New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Phoenix and not wide open counties where a few hundred rabid right-wingers who play with sheep all day reside. It's also why conservatives are spreading the lie that Trump did better with Latinos than Romney, when Trump didn't. They need to justify this election and lies are the natural recourse of conservatives.
Because conservatives know they've put one over on America again with the byzantine legerdemain of 18th century oligarchical political machinations. So, they want the protests to stop and liberals to lay down just like they did back in 2000.
Don't.
Keep pointing out the electoral college awarded Trump the Presidency against the will of the people. Keep on with the protests but, understand that's just a start and moving forward after the deplorables shamble into the White House we need to organize.
Trump is totally unprepared for the task ahead of him. He's going to do to the United States what he's done to women and casinos throughout his life; assault and bankrupt us.
Already Trump has backpedaled on several of his core campaign promises. Trump promised to exile all muslims, Trump promised to repeal every line of Obamacare, Trump declared he would rip up that horrible, terrible Iran Deal, Trump and his surrogates already hedged and declared there won't be an actual wall along the US-Mexico border. He's not going to do anything he promised. But, these broken promises won't be enough to break the hold the Republican Party has on the WWC.
The WWC began flocking to the Republicans in 1968 with Nixon's Law & Order, were solidly right-wing under Ronnie Raygun's Cadillac drivin' welfare moms and steak eatin' young bucks, and abandoned the Democratic Party after 8 years of President Barack HUSSEIN Obama and the incessant right-wing race baiting, including Trump's 5 years of Birtherism.
The Democratic Party if it wishes to stay relevant needs to let Trump inflict this pain and not immolate themselves to save the Republicans or the WWC. The WWC needs to face the consequences of their actions and not be bailed out by liberals again.
This is not a heighten the contradictions declaration but, a fuck'em they voted for granny starvin' zombie-eyed Paul Ryan CouponCare. The WWC voted for the elimination of SSI. So let them get what they deserve. The WWC voted for lower wages and less benefits, let them have it.
But, additionally Blue States need to use financial weapons on the WWC. For decades now, rich liberal cities have been funding the bad choices of Republican States with our tax dollars, as the Republican moocher states receive far more federal tax dollars from the government than they pay in federal taxes. So, propose amendments which decree that a state can only receive as much federal funding as it pays in federal taxes. Call it the 1 tax dollar in, 1 tax dollar out Plan or Truth in Federal Funding Initative.
The Moocher Republican States need to suffer consequences for their bad decisions. Starting with Trump and the Republican Party it's time to inherit the wind WWC.
I'm inclined to agree with you. The trouble is, if a critical mass of the white working class has become so uneducated and class-oblivious that they think a billionaire is going to improve their lives by transferring most of what is left of the corporate and upper-class tax burden onto themselves, I'm not sure whether they are intellectually possible of being persuaded that anything Trump does isn't good for them. I say this from the rather depressed perspective of having tried to persuade people for months, mostly without success, that a billionaire born into a wealthy family and educated at top private schools is actually from the elite class himself. Observing firsthand the pretzel logic of people who insist he is an outsider is truly depressing.
ReplyDeleteAt the moment I feel like there's nothing can be said or done safely because there's going to be a power struggle between the various Republican factions over the policy agenda and it's too hard to say for now how that shakes out. For example, I'll bet right now that Obamacare isn't going to be repealed. They'll make some minor cosmetic changes, almost certainly related to reproductive rights just for starters, and then Trump will announce he's saved the universe from Obamacare.
Climate policy will be obliterated, but I'll also wager you won't be able to persuade anyone who voted for the Republican Party that this is a bad thing.
David,
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't say uneducated I would say programmed by propaganda. But, overall I can not disagree with you comment. Thank you for making it.
To claim the highest vote total should win the presidential election is not what the Constitution says. To want to change the Constitution because your candidate lost, is sour grapes. We have had the law of an Electoral College since 1789. It's not like this was a new law passed just to give the election to Trump.
ReplyDeleteI would think Trump announcing he will not try to repeal Obama care, but tweak it, would make Democrats happy. That's exactly what Clinton said she would do. In fact I'm sure it's not making Republicans happy at all.
Trump blamed our messed up foreign policy on Bush's mistake of invading Iraq. Something Republicans aren't happy about at all.
This vote tells me Americans are not happy at all with its so called experienced and best and brightest bringing us to our current 20 trillion dollar debt and 15 years of war. They saw Hillary as an extension of this mess and did not see Trump as an extreme gamble.
Our society is already overexposed to oral and visual vulgarity, so Trump's vulgarity was not a reason to not vote for him.
As you stated, Trump is already backing off most of his Republican promises, so just maybe he won't be the Hitler liberals claimed he was.
History tells us a racist and bigot is not the worst thing we can have for a president. The leaders we worship from the past were much worse racists and bigots than Trump. Even Lincoln was willing to allow slavery, if it did not become law in the new States. FDR imprisoned Americans who happened to be of Japanese decent.
Luke, why so insecure bro???
ReplyDeleteThe constitution doesn't "say" anything but, what the FF wrote no longer applies. Unless of course, you think Senators should be chosen by State Governors, blacks are 3/5ths of a person, women can't vote, and freedom of the press doesn't apply to the internet. But, hey Trump "won" with less votes.
Trump is a skilled grifter and savvy conman he's going to steal everything (nailed down or not) in DC. As to the ilk who voted for him, those steel manufacturing jobs at good union wages and benefits ain't coming back and once Ryan, Roberts and McConnell eliminate Medicare and SSI the WWC is going to die off even faster.
Luke - FDR is an intriguing example. A post-FDR President could not have established the internment camps insofar as FDR did so in his third term, and after he left office, the unwritten norm was turned into a written rule. Was that sour grapes, perhaps? Or was it perhaps a recognition that the system laid down long before was in need of some improvements?
ReplyDeleteYour statement is replete with many statements of what Americans believed, yet the electoral results indicate that more Americans actually believed something different, in many cases, the polar opposite of what you claimed that Americans think. On what grounds have you taken it upon yourself to misrepresent the views of a plurality of your countrymen and women?
As it happens, the people who crafted the electoral college system imagined it as a compromise that could serve two purposes: first to protect under-populated rural interests (read: slave owners) from being overwhelmed at the polls by the more populous states, and second as a final check against a decline into popular tyranny. If you're not sure what is meant by that, read Plato.
At least in terms of the second of those tenets, the 2016 election establishes that the Electoral College has outlived its usefulness insofar as the people of the country are now a better check against authoritarianism than the system that was put in place by flawed elites in order to protect them.
You can, of course, still seek refuge in the first of those tenets, but if you choose to do so, kindly abandon all pretense that you speak on behalf of a majority of Americans. You do not. You speak on behalf of a privileged minority who exercises disproportionate influence in the democratic system unjustified by strength of numbers alone. Yes, it is indeed an irony: the supposedly anti-establishment Trumpists are, quite by accident, the elite of the Electoral College.
Awe... the guy who pretends to be CPD exclaims his disdain for the rule of law. The electoral college is here to stay and if there's another amendment meant to be it will be the one that overturns the 17th amendment and returns the power to the states; as our forefathers intended as written in our constitution.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the Electoral College is here to stay it allows Republicans to steal the Presidency. Can't wait until the power is returned to the States, then the Red Moocher States will starve since they routinuely receive more in Federal Tax Dollars than they pay in. No longer will rich liberal citis have to pay for the bad choices of rural WWC.
ReplyDeleteNow that's just unfair. The big blue states with their stupid big cities should be required to pay tribute to Real America.
ReplyDeleteIt's only fair because they hate America so much.
Yes, I can see the appeal of being a poultry smasher. It's so liberating not having to worry about matching up anything I say with the universe of reality.