Saturday, November 26, 2016

The official tools

American Democracy is at it's heart a very conservative institution, by that I mean it doesn't really like populist firebrands who break with party lines, the system has a number of built in protections to prevent things like The Toddler, basically all of which were systematically broken down during the course of the primaries by billionaire influence and the cravenness of the media.

However there are still two more possibilities, both of which are being explored to a greater or lesser extent at the moment. One takes advantage of the very institution that got The Toddler elected in the first place, the Electoral College.

The basics: The EC consists of 538 people, none of whom are elected or appointed federal employees, who actually select the president and vice president, America does not have a true representative democracy, but usually the EC system makes a good show of being one. As I understand it, originally the idea was to prevent a Toddler situation where the electorate picks someone who explicitly runs on a platform that harms a minority of the population, the idea being that the EC would step in and not pick the outright genocidal madman. Of course like so many things it has changed and basically can be relied upon to rubber stamp the popular vote on a statewide basis, leading to situations like we have today, where someone can lose the popular vote by something like two million but still win the election because of the EC votes.

Now there is still a chance for the Electoral College to fulfill its duty as originally envisioned, while many states have laws explicitly forbidding their electors to vote against the state vote, almost half do not, and that could theoretically make the difference, the phenomena is called Faithless Electors, and if enough of them either change their votes or abstain, then Hillary Clinton could still be elected president.
Of course, this would cause an uproar the likes of which we have never seen in the country, almost certainly leading to certain parts of the country to go into open revolt, and the electors are basically all white rich dudes, so my suspicion is that a couple will abstain or switch votes, but this tactic is unlikely to change because the electors are not actually patriots nor do they care about the country, not in the way the founders envisioned them to.

The second hope lies with Jill Stein of all people.
Most states have laws about recounts on the books, and in a few of them, specifically Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, Stein has gathered money to ask for a recount of the vote there, all three states were razor close, and all three states are also the subject of suspected attempted Russian influence on the voting system. Oh yes, that is a thing, and it should be much bigger news than it is, but there has been a rush to just accept the Toddler's victory that is frankly, terrifying and it has been more or less ignored for the most part.
I do not believe that Stein seriously thinks that he recount attempt will change the election, she is doing it as more of a PR move and fundraiser than anything, but it is something that the Clinton campaign probably should have pushed for anyway and I am glad it is happening.
Most realistic best scenario here is for one state, possibly Michigan, to flip after the recount, but the other two stay red and nothing changes, but if they do, well then we suddenly go from the darkest timeline to the best one. In this scenario there is massive uproar sure, but with Clinton being the solid winner of the popular vote, and a legitimate recount showing her the victor in the electoral, there is much less of a chance of outright rebellion.

Fuck me but I hope that happens.

Now it almost certainly won't, The Toddler has enough of a lead in at least two of those states that I don't feel like a recount will find enough Clinton votes to change things, but if it does, or if it finds direct evidence of outside influence changing the votes, then that opens up the door to a fantastic new world of possibility.

So that is the official tools, they are forlorn hopes at best, but still technically possible and either would be better than letting this madman reach office. We must prepare to accept the fact that he will though, and move from the official tools of prevention, to those of resistance, which are not going to be looked upon favorably by the powers that be, but, well, fuck em.

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