You Can Love America and Think the President is a Dangerous Idiot

Today I am going to do something a little different.

I have been talking a lot about basketball, movies and music lately, but I want to do something a bit more timely, and political. I know that I have said that I don't like to talk politics. It makes me angry, I get all red faced and I tend to rant. But, the most recent remarks from that moron that sits in the White House right now have really made me disgusted, angered and scared for the future of this country. It has also made me take a hard look at the young voters, and people my age that may not have voted in the last election, or voted for the buffoon in office because they "didn't like" Hilary Clinton. And, before I get into the meat of my piece, you all know how liberal I am, and I consider myself a firm Democrat. Keep that in mind as you read.

The thing I want to talk about today, which was given to me by my father as we went out for our weekly cup of coffee, was how much the parties, and voting, has changed since I was eligible to vote way, way back in 2000. In 2000 I was about to become a senior in high school, and Bill Clinton was sitting in office. I lived in a household that has 2 liberal parents, and all my brothers were liberal Democrats as well. I knew, or heard, that Bill Clinton had done a fine job, save for the Monica Lewinsky stuff. He helped the country get into the green. We were doing okay. There were no wars. The economy seemed fine. Everyone seemed happy, or at least okay. I'm sure some parents of friends of mine didn't like Clinton because of the Lewinsky stuff but, as far s a nation, they really had nothing to complain about.

When I became 18, and legally able to vote, I did not know any better. I did know that I did not like George W Bush. He seemed ill fitted to take office. He was a silver spoon kid that didn't really have to work hard for much of anything. Everything was handed to him. I did like Al Gore. I mean, he was boring, very milquetoast and I think he assumed he was just next in line to president. I also didn't really know what he stood for. I was going to vote for him simply because he was the Democratic nominee, and I was, and still am, a Democrat. But then I read, and really got into, the third party candidate, Ralph Nader. This was simply based on the fact that he wanted to legalize marijuana, I am not a pot smoker by the way, and that he LOVED the NBA. He went as far as to write a letter to then commissioner David Stern about the injustice that the Kings faced in that ridiculous game 7 that the Lakers won, where they shot a million free throws. This swayed me. This made me think twice about who I wanted to vote for. And, like an idiot, I voted for Nader. I didn't realize at the time that voting for a third party candidate was essentially throwing your vote in the trash. I still regret it to this day. But, I figured all was good when Gore won the popular vote by over 500,000 votes.

This was my first time realizing that the popular vote didn't matter in the presidential election, it was all about the archaic electoral college. Bush somehow won this, and for the next 8 years, I grew more and more angry, and more and more liberal. I did not agree with anything Bush stood for. I am violently anti war. He started a war with Iraq because he felt like his daddy wanted him to. I do not think the rich should get richer and the poor should get poorer. All he cared about was his rich friends and rich donors. He was a horrendous public speaker, and his speeches that were broadcast embarrassed me to no end. He lost trillions of dollars while in office, basically erasing all the good Clinton had done. He famously fumbled the handling of September 11th. Everyone remembers the "Mission Accomplished" sign, right? His eight years in office, for me, were horrific, embarrassing and very, very rocky. It was near a nightmare.

Then in 2008 we had Barack Obama win the Democratic nomination. I was absolutely stoked by this. He was the first African American to win the nomination. He was eloquent. He was sharp looking. He gave me a feeling of comfort and enthusiasm Bush never gave me. I ran to the polls to vote for him. I could not have been more ecstatic. I was so ready for him to become president, and he crushed his way into the White House. After his first year, things started to get back to normal again. We started pulling troops out of an unnecessary war. We were making money as a country again. His people got Bin Laden. When he spoke, I stopped what I was doing so I could listen. He took a terrible situation from Bush and made it so much better. Sure, people have their problems with him, but the country was good. We were good as a nation. No one seemed to worried about war, debt or any other thing that could go wrong. We were in safe hands. I was even more stoked when he won reelection in 2012, but that seemed like a foregone conclusion. He exceeded every expectation, and became, in my opinion, the greatest president ever. He is also cool as hell, and in this day, that is important. Obama would show up to basketball games, he listened to hip hop, he was happily married with 2 great kids and a dog, he had a court out in at the White House, he would do podcasts. He understood the young generation of voters, and spoke to them. He is, without a doubt, the best representation of a Democrat that I have ever seen. I show pictures of him to my kids and sing his praises. I want them to know what a real president looks and acts like. I was in heaven for the 8 years he was in office.

Then November of 2016 came around.

Look, I was sure that Hilary Clinton was going to be president. So much so that I showed her to my kids and said "there is the first female president" about a month before the vote. She crushed in all the debates. She is a real politician. She is a genius. She knows how to handle herself, and she isn't a complete goon and doofus. Then something very weird happened on election night. She wasn't crushing the way I expected. She was killing it in the popular vote, but for some reason, that damn electoral college thing kept popping up against her. I was playing basketball that night, and I kept checking my phone and saying, "no, no, no, this cannot be happening". And then it was announced that the dickhead that lives in the White House now, was going to win. I was stunned, dismayed and terrified all at once. I went on for days afterward telling myself to wake up from this nightmare. Either I'm still asleep, or what is happening right now is real life. I wish I were asleep, but every time I pinch myself, or tell myself to wake up, I feel it and I am awake. These past three years have been nothing short of an absolute train wreck. I wake up everyday to something new that makes me even more terrified. I simply cannot believe what I am seeing, hearing and reading. It just gets worse and worse and worse.

It all really came to a head a few days ago when that dipshit was holding yet another rally, and his mouth breathing supporters started to chant "send her back" about Representative Ilhan Omar. Representative Omar is from Minnesota. She migrated to this country legally in 2000. She is more American than any person that was at that Klan rally the other night, Yet, when he is asked about it, he says he told them to stop. No he didn't. When other Republicans are asked about it, they skirt the question. When reporters at Fox News are asked about it, they make up excuses.

This is frightening. This is not the Republican party anymore. Sure, I very much disagreed with Bush, but he never put human beings in cages. He never put babies in cages. He never slept with multiple prostitutes. His wife wasn't a prisoner who only cares about money. His kids weren't all over the TV spewing racist rhetoric. His kids weren't involved in Ponzi schemes. He didn't, at least publicly, say racist homophobic and xenophobic things. He never said to "grab them by the pussy" when talking about ladies. And you better believe that Barack Obama never did any of this stuff. He was, and still is, all class.

Since the jackass that is currently in office has been there, not a day goes by that I am not afraid, embarrassed and want to shy away from being an American. We, as Americans, have become a joke and looked upon as idiots because of the current "government". I don't think this is what the Republican party had in mind when they nominated this idiot. But, they will not say a bad word about him, and even worse, they are now defending him. History books will remember everyone involved with this as horrible, horrible monsters. My kids will read about this in history books, and it will look to them like Nazi Germany looks to me.

What scares me most is my generation, and the generation younger than us. My generation has a few groups. You have the super liberals like myself, the "Bernie Bros" and angry people that will not admit they are racist, even though they clearly are if they support this current regime. The problem there is, the angry people go out and vote. Super liberals do too, but it is the "Bernie Bros" that decided to sit out the last election, and are now thinking about doing the same in 2020. Please, if you don't want to be afraid for the next 4 years, do not sit out the next election. Your vote matters. The generation younger than me is filled with rich white kids that think what has been going on for three years is funny, and that it won't affect them. Believe me, it will, and it will hurt bad. You will not always have mom and dad's money. You will have to work for something one day, and then, when you may be in a bind, this won't be as funny as it is to you now. When you can't find work, and the bills pile up, you may get desperate. And you know who won't be there for you, the current "government".

The current state of American politics sickens me and makes me sad. Also, if you can look at what is going on right now, and think it is okay, even if you are family, do not speak to me about anything political or racial. You are clearly a closeted racist, and you have no heart. This country has become a shell of itself since I was able to vote back in 2000. In 2020 we can change that and get back to where we were from 2008 to 2016, when Obama made me as proud as I have ever been to be an American. Now lets go out and make our voices heard, and show these bullies that we don't work for them, they work for us, and we want change.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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Let's Talk about the Electoral College

You have probably seen this map.

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/2012-election-county-by-county/

For those who do not know, this a map of every county in the United States and how they voted in the 2012 Presidential Election. The red portions are for Republican Mitt Romney, and the blue are for Democrat Barack Obama. We do not have a very good map to reflect the 2016 election, but it will look very similar to the one above. When presented with this map, the initial reaction is to think that most of the United States voted for Mitt Romney. Unless you live under rock, we all know Barack Obama won the 2012 Presidential Election. The incumbent beat Romney in the popular vote 51.1% to 47.2%, a margin of five million votes. Obama also handily won the Electoral College vote 332 to 206. President Obama even carried all of the electoral votes from Nevada, Oregon, and Washington even if this map looks like all those states went strong for Romney. 

The fact is that the county election map is useless. Many pundits will use this visual as an argument for America being a center right country. In 2004, the county election map was used by strategists in the George W Bush administration to show the media that the newly reelected President had a mandate from most of America. Never mind that Bush won with just over 50% of the popular vote, the county map showed over two thirds of the nation was all in on the President. The county election map is nothing but a propaganda tool to try and fool the masses. It works every single time.

How do we break the spell of the county electoral map? Here is another way to look at the popular vote map from the 2012 election.

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/2012-Electoral-Map-Population-Adjusted1-570x305.png

This map comes from University Michigan professor Mark Newman. The map distorts the states to show how valuable they are based on the population. Yes it does only show the states as a whole and not broken down into counties. If we could distort the map to show the population numbers of the counties, most of the red at the top map would completely disappear. The blue area would be way more dominant, and even look as big in red states like Arizona. Compared to the traditional ways we are presented with an electoral map in Presidential elections, Professor Newman actually has the one that comes closest to truly reflecting the support Barack Obama had in his reelection bid. That is the map the media should be using.

The recent election of Donald Trump has upset a lot of people. The opposition to Trump points out that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, and therefore a larger portion of Americans would prefer her as President. The supporters of Trump point to the non-disputed fact that their candidate won over the requisite amount of states to put Trump over the 270 needed Electoral College votes. Both sides are correct, but the rules state that the winner of the Electoral College gets to be President. That winner is Donald J Trump. That is not up for debate.

Similar to our recent situation, the 2000 election between Bush and Democrat Al Gore ended with the Electoral College loser having the most popular votes. After the election, Democrats were claiming that the Electoral College should be eliminated. Nothing ever happened, the Democrats gave up pretty quick. Now for the second time in five elections, the Democratic candidate gained more popular votes, and lost the Presidency. Renewed cries to eliminate the Electoral College have started. California Senator Barbara Boxer has floated the idea of putting forth legislation to do away with the system. Why should people care this time, if the Democratic Party gave up the fight 16 years ago?

What is the purpose Electoral College?

To understand why the Electoral College should be eliminated, we need to know why it exists. Vox.com writer Sean Illing says it was created to protect slave states, and he is probably right. Founding Father, and current Broadway darling, Alexander Hamilton said we need the electoral college so “that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.”(Federalist #68). James Madison was afraid that a dangerous, passionate, faction could elect a bad person. Has the Electoral College stopped any of these things from happening? The idea the founders were trying to put forward is that the President of the United States needed to be an honorable, qualified, and politically professional person. The President should not be elected by current whims of an angry population.

The true nature of the Electoral College does not exist today. The founders intent has been lost because all states, except Maine and Nebraska, allocate all their electors to whoever wins a plurality of the vote. Twenty six states, and the District of Columbia, make it against the law for the electors to vote against the will of the plurality. The Electoral College has been altered so much, that it does not even act as intended. That alone should call for its dismissal.

In our current political climate. many people defend the Electoral College as a method that allow all American interests to be represented. The single rural farmer should have as much say as the large concentration of similar thinking urban dwellers. Without the Electoral College, the Presidential candidates would only focus on the big cities. These are the people who use the county electoral map as a true snapshot of America. Unfortunately these ideas are incredible wrong and dangerously naive.

The Electoral College is a system set up to fail it's true intent. In fact, it has failed the country four times, twice in the last sixteen years. The uneven representation of small states has thwarted the progress of the United States since the founding. Slavery went on because of this uneven representation. States wage economic warfare on each other because blue states like New York and California pay for the economic disasters in Kansas and Louisiana. Places like Puerto Rico have a 0% chance to be admitted as a state because Republicans fear it would give the Democrats more representation, and more electoral votes. The Electoral College system rewards small state fear, and incompetence. Does that represent a bright shining city on a hill? The real failure of the Electoral College lies in the idea of population disbursement.

As directed by the US Constitution, each state gets an Electoral College vote for each member of Congress. Every state has two Senators, and then any number of Representatives based on population. The highest number of Electoral College votes currently is California with fifty-five, the lowest electoral votes is three shared by a number of states plus the District of Columbia. Right now, a Presidential candidate could win the requisite 270 votes with just 11 states, leaving almost 80% of the states without any real representation in the White House. But what if we had a large concentration of the population in only one state? Would the rural folks have any hope?

The Super State Experiment

Lets do a little experiment where we take the Electoral College to its terrifying final form. In order to make this experiment easy, we have assumed the US voting population is close to the same as the current actual population (approximately 300 million). New laws were passed to allocate votes based on the voting population, not the total. In order to win the electoral vote, a candidate still needs 270 votes. And last, poor Washington DC will be left out, their three votes gets absorbed into the experiment's ether. We will tax the good people of DC, but you still get no representation.

To see how the Electoral College is a farce, we need to imagine a Super State. This Super State would have over 99% of the United States population. Let's imagine that a wonderful thing was discovered in this state, and every American citizen would have to move there for economic survival. Because we are creatures of habit, the United States keeps the other forty-nine states. We do not want to change the flag. The other non-Super States would keep three people living in their borders, a Representative and two Senators. And then let's say that the Electoral map looked like this after the election.

I choose Missouri because the map looks cooler. Boy is it going to be crowded in the Show Me State.

Beautiful blue Missouri has 391 Electoral Votes, more than enough to elect the President. Who in their right mind would argue that the winner of the Super State should not be President? Yet people still argue that this map is valid:

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/2012-election-county-by-county/

The blue portions on the county map account for over 50% of the current US population. Not like Super Missouri, but more than enough to gauge the will of the American voter. The county map is filled with false ideals. For example, a candidate can win the state of Ohio by taking just eight of its eighty eight counties. Why are there no thought pieces about the under representation of the other eighty counties? Because it would be ridiculous. 

Lets look at how big the Super State of Missouri has to be so it does not control every election. If the other 49 states have six electoral votes each, then Super Missouri would have a paltry 244 votes. Having six electoral votes means that each small state would account for 9% of the population of the country. Our mythical 49 states with six electoral votes would then in total make up 46% of the population. Super Missouri would have 54% of the population, and their unanimous voice could not elect the President. A true tyranny of the minority.

Here is where the Electoral College really shows its failings. It is not logical to think that every single person in Super Missouri would vote for one candidate. It is conceivable to think that the Presidential candidates would only campaign in the Super State and try to sway a majority of its dense population.. If Missouri holds 99% of population, then it is a race to the plurality, but what if Super Missouri was just barely big enough to sway any election? 

For this to happen, the other 49 states need to have five electoral votes each. That means the states that are not Super Missouri would have approximately two million residents each. Collectively, the non-super 49 would be just under one third of the population. That means in a two party race, a Presidential candidate could win the election by taking just over half of Super Missouri. In every election, the President-elect would only need one third of the nation to vote for them. In a race with multiple fringe party candidates, the victor would need much less than one third of Americans supporting their candidacy. With 100% voter turnout, less than one in every three voters would determine who would lead the nation for four years. The Electoral College deems this fair. 

What Damage has the Electoral College Done?

Every four years people defend the Electoral College as a system that stops the majority from imposing it's will on the entire country. The demagogues come from the political fringes, the philosophical minority. The majority has to be more centered to attract more voters. By embracing the Electoral College, we enable the growth of fringe movements. The modern political campaigns are not contested in big states like New York, California, Illinois, and Texas. Theses states are some of the biggest economic powers on the planet, and they have little influence in who the President will be. States like Ohio and North Carolina have a deeply divided electorate. They get the lions share of attention in a political campaign. In fact, both the Clinton and Trump campaigns spent almost 90% of their time in just four states at the end of the 2016 election. In an era where the Republican party will run 147 people for President, an unqualified wanna be despot can take the largest minority of votes in a primary and become the de facto choice A or B in the Presidential election. Once that person gets to the final round, they only need to get the right number of states, and not the will of the people, to be the President of the United States. The Electoral College defends the will of a partisan minority over the wishes of a balanced majority.

The Electoral College was an idea born of fear and inhumanity. It is a system being propped up by a political minority who will die without it. The defenders of the system claim it is more representative of the nation as a whole, and they are wrong. A modern America has been held back because of this terrible 18th century idea. It is time to understand the true failures of how we elect the President of the United States. It is doubtful that any real action will happen in our lifetimes, but with our little experiment, maybe more people will become enlightened. America has discarded other bad ideas from her past, maybe the Electoral College will be the next one to join the ash heap of history. We can only hope for that change.

Thanks to outsidethebeltway.com for their maps and crazy awesome knowledge.

RD

RD Kulik is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. Are you one of the five people who live in a three Electoral Vote state? Tell us why you need unequal representation by writing for SeedSing. 

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing