Clinton’s lead now more than a million votes UPDATED
As I explained last week, Donald Trump was elected to the Presidency despite having fewer votes than Hillary Clinton. She has already set a record for the biggest popular vote victory despite losing the Electoral College; according to CNN, she now (11/17/16 5:00am EST) leads by about 1,045,000 votes, roughly twice the margin of Al Gore’s victory over George W. Bush in 2000. This equates to 0.8% of the popular vote.
Moreover, Clinton’s lead will only increase in the coming days. The CNN infographic cited above shows that only 78% of California’s votes (where Clinton leads by roughly 3 million votes) have so far been counted. Her raw vote margin will continue to climb there until the votes are all counted.
People have raised two primary arguments against my position that having the Electoral Vote trump the popular vote is undemocratic. The first takes the view that Trump won under the rules as they are: If the popular vote were determinative, he would have campaigned more in California, New York, Texas, and other population centers, and, in his mind at least, he would have recorded an even bigger victory. The problem for this claim, as Josh Marshall has pointed out, is that Clinton would have also campaigned more in those states. Increasing voter turnout usually improves Democratic electoral fortunes, so electing the President by popular vote means that Democratic margins would increase, not decrease.
The second argument claims that focusing on the Electoral College as the reason for Clinton’s loss lets her off the hook for her weaknesses as a candidate and a campaigner. And there is no doubt that she had her weaknesses. The problem with this view is that the existence of the Electoral College is a necessary condition for her to have lost. None of her campaign’s other problems would have led her to lose the election if the Electoral College did not overweight the Wyomings of this country relative to the Californias. This structural disadvantage that populous states face is one of the biggest threats to democracy in America. And we’ve got to do something about it, soon.
Update: It’s now over 1.5 million, according to CNN. California still only has 83% tallied. Some sources have Clinton’s lead over 2 million now. Something is seriously wrong with this picture.
Cross-posted from Middle Class Political Economist.
Correction: Clinton’s lead is now over TWO million. 64,228,278 for Clinton and 62,214,771 for Trump.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/133Eb4qQmOxNvtesw2hdVns073R68EZx4SfCnP4IGQf8/htmlview?usp=sharing&sle=true
As I tried to explain in early posts on white supremacy as a political doctrine, the characteristics of the winner-take-all electoral college also impacts what issues the campaigns focus on. The racist dog whistling and not-so-dog whistling that occurs in the presidential campaigns is only strategically effective because the winner-take-all electoral college puts its thumb on the scales in favor of a racial majority if party preferences diverge based on race. This “secret” has been the basis of the GOP southern strategy for half a century now.
Which requires some gerrymandering to occur? So is the issue the EC or gerrymandering?
Clinton’s lead in CA is something like 2.5 million votes and there was no Republican on the ballot for senator. From a federal election perspective, CA Republicans had very little reason to come out to the polls. And Schumer won an uncompetitive race in NY by over 50 points, so ditto for NY.
The other argument for the EC that you failed to mention is that it forces candidates to develop a broad geographic appeal.
It’s funny to keep reading about all this racist dog whistling that apparently is so invisible that only white supremacists (KKK membership is in the single-digit thousands – so clearly a very specific demographic to be focusing on to drive national election results), liberal pundits, or people with strongly liberal persuasions can recognize it. Also funny that despite all the dog whistling the President-elect had higher shares of minority votes than the less profound dog whistling (but he was still compared with Hitler) his party’s predecessor was accused of.
I look forward to further readings on why the teams that make the baseball playoffs based on best record each year is unfair. Cumulative total run differential is a purer way of measuring team performance (and a Sabermetrician favorite) rather than parceled off into these inconvenient and anachronistic 162 independent games.
Jed:
The EC has been mentioned. Indeed 6th District COA Judge Posner does a nice review of the EC process (Slate) and why it exists and the benefits of it. I printed Posner’s review on Ken Thomas’s last post if you care to look at it. I know of no poll existing which can accurately decipher who is a bigot or a racist which makes it near to impossible to accurately measure such tendencies. I would guess an exist poll asking the question would be met with the correct answer so as not to be labeled a bigot or racist. You do not have to be of liberal persuasion to answer the question correctly. Funny I read Trump won with the lowest minority vote in decades.
“Donald Trump won the U.S. presidency with less support from black and Hispanic voters than any president in at least 40 years, a Reuters review of polling data shows, highlighting deep national divisions that have fueled incidents of racial and political confrontation.
Trump was elected with 8 percent of the black vote, 28 percent of the Hispanic vote and 27 percent of the Asian-American vote, according to the Reuters/Ipsos Election Day poll.
Among black voters, his showing was comparable to the 9 percent captured by George W. Bush in 2000 and Ronald Reagan in 1984. But Bush and Reagan both did far better with Hispanic voters, capturing 35 percent and 34 percent, respectively, according to exit polling data compiled by the non-partisan Roper Center for Public Opinion Research.” http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-polarization-analysis-idUSKBN13I10B?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews
So what is your point again?
“It’s funny to keep reading about all this racist dog whistling…”
The point about the metaphor “dog whistle” is not that no one but racists can hear it but that it involves emphasizing issues that provide “plausible deniability.” It is not racist to be against welfare cheating. The dog whistle element comes from insinuating that black people or immigrants are welfare cheats.
look, i am very very sorry that Trump won. but i don’t think much of “we lost so lets change the rules” thinking.
democracy is safer with the Electoral college than without it. Change the electoral college system, and the politicians will focus on bringing out the “city” vote… not necessarily a good thing, or won’t be then.
might be better if the Dems focused on doing something (visible) for the small states, as well as working year round to change their minds about some things.
if it isn’t too late.
kind of agree.
“Which requires some gerrymandering to occur? So is the issue the EC or gerrymandering?” Run
A combination of the two I would suggest. Also, given all the pre -election screaming about the likelihood of a “crooked” election process and result I’m a bit perplexed as to the sudden silence in regards to that topic. What do we know? Republican Governors and allied Republican apparatus control the elections in more than 30 state wide elections for the Presidency. The last time that a Democrat had more total votes and less Electoral College votes, Gore v. Bush, what went on in Florida was so crooked, including the Supreme Court’s input, that one might characterize the outcome as a bloodless coup. Republicans are far more eager to twist and bend election rules more recently than at that time.
So go on discussing the “election” of Donald Trump to the Presidency if you like, but we’ve been scammed in some way. Trump and his minions may not have played a role, but we have been scammed none the less. And no one wants to look more closely at the votes? Peculiar, isn’t it?
Princeton Election Consortium does a nice review of swing states which are gerrymandered. It is worthy of more attention than a drive-by comment. Since 1990 Michigan Repubs have been able to redistrict the state every 10 years giving them the edge in district voting and thereby sending more Reps to the House than what should occur. The state has voted Democratic in national elections since 1992. Even now it is almost even and I suspect it will flop back in 2020. The key to gerrymandering is who controls the legislature.
The EC does not do anything other than follow the vote of the people in all states except for two. It could be changed and apportionment could occur; but changing to something completely different, I believe is not a good choice when the Repubs control everything. States can do apportionment.
Run,
Your source conveniently omitted any direct comparisons to 2012 and didn’t mention Romney in the text, but here are 4 sources affirming my statement:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/11/11/trump-got-more-votes-from-people-of-color-than-romney-did-heres-the-data/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/aviksaroy/2016/11/19/man-bites-dog-trump-did-better-with-minorities-than-mitt-romney-did-in-2012/#21c836ca3b8b
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/behind-trumps-victory-divisions-by-race-gender-education/
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2016-election-day/trump-did-better-blacks-hispanics-romney-12-exit-polls-n681386
Jed:
You are as usual full of crap. Screw your sources as Trump would say.
What, coberly, city people deserve less weight given to their votes than the “real American” country folk so beloved by Sarah Palin? I’d love to see the logic for that.
urban
surely there are other possibilities you have not considered. perhaps i only share the Founders’ belief in a balance of powers.
Wisconsin is looking shifty as well, out of the “3” Clinton lost, that one had some smell to it. Makes me wonder if the Trump Cabal is going to throw more Koch “lackeys” under the table in coming weeks.
Run, not exactly sure what your point is. The Reuters article was referencing Republican winners, not Republican candidates. While Reuters headline is accurate, it isn’t relevant in reference to Romney. I said nothing about Trump relative to Bush (1 or 2) or Reagan. In using that as a citation to disprove me, either you were misled by their headline or your were trying to mislead.
From the Roper Center at Cornell:
http://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls/us-elections/how-groups-voted/how-groups-voted-2012/
In 2012, Romney took 6% of African-American vote, 27% of Hispanic vote and 26% of Asian vote.
From the Reuters article, “Trump was elected with 8 percent of the black vote, 28 percent of the Hispanic vote and 27 percent of the Asian-American vote, according to the Reuters/Ipsos Election Day poll.”
Coberly, could you be more explicit on what “other possibilities” should be considered? This country is becoming more and more urban, so the folks there should should have more and more of a say in who the President is, IMO.
Ken Thomas
maybe my 5:44 comment?
founders had some reason to fear “pure democracy” so they designed checks and balances, one of which was the Electoral College, idea being to bring some balance between states with large populations and states with small populations, i suppose on the idea that states represented some interests per se, and these different interests need to have “fair” representation not limited to head count.
i think they were right, even though i don’t like the outcome of this election. i can’t argue with you if you believe that ten city people are worth more than one country person, but i am not sure the united states would ever even have been founded it the electoral compromise had not been made.
one reason i would stick with it, is that the next time around, “your” candidate will lose because of some third party spoiler and you will want to do away with third parties.
there is something profoundly unnerving to me about people who look around for “why they lost” and see some “obvious” reason and want to fix it. though the “obvious” reason may have nothing to do with the “real” reason… such as the democrats have been failing to make their case with those rural people, or third party people.
maybe… if the republicans have not destroyed the country, or the planet, or the possibility of fair elections two or four years from now, the democrats will take the trouble to try to represent the people instead of the banks.
maybe more simply:
it seems to me preposterous to argue that “the country is becoming more urban so the folks there should have more say in who the president is.”
first, they do have more say: there are more of them.
but without something like the electoral college, the “city folks” would determine , by their numbers, the result of every elections.
city people who have no idea what the problems of country people are.
as reasoning it is no better than “people who have the most money pay the most taxes so they should “have more say in who the president is.”
I’m ecstatic to see that Jill Stein has raised enough money to file for recounts in WI, MI and PA:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/jill-stein-prepares-to-request-election-recounts-in-battleground-states/ar-AAkG049?OCID=ansmsnnews11
I’m assuming that also means there will be recount in the WI and PA Senate races, although I have no idea whether I’m right about that..
Coberly – as you know, the “balance” concocted in the Constitutional Convention was a device to allow the separate, independent states to swallow their pride and join – more or less – in a single nation. There was no philosophical basis for it; it was just a matter of log-rolling. The Constitution wouldn’t have been ratified without that log-rolling, but there is no reason to enshrine the log-rolling forever,
Many of us prefer to have governments representative of people, rather than governments representative of acreage, or sheaves of corn, or cattle. If the “problems of country people” wouldn’t be given as much priority under those circumstances, well, there are lots of other minority special interests whose problems aren’t prioritized today.
Dale, there are several things you aren’t considering, and they’re all important. One is your claim that it is only rural and small-town voters whose interests in having their voice heard matters, and in fact that it is only rural and small-town voters in rural and small states whose interests in having their voice heard matters.
Actually, under the current system, many, many millions of voters have no voice at all in the general election for president, because they are “blue” voters in overwhelmingly red states, or red voters in overwhelmingly blue ones.
There are rural and small-town red voters in NY, CA, IL, WA, and OR, for example, and blue voters in AL, AK, OK, MS, WY, NS, SD, SC, NE, KS and ID, for example, who knew from the outset that they needn’t vote. Undoubtedly, many didn’t.
Another is that most of the rural and small-town states are losing population dramatically, and that probably will escalate as their already largely older population dies off is not replaced in substantial numbers. There is a point ate which this country will cease being a democracy in its elections for president, if the losing candidate has ever greater winning popular-vote margins. We’re perilously close to that in this election; actually, I’d say we’re there in this election, given what probably will be a popular-vote win of about 2.5 million votes for Clinton.
Relatedly, you say you don’t think much of “we lost so lets change the rules” thinking—as if this is simply “we lost so lets change the rules” thinking. This is a system established more than two centuries ago, to address problems that it was feared could occur then—a problem that you misstate as an imbalance of powers. There was no concern about imbalance of powers—balance of powers being a term that normally refers to power structure within branches of a single government.
But the electoral college was not a response to fear of imbalance of powers in the way you mean it, either. The Senate was structured to equalize somewhat the power between small states and large ones, and between slave states and non-slave states, giving more weight per voter to voters in small states than in large ones. And the House was structured to equalize somewhat power between rural and city voters—until Baker v. Carr, the one-person-one-vote Supreme Court proportional-districting opinion.
The actual purpose of the Electoral College was as a defense against foreign or other dangerous influences in the election of the president. The electors are not bound to vote for their state’s popular-vote choice. In this election, and likely others to come, the Electoral College had the opposite of its intended effect, because it is so much easier for computer hackers to hack voting machines in a few counties in a few states that are expected to have a close outcome than to hack voting machines in many places around the country irrespective of state boundaries.
Why do you think that a critically flawed system shouldn’t be changed, just because it’s the victims of that system who are calling for change? That’s just silly.
There’s a critical difference between protections for minorities and a minority-elected federal government. The situation as it is now probably can’t continue much longer without resulting in major unrest across large swaths of this country.
LOOKS LIKE SOMEBODY’S REALLY GOING FOR A RE-COUNT — IN MY INBOX THIS MORNING:
Dear MoveOn member,
Something extraordinary is happening.
In just hours, more than 80,000 MoveOn members have joined with Democracy For America members and others across the country in calling for an audit or hand recount of election results in three states with razor-thin margins between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
Hillary Clinton is leading the national popular vote by more than 2 million votes—but the Electoral College could be decided by fewer than 100,000 votes spread across Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
It’s critical that voters have confidence in the outcomes in these states. But according to Wisconsin and Michigan state laws, only a presidential campaign can ask for a recount. And thus far, the Clinton campaign hasn’t taken that step—but Jill Stein, the Green Party’s presidential candidate, has.
To meet the deadlines for a full recount in three decisive states, the Stein campaign must raise $2.5 million by Friday at 4 p.m. Central Time. They’ve already raised more than $2 million in less than 24 hours.1But there’s still about $500,000 to go.
So here’s an unusual request—one I couldn’t imagine making before this moment:
Will you pitch in to the Jill Stein campaign’s election integrity fund BEFORE Friday’s deadline—and help trigger an election recount in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania?
Click here to chip in directly to this important effort to verify the election results in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
Beverly
actually I have been considering all those things.
Stein did it:
In less than 24 hours, Dr Stein raised $3.8 million (£3 million) online and has instructed lawyers to file for a recount in Wisconsin on Friday and Michigan and Pennsylvania next week.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/24/jill-stein-leads-charge-recounts-wisconsinmichigan-pennsylvania/
Trump won by about one percent each state. Maybe that’s what Stein took from him. ???
Less than 1% in Michigan or ~9,000 votes
DeLong wrote about how the “founding fathers” were impressed with the Roman republic and how it decomposed about 100 BCE.
They were also impressed, being classically educated with how Pericles and the demos destroyed Athens and the rest of the Greek states. In the Peloponnesian wars Athens went around like the US does in the world doing Hellenes because they could and the mob agreed!
The US remains a republic despite the federalization which commenced in 1861………..
Philosophically, I would rather not have a third of the checks and balances determined by soviets Cambridge and Berkley.
As to Jill Stein and recount based on political polls and the experts defending them, how much do the losers want to destroy trust in the processes?
“how much do the losers want to destroy trust in the processes?” ilsm
I would think that a recount in the states that had such close margins would actually enhance a sense of trust in the system that some how results in a win for a candidate that seemed like such an outlier. Trump may have won the hearts of many of his fellow Americans. On the other hand people with a severe anti Hillary inclination and the means to pull it off may have tweeked things just enough to give Donald an out sider’s victory. He did say that the system is rigged, didn’t he? He happened to be pointing his finger at the wrong perpetrators.
It is not that difficult to do and it would allay any conspiracy theories put forth by Trump to rest. He did call the system rigged. Lets kill the thought and move forward from there.
Kill the thought and move forward? It’s not the thought that may be to blame, but the deed instead. I’m not saying that there was a mishandling of the ballots or process, but if the margin is so slim and the Republicans were so certain of the intent to defraud the system, then a review of the results is certainly warranted. If only to allay any possible thoughts that we live in a fraudulent political atmosphere.
Note, still counting votes, and recounts planned. We’re weeks into this.
This is why we NEED the electoral college.
Without it, you’d have every county still counting.
Today’s main headline in the Washington Post is “Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say.” It’s at https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/2016/11/24/793903b6-8a40-4ca9-b712-716af66098fe_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_propaganda-8pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
While the immediate reaction is horror that election was effectively stolen by the head of a hostile foreign power, it is now critically important to ask what, exactly, Putin plans to use his soon-to-be-installed puppet to do. And what he plans to arrange as the personal payoff to the puppet.
It also likely determined control of the Senate.
If this isn’t an attack, an invasion, by a hostile foreign power, I don’t know what would be. This spade should be called a spade–loudly and emphatically.
I would like to see an intensified effort to persuade Republican electors to not vote for Trump, in light of this and because of the significant danger concerning Putin as fifth column and, relatedly, Trump’s massive international financial holdings, his meetings since the election with heads of state or ambassadors at which he attempted to literally do business, and his statements that there can be no such thing as a president having conflicts of interest.
The fear of this type of thing was exactly the reason for inclusion of the Electoral College in the Constitution. It has never been necessary to use it for that purpose—until now.
The attempt regarding Republican electors that I’ve heard about is that they along with Democratic electors would elect Romney or Kasich. One as president, the other as vice president, would suit me fine, under the circumstances.
A deed is once, a thought is infectious and difficult to eliminate.
Calling for revolution over someone you don’t like getting elected is worse than using the system to reign in their power and then throwing them out of office.
The time to call for revolution is if they won’t leave after two terms or losing an election.
I don’t like Trump, but I definitely agree with those who are sick and tired of the histrionics and wolf calling from both parties. Is Trump worse than Romney? Why did you say Romney was the worst them? Romney and Bush were, according to you, indistinguishable from Democrats by comparison with the brand new threat that we now face.
The threat is continuously undermining faith in the system.
The opportunity is out there, and Democrats and Republicans aren’t taking it.
We and the Russkies always try to influence each others’ elections. SOP. We worked hard to get Yeltsin elected (a genuine politician of historic proportions) — and a good thing. The Iranians got liberal, easy Carter thrown out (who had to do with throwing out the Shah if I remember right) and got Reagan elected — stupid move on their part.
There is a significant disconnect in calling out fake news as a deciding factor in this election and complaining about lesser educated voters voting for Trump (the latter less so here, but prevalent elsewhere), while at the same time supporting nixing the EC in favor of the popular vote.
As Posner points out in his defense of the EC, “Voters in toss-up states are more likely to pay close attention to the campaign—to really listen to the competing candidates—knowing that they are going to decide the election. They are likely to be the most thoughtful voters, on average (and for the further reason that they will have received the most information and attention from the candidates), and the most thoughtful voters should be the ones to decide the election.”
My assumption, which I admit may be biased, is that registered voters who choose not to vote are, on average, less informed than those that do vote (other factors include but aren’t limited to registration in safe states, voter suppression either explicit or implicit such as election day on a Tuesday, dislike of/disgust with the available options). If my assumption is at all accurate, changing to the popular vote would mean that on average the population of voters becomes less well informed or theoretically more susceptible to ‘fake news’ at the margin going forward, and in contrast to one of Posners’ arguments in favor of the EC.
The crooks lose the system must be crooked!
The Russian smear, the lying polls, all set to disparage the “system” which the crooked DNC could not skew……
Hedging!
Your assumption, which you admit may be biased, is that registered voters who choose not to vote are, on average, less informed than those that do vote?
Absolutely! All those voters who wen to the polls and who were fully informed about the fake facts in the fake news reports and believed them–including the most preposterous of those claims, are definitely geniuses.
Not sure when Posner wrote that, but it’s a safe bet that he did not have incessant fake news reports in mind.
Good grace. What a dumb claim. Did you vote? Or were you too uninformed to vote? You regularly sound pretty darn uninformed in your comments on this blog.
What’s wrong with undermining faith in a system that deserves no faith in it, for actual tangible reasons?
Good grace. What a dumb claim [that registered voters who choose not to vote are, on average, less informed than those that do vote.]
Indeed what a dumb claim. Below I’ve offered but a few examples in support of it.
Perhaps you could now offer some examples of where registered voters who choose not to vote (often called “nonvoters” for simplicity) are on average at least equally informed as voters with y’know real citations as opposed to your awesome sardonic wit drawing from your anecdotal experience which I’m clearly having a hard time keeping up with.
From 2006: ”They vote, but not always. Compared with Americans who regularly cast ballots, they are less engaged in politics. They are more likely to be bored with the political process and admit they often do not know enough about candidates to cast ballots.
Only 57% of Registered, but rare voters are interested in local politics versus 91% of Regular voters. 76% of RBR voters know little about the candidates compared with 44% of Regular voters, and 42% of RBR voters are bored by what goes on in DC compared with 25% of Regular voters.
http://www.people-press.org/2006/10/18/who-votes-who-doesnt-and-why/
From 2014: Most nonvoters (54%) have not attended college; 72% of likely voters have completed at least some college.. . .These demographic differences are not new; similar gaps were seen between the likely electorate and nonvoters in 2012 and 2010.
http://www.people-press.org/2014/10/31/the-party-of-nonvoters-2/
From 2001: A recent poll by Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism tried to explain what traits separate these nonvoters from voters. The poll suggests that nonvoters tend to be young, less educated and seem to harbor the view that their vote will not make a difference. . . . While it’s true that nonvoters as a group pay less attention to news about government and public affairs,, there are substantial subsections of nonvoters who are quite well-informed. [emphasis mine]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/liveonline/01/politics/freemedia_shearer032601.htm
From 2012 [pdf]: ”Nonvoters are far more likely than voters to not be able to articulate what political ideology they subscribe to. When asked whether they were liberal, moderate or conservative, more than one-third (36 percent) had no answer,while only 8 percent of voters were unable to supply a label. . . .”
“Nonvoters also are much less likely than voters to follow political and public policy news. When asked how often they follow what’s going on in government and public affairs, 17 percent of nonvoters said “most of the time” and 22 percent said “hardly at all;” among voters, 47 percent said “most of the time” and only 3 percent said “hardly at all.”. . . .”
“Following this pattern, nonvoters are much less likely to be familiar with current events. In the survey, only 46 percent had heard or read at least a fair amount about the attack in Benghazi that resulted in the death of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, and an even lower 40 percent had the same knowledge level about news reports about the new voter ID laws requiring people to provide government-issued
IDs at the polls. Voters were much more interested; 72 percent were aware of the consulate attack in Libya and 66 percent kept up on the voter ID law controversy. Showing the relationship between voting and news consumption, voters were twice as likely as nonvoters to have followed news about the political campaigns very or fairly closely (82 percent to 41 percent). In fact, only 9 percent of nonvoters followed such news very closely, and 22 percent hardly followed it at all.
In general, nonvoters are much lower news consumers than voters. For instance, only 59 percent watched a TV news show several times a week or daily compared with 81 percent of voters. Again, 48 percent got news on a computer, compared with 64 percent of voters. And newspapers can’t count on nonvoters to subscribe – only
26 percent read a paper at last several times a week and 34 percent said they never do.”
http://nonvotersinamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Summary-Report-12-13-12.pdf
From 1990: Table 2 shows Nonvoters as having lower mean campaign attention than voters on each of Issue Awareness, Democratic Name, and Republican Name, as well as other categories.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2111572#page_thumbnails_tab_contents
Spot-on, Sandwichman. The point about the metaphor “dog whistle” is not that no one but racists can hear it but that it involves emphasizing issues that provide “plausible deniability.”
“What’s wrong with undermining faith in a system that deserves no faith in it, for actual tangible reasons?”
That ‘system’ has been supported and defended by a lot of citizens like me who took oaths, trained and defended…….
Might as well redo 1860, and get it over with!
Just so you know: Jared Kushner, a.k.a., the Great Jewish Hope, said in a Forbes interview that anti-Nazi Germans back in the 1930s who discovered that a friend of theirs, in order to advance personal ambitions to become a nationally known big-shot, not only voted for Hitler but aggressively helped Hitler win—and that the friend then egged him on in his Aryan Nation goals—and upon learning this ended the friendship, is not somebody who has a lot of character.
Unlike the former friend who in order to advance personal ambitions to become a nationally known big-shot, not only voted for Hitler but aggressively helped Hitler win—and that the friend then egged him on in his Aryan Nation goals. Who most definitely had a lot of character.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/11/23/jared_kushner_considers_losing_democratic_friends_exfoliation_but_what_kind.html
We’re in for a constant stream of up-is-down, left-is-right, black-is-white, stuff from these people. Didn’t George Orwell and Lewis Carroll write novels about this kind of thing? I seem to recall that they did.
I wonder whether Kushner thinks his grandmother, who barely escaped the Nazis in western Russia and was the only member of her family who did, held the same view of character—and lack of it.
Kushner no only partnered extensively with Bannon during the campaign; he also reportedly urged Bannon’s appointment to one of two top White House posts. Here’s betting he also was all-in on the Sessions choice for AG. We’re talkin’ character here.
So Jill Stein’s enthusiastic base of supporters has now facilitated her raising more money for recounts in 2 weeks than they provided for her entire Presidential campaign.
I’ve read multiple articles about how these efforts provide the Clinton campaign with plausible deniability with respect to being involved in the recount efforts and not a single one of those articles (or any other articles for that matter) referred to Jill Stein using a dog whistle for Clinton supporters. Maybe the dog whistles on the left are broken.
And I await with baited breath citations of data demonstrating nonvoters who are on average at least equally informed as voters.