I just read in the WSJ that “Mr. Trump won the election with only 46% of the vote, leaving more than half the nation to come to terms with his victory in the electoral college.”
This meme continues to be tiring on many levels, not the least of which being that the popular vote doesn’t elect presidents, and that’s how we’ve done things since the Constitution was ratified. It’s not my fault that more than half the nation is deficient in their knowledge of American Civics. (It’s probably the fault of the teachers’ unions and local boards of education, actually. But I digress.)
So, let’s look at the facts. Only 58% of the electorate bothered to show up on Election Day and cast a ballot. 42% sat home on their dead asses, or otherwise avoided the voting booth. But there is no way to know how many of them have come to terms with Mr. Trump’s election and are accepting of him as president, at least partly because the polls are based on false assumptions regarding the electorate (see below). Indeed, one might quite plausibly make the assumption that the 42% who didn’t vote would have been happy (or at least non-caring) either way — and that’s a reasonable assumption, this election cycle.
If you take the 42% who didn’t vote at all, and the 46% of those who did who voted for Trump, you get about 161,786,941 votes vs. 73,779,367 who voted for Hillary or other candidates. Huh. That’s a Trump landslide.
What? You didn’t vote and you don’t like me calling you wishy-washy, and therefore a Trump supporter by default? Or you voted for Hillary and still think she should have won because reasons? Or you just think I’m full of shit?
OK, sure, you got me. My methodology is just as valid as the methodology of the professional pollsters who had this race safely in Hillary’s pocket until 2AM November 9, 2016 (the same professional pollsters who now claim that a majority of the nation supports the ACA, given that the GOP is in a position now to deep-six it). In other words, it’s bullshit, but it’s useful bullshit. The fact is that neither side was able to convince nearly 99 million eligible voters to show up at the polls or even to cast an absentee ballot. Those 99 million non-votes could have resulted in a landslide either way, so since Trump won, I’m assigning them to him on the assumption that those 99 million people either don’t care at all or are perfectly (or even cautiously) happy with the way the election turned out.*
The bottom line is that continuing to snark about Trump losing the popular vote and bemoaning the Constitutional system that establishes the Electoral College as the way we elect presidents in our Federal system is completely non-productive, makes the left sound like a bunch of fools, and angers people who support the Constitution and the rule of law.
But sure, keep up the moaning and groaning, the posting of snarky anti-Trump memes, and most especially, PLEASE keep up the violent protesting, including blocking freeways and city streets, smashing up and setting fire to cafes and bank offices, and ambushing and shooting cops for no good reason.**
You want more Trump? Because that’s how you get more Trump. Every time a protester howls, or a brick flies through a window, or a cop gets shot, a new Trump supporter gets its wings.
Choose the form of your Destructor, indeed.
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* If you didn’t vote and that doesn’t describe you, gee, maybe you should vote next time.
** You do understand sarcasm, right? Because that entire paragraph was sarcasm.