The history of how certain states were created is also quite fascinating.
In the end, Mr. Trump won for a simple reason: The Electoral College’s (largely) winner-take-all design gives a lot of weight to battleground states. Mr. Trump had an advantage in the traditional battlegrounds because most are whiter and less educated than the country as a whole.
(As I said in my blog post about the history of the Electoral college, what it does is create swing states). It’s the Electoral College’s most straightforward bias: The battleground states count the most. In the end, Trump won the battleground states by just a one-point margin — but claimed three-fourths of their Electoral College votes. He won four of the five closest states, winning 75 of 79 votes at stake. There has never been a close election in the United States in which one candidate has claimed such a resounding electoral vote margin out of the closest states.
The 2016 National Vote Tracker is here. Hillary Clinton received nearly 3 million more popular votes than Trump with about a 2.1% overall vote lead. You can also see the vote numbers of swing state vs non-swing states. As stated in my previous blog post, at what point will the American people be fed up with this travesty (aka The Electoral college) which is an anachronism of the past.
It only makes it worse that Trump claims that "millions" voted illegally. There is absolutely no evidence of voter fraud. Not only does this "disenfranchise" those who voted for his opponents but all of this is to distract people from all of Trump's potential conflicts of interest. It's not exactly the way to "bring everyone together". He is a minority president with no mandate for any change.
After the last 8 years of the "Zero Sum Game" were going to spend the next 4 years under the same situation. The "zero sum game", in brief, is "You Win means I lose". It was the way the Roman Republic was managed. Each year they elected two consuls. They were afraid of too much power in one person's hands. So one consul could never let the other succeed and get credit for his accomplishments. The Republic ended when Julius Caesar got tired of that game and became the Emperor of Rome.
That got me thinking about whether our democracy is in danger? Then I found this interesting column (Is Trump a threat to democracy), that poses the same question.
Obviously the period of time leading to, and including the civil war, nearly was the cause of the complete breakup of the United States. We barely survived that but at a great price which we are still paying today.
What are the warning signs today, if any?
The first is that nearly half of the eligible voting population did not vote. Basically, the polls have shown that they have no faith in the system. The outstanding question, as it relates to the Electoral College System, is how long can the will of the voters be thwarted before there is a real revolution? If "One person, One Vote" is good enough for all state and local elections then why not for President?
Some other warning signs mentioned in the column:
- The ascent of anti-democratic politicians into mainstream politics.
- An even more basic norm under threat today is the idea of legitimate opposition.
"It is less clear, however, how democracy would fare in a crisis. In the event of a war, a major terrorist attack or large-scale riots or protests — all of which are entirely possible — a president with authoritarian tendencies and institutions that have come unmoored could pose a serious threat to American democracy."
These are the same questions I posed in my recent post about how effective Trump will be at governing especially and being able to rally the country around his leadership in times of crisis.
Hope and Prayers that somehow we can survive the next four years with a true demagogue as President.
