The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Ah, irony!

    By Flavius on Fri, 11/18/2016 - 11:38pm |

    that woman spending........years locking up the Establishment's support and it  turns out that the electorate doesn't   trust the establishment

     

     

    Don't know.The combination of  the Establishment and the electorate gave "that woman"  a  healthy popular vote margin of more than 2 million. (Or will do once the missing 20% of California finally appears.)

    That ain't chump change. It's  2 1/2 million more than W's margin over Gore (i.e W lost by half a million). About equal to :Truman over Dewey , W.Wilson over TR.; and  Carter over Ford . And 1.8 million more than JFK's defeat of Tricky Dick

    It was one thing  16 years ago to dismiss Bush v Gore as a rare example of an electoral college/ Supreme's  "decision" conflicting with reality. Particularly  since the  other  electoral college vs the people cases are lost in the  mists of the 19th century.  Who knows?  May have made sense: Rutherford Hayes ? Benjamin Harrison?

    One could argue,instead ,without irony,  that Hillary's ( thwarted) win was a comforting example of the combined  wisdom of the electorate and Establishment sensibly rejecting the clearly worst choice. Except that  a funny thing happened on the way to the electoral college.

    Sure, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

    It's broke. The electoral college.

    Is this  supposed to be the example of  the shining city on the hill?  A beacon ,if not to the rest of the world, at least to all new countries?  

    Some example! Some beacon!

    Obviously It's nobody's  top concern  on the day that a clearly unrepentant  segregationist has been announced as the  next guardian of voting rights.And the CIA has been told to damp down the water boards.

     But people. We're not a stupid country and the Electoral college is an anachronistic, failed,  stupid solution to some  1788 horse trading.  

    "In the name of  God, Go!" 

    If nothing else that should be a plank in the 2020 Convention. If we're allowed to have one.

    Comments

    Constitutional amendments required the support of two-thirds of the House and Senate, as well as three-fourths of state legislatures.

    So the democratic party managed to lose to an unqualified scandal-ridden sociopathic leader of an extremist white nationalist movement, and is now weaker on both the national and state level. And now you people are saying the strategy we are supposed to coalesce around is to hate on that all-powerful lower east side ping pong hall impressario Susan Sarandon harder, and try to convince this new expanded extremist white national movement to kindly change the electoral system in favor of the democrats. 

    Very promising. 


    by Obey on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 6:26am

    I don't think you get the urgency of the situation. Unless the democrats pick up their game at state level very fast, the party is finished. Redistricting is coming up after the 2020 election and unless the democrats can win back some state houses it will take not a 60% but 70% vote majority landslide to retake Congress. 


    by Obey on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 6:02am

    Still don't understand the big focus on electoral votes.

    California has 12.2%, Texas 8.5%, Florida 6.3%, New York 6.2%, Illinois 4%, PA 4%, Ohio 3.6%, Georgia 3.2%, North Carolina 3.1%, Michigan 3.1%.  The top 10 states have 53.2% of the population. 5 of them were this year's battleground states. We lost all 5 of the battleground states.

    If Trump had campaigned more in Illinois, New York & California under a popular vote election, he may have picked up enough to ignore Michigan.

    As important is whether the GOP can disenfranchise voters in the Midwest as much as the south. Can they get the FBI to mangle the vote.  ETc.


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 6:56am

    Practically,sure , the electoral  college could be dismissed as  a  King Charles' Head. 

    But  it demeans this country. And I'm enough of a "patriot"/ "chauvinist" (take your pick) to be annoyed by that,

     Sensible countries don't  tolerate  anachronisms which  significantly distort current life.

    We don't burn witches any more. Even though that might have been the Founding Fathers'

    "original intention."

     


    by Flavius on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 11:23pm