Electoral College Lite

One of the most frequent arguments that I have heard recently in favor of the electoral college is that 10-15 urban areas, or alternatively, New York City and Los Angeles, would decide the election. With respect to the NYC/LA argument, those two cities hold 6% of the total US population, which is pretty significant, but the states of New York and California already hold 21% of the electoral votes, so their influence is already outsize. What the supporters of this idea forget is that there are plenty of people in New York and California outside the major urban centers that are more rural, more conservative and tend to vote Republican. These votes would suddenly count, as they don't now, being drowned in the sea of Democratic votes, just as Democratic votes in primarily Republican states don't end up counting toward the total. Electoral College advocates believe that there will be no campaigning in the small states due to their small population, but isn't that what's happening now? Very seldom do you see much attention paid to small states, especially in those that are a lock for either party. An exception is in a close election (like this last one) where every electoral vote was thought to be significant - Trump worked hard to get that one electoral vote in Maine and Clinton campaigned to win that one electoral vote in Nebraska (and failed). If the big urban areas are viewed as a Democratic lock, would you see the Republicans campaigning in the smaller states in order to balance the urban areas? It's hard to say, but one thing is for sure, the rural votes in California, as well as urban votes in Texas would be in play as they would not be under the current system.

Election Recount

President-Elect Donald Trump has been blowing up Twitter these past 24 hours in response to Jill Stein's request for a recount in Wisconsin, and presumably Michigan and Pennsylvania. Ms. Stein, the Presidential candidate of the Green Party has been raising money in order to ask for a recount in Wisconsin. Some of her representatives have cited evidence of irregularities, although no hard evidence has been put forth. A representative of the Clinton campaign, announced that her campaign will be "participating" his quote: "but now that a recount has been initiated in Wisconsin, we intend to participate in order to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides." It is not clear, at least to me, what participating entails. Donald Trump, in a flurry of seven (so far) tweets, expressed his outrage that this was happening. Included in this post are images of two of the tweets, the other five don't really add much to his "argument". 

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?lang=en

I'm not sure what Stein is attempting to accomplish with these recounts. While it is true that a different winner in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania would result in a different overall electoral college winner, this would not benefit Stein and the Green party directly. And I don't see where it would benefit Clinton either. All this can do is reflect badly on the Democrats as a party, unless there is actual evidence of massive vote tampering, fraud or system hacking, which Clinton's spokesman say they have no indication that it exists. 

Throughout the campaign, and even during the primaries, Donald Trump loudly proclaimed that the system was rigged against him and insisted that the only way that he could lose would be if it were stolen from him. His insistence that the results would be rigged against him became more shrill and paranoid as Election Day grew closer and the majority of polls showed Clinton ahead. His campaign attempted to water down his message by claiming that by "rigged", he meant that the media and the pollsters were reporting in such a way to cause him to lose, despite the disdain he and his followers have for mainstream media and the polls. His refusal to say whether he would accept the results of the election struck many as a prelude to an insurrection as some of his supporters (voters, not those in his campaign) talked about arming themselves to resist a Clinton Presidency. And let's not forget Trump's implied encouragement for 'Second Amendment people' to tale action to prevent a President Hillary Clinton from appointing Supreme Court Justices. Trump's people compared his refusal to pledge to accept the election results as similar to Al Gore's challenges to the Florida vote in the 2000 election. 

Now President-Elect Trump, who implied throughout the campaign that he would not accept any result except a win for him, he's upset that one of his opponents, supported by another, are asking for recounts, which is their legal right to do. He has been quoting and misquoting Clinton and the Democrats. One of the things he's claiming is that the Democrats insisted that the election night tabulations be accepted. This is not true. They said all along that they (including Clinton) would "accept the election results" - these "results" include whatever a hypothetical recount would come up with. They did not say that once the counts were finalized that they would not accept them. This may seem like a fine distinction, but it's the difference between ensuring that vote tabulation is fair and accurate and staging a coup. Trump also pointed to Clinton's concession and her words about working with Trump and giving him the chance to lead as negating any option for legal action to question vote results. I was not aware that a concession held any legal authority. 

What is Trump afraid of? With all of his talk about election rigging and his predilection for projecting his own antics onto others, I have heard some speculation that it was Trump who was behind some actual rigging. Is he worried that some of his own tampering will come to light? If he is so confident that these recounts will not change anything, why is he so worked up about them? Why would he care that Jill Stein and Hillary Clinton are wasting time and money? He's accusing his opponents of hypocrisy, but I see a lot of hypocrisy on his part. 

Words Mean Things

"Ha ha! Just kidding!"

That seems to be the position of many Trump supporters, and even Trump himself, as we progress through this transitional period between the election and the inauguration - when rhetoric becomes reality.

It's not even a matter for debate that Trump stoked bigotry and provoked and condoned violence during his campaign. It's on the record that he promised, time and time again, to build a giant wall across the southern border that Mexico would pay for; that he wanted to loosen up the libel laws to stifle those who disagreed with him; that he wanted to overturn Roe vs. Wade; that he was against same-sex marriage; that he would repeal "Obamacare"; that he would "take the oil" in the Middle East; that more nations should have nuclear weapons; that he wants to bring back torture; on and on and on it goes.

Some Trump supporters are salivating like Pavlov's dogs waiting for all of this to take place, others however, take the position that it was just talk, and he really won't do any (or most) of those things. This, I guess, is supposed to make us feel better about Trump's election victory. Ha, that wacky Trump, you didn't really believe that he'd build a wall, ha ha, you don't really believe that he's a racist do you?  Oh, that was just talk.

Yeah, it was that "just talk" that got him elected. He received a majority of the electoral votes by appealing to bigotry, hate, fear and divisiveness. So, I'm supposed to be relieved that he didn't mean it? That he's not a hateful bigot but he found it necessary to play the part of one to get elected?

In the first days following Election Day, there seemed to be good reason to think it was all a great big scam - Trump sounded reasonable, he was respectful and gracious to Secretary Clinton, and solicitous of President Obama's advice. He spoke about unity. That didn't last too long, the Twitter Monster emerged from his cave, insulting his detractors and whining about slights.

People are worried, concerned, yes fearful of what is to come in a Trump presidency. Some play down this fear, but I contend that worry, concern, and fear are rational, reasonable responses to the great unknown that is a Trump presidency. Possibly Trump will implement none of the things that he campaigned on, none of the positions that actually got him elected, but I believe that it naive and foolish to proceed as if everything that he said in the last 18 months was just words. Yes, they were just words, but words mean things.

Retail Holiday Fun

Back when I worked in the retail grocery business (only a year ago, but it seems longer) this was one of the busiest weeks of the year. The action started on the weekend before Thanksgiving and the sales volume increased every day until the day before the holiday was one long exercise in shoveling water against the tide. There are many things that can turn an employee into a homicidal maniac during this time, so don't add to it - save a life, it may be your own.

Throughout the year labor expenses are a big focus by upper management. Tight scrutiny is given to the "labor percentage", the amount of money that you spend on payroll expressed as a percentage of total sales. Due to this pressure, managers only schedule the minimum number of employees possible. When the holidays roll around, the sales are significantly higher, and since the labor goals remain a fairly constant percentage, managers can spend more labor dollars and hence schedule more hours. The problem with that is that due to labor constraints throughout the rest of the year, every employee is already working, if not full-time hours, then the maximum amount of hours for which they are available (part-timers usually are part-timers due to school, or a second job). So the amount of work has increased, but the numbers of people doing it has not. The result is going to be several things that a customer isn't going to like, one is longer lines at the checkout because everyone is already there and there's no one else to call in. The company where I worked had a "solution" - cross train non-cashiers to work a checkstand when it got busy. This may work in the short-term - you get a couple of extra people cashiering during a rush, but during the holidays it's a rush all the time. While your dairy clerks, and produce managers and cart pushers are checking, who's filling the milk, stocking the sweet potatoes and bringing in all the carts from outside? This helps to cause the other problem: out of stock product.

Depending on the size of the store, product might be brought in every day, or 2-3 days per week. It is impossible to accurately forecast the sales of every single item 100% of the time. For most of my time in retail grocery I did sales forecasts for the store, I broke them down to the day of the week and to the department. I was extremely accurate - for the whole store - but I never even attempted to predict what the sales of every product in the store would be. Department managers often had to make a rough guess in order to have enough for an ad but even then the guess was either too high or too low. Someone not in the business might suggest that over-ordering would be the way to go, and we often did just that, estimating high so as not to run out, but with many items you had a narrow window in which to sell them, and once that window closed, you were stuck with them. This cost money, and if the store isn't turning a profit, then eventually it will close down. A bigger problem when it comes to out of stocks is product that is in the store, but not on the shelf. The average amount of units of any item that a shelf slot holds is twelve (one case), some faster selling products will have 2 or 4 cases on the shelf. But this is a very limited amount. A high volume store can go through 24 cans of sweet potatoes or cranberry sauce in less than an hour. Of course, for the high volume and ad items, there are displays, but many people walk right by big displays and are then confronted by an empty shelf. Sometimes even the displays sell down. So this is where the problem in the previous paragraph and this one come together. Even if there is plenty of everything "in the back", someone still has to get it out of "the back" and onto the shelf, and those someones are also checking, bagging groceries, shagging carts, cleaning bathrooms, helping customers find things, taking phone calls, putting in orders for the next day, and a hundred others things.

This is a high stress time for your typical grocery employee. The employees are working maximum hours and the salaried managers are working unpaid overtime. No matter how hard they try they can't keep up. Then you come in and complain that they're out of something, they go to the back room and find what you're looking for, but you're gone, off to harass someone else. As they're stocking the shelf with the item that you apparently no longer need, they are stopped by several dozen customers asking questions and a handful complaining that they are blocking the aisle and that they should stock when it's not busy. They make a list of all the things in the aisle that need restocking and head to the back to get what they need, but it takes 20 minutes to get back there, because you are still looking for that item you asked about a half hour ago that you didn't wait for and 10 other customers want to know where the stuffing mix is. The harried employee gets his cart loaded up, but gets called to a different aisle because the shelf is empty over there too, then he's called on to check, then he has to bring in carts, and finally after an hour or more he remembers that he was restocking aisle 10 and its starts all over again. Oh, and don't forget the abuse that you get if you say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas".

Some customers try to play it smart and shop late in the evening. That works pretty well during the others times of the year, but by 11:00 pm the store is trashed and won't be looking decent again until the night crew gets everything filled up again. (Free advice, shop early morning when all the displays are still full and the employees haven't yet sunk into a disabling depression)

And don't ever, ever, ever express sympathy for someone who is working on Thanksgiving, or Christmas Eve (or in some businesses, like convenience store) if you are in their shopping; if you gave a shit, you wouldn't be in there.

Is the Electoral College "Fair"?

Is the Electoral College a fair way to decide who gets elected President of the United States? I guess it depends on what you mean by fair. First, a little history:

When the founders were putting together the Constitution, the framework for the governance of the United States, they did not really trust direct democracy. This distrust derived from several assumptions. James Madison warned about the rise of "factions"; he envisioned a single-issue faction growing to more than 50% and imposing its will on the rest (the tyranny of the majority). In general, the founders did not trust "the people" to always make the correct decisions and set up an additional layer in the Presidential election system “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.” according to Alexander Hamilton. You can see the distrust for the will of the people in the early practice of Senators being chosen, not by direct election, but by appointment of state legislatures and by the restriction of the franchise to white landowners. The other influence on the creation of the electoral college was the fact that most people in that time viewed themselves more as citizens of their state than as "Americans". The United States under the Articles of Confederation was just that - thirteen "states" (state being back then more commonly applied to a sovereign nation than a subdivision of a larger country) - bound together by mutual treaties to act in concert, more like the European Union than the United States of today. Due to that attitude, much attention was paid to the rights of states, rather than individuals. Much was made of the more populous Northern states dominating the less populous Southern states, which is how we ended up with a Senate, which gave equal representation to each state, while the House of Representatives was proportional by population. Even within the House of Representatives, even the most sparsely populated states receive at least one representative, and are not joined together in one Congressional district with another state. It's interesting that state legislatures used to operate this way, but the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional, that it violated the principle of one man, one vote. 

When it came to organizing the electoral college, the principle of recognizing the distinctness of each state still held. Each state was assigned a number electors equal to the number of Congressional Representatives and Senators. In practice, 48 states award all of their electoral votes to whoever receives the most votes within the state (not necessarily a majority). Even the two that don't, break it down by Congressional district and award two votes to the overall state winner. 

Since we have had two elections in recent memory where the winner of the popular vote was not the winner in the Electoral College, there has been renewed concern. Admittedly, it's usually supporters of the candidate who lost in the Electoral College that make the most fuss, but it's a legitimate concern. 

One of the arguments for keeping the Electoral College is that with direct election, highly populous regions or urban areas would hold an undue influence on the result, that by focusing on ten or twelve large metropolitan areas, candidates would ignore rural areas and smaller cities. But how is that different than what we have now? The large cities in California dominate over the small cities and rural areas and take all of the state's 55 electoral votes. New York City is  much more Liberal/Democratic than the rest of the state and their population negates the more Conservative/Republican votes in the rest of New York. Nebraska is all but ignored, with our five measly electoral votes, safely in the R column, not really worth the effort of campaigning here. (Although in a close election, campaigning for that one vote in District 2 happens on occasion). No matter what system that we use, states with higher populations (and hence populous urban areas within those populous states) will have more influence. However, in the current system, rural states receive proportionally more influence, since every state is guaranteed a minimum of three electoral votes. A state with three electoral votes has 0.56% of the electoral votes, while Wyoming, which has three electoral votes, has only 0.17% of the nation's population. 

The difference in a direct election system is that the votes in say, New York City, will not negate the votes in upstate New York. Every vote in the state will contribute toward the result. 

I believe part of the fondness in some quarters for the Electoral College, other than "my guy won", is an attachment for the concept that we're primarily citizens of different, unique states, not primarily Americans. 

No matter what system we use, some areas will have more influence than others, no matter what system we use, candidates will campaign in areas where the most votes are, the difference with a direct election system is that the votes of the Republican rural potato farmer in upstate New York will count exactly the same as the vote of the Democratic schoolteacher in New York City; the liberal college professor's vote in Lincoln Nebraska will count the same as the rancher in the Panhandle. The vote in near-the-Arctic Circle Alaska will have as much influence as a vote in Los Angeles. I saw a map this morning (pictured to the right)which purported

to show that half of the US population lived in the counties shaded in blue. This map was used as an argument that we should retain the Electoral College, since these small geographical areas had more influence than the rest of the vast stretches of the nation. To this I say "so what?" If there's more people in an area, that area should have more votes. England in the early 1800's had what was called "rotten boroughs", where parliamentary districts shrunk in population, but the law made no provision for changing election district boundaries as population changed. The Wikipedia page on rotten boroughs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotten_and_pocket_boroughs lists eight districts with less than 50 voters, two with only seven! The law was changed in 1832 to reflect population changes. Of course, this is not exactly the situation in the United States, but we do have a system where one person's vote counts for more than another's simply because of where that voter lives. 

The one objection that I have for scrapping the electoral college in favor of direct election is operational. Right now, most states' elections are not that close and recounts are rare. When the majority of states show a clear winner, it isn't even necessary to count all the votes. For instance, if Nebraska has counted 92% of the ballots, and Trump is ahead 70% - 30%, there just aren't enough votes in that 8% of uncounted ballots to make a difference. Currently, we count them all, but we concede that Trump has won that state long before all the votes are in. In a close race under direct election, what might trigger a recount? What would be recounted? I believe that five days after the election, we're still counting votes from Election Day. How long does it really take to count all the votes? Better election day security and modernization of balloting and counting, as well as better fail-safes and paper trails would be necessary before a direct election could take place.

One probable side effect of switching to direct election of the President might be the proliferation of third parties. One of the main impediments to a third party presidency is the electoral college. In very few instances has an independent candidate gotten any electoral votes. A third party contender, even while losing, might garner enough votes to be able to receive support for future runs. Right now, the prospect of zero electoral votes discourages serious candidates. Some would welcome competition to the two major parties, others point to the sometimes chaotic elections in European countries or in Israel, where there are a dozen parties, many of them single-issue, all competing for votes, where governments can only form when two or more parties form a coalition.

All in all, what is "fair" is for the person who receives a majority of votes cast should be elected as President (maybe a runoff? - but that's an argument for another day). I'm not suggesting that the results of this election be overturned, or that the electors not vote according to the will of the voters in their states - Trump won the election by the rules that were in place at the start of the election - but that we seriously consider changing the rules so that every vote counts, and counts equally. 

One Aging White Guy Living in the Midwest (or the Great Plains or Whatever)

Yeah, look at the picture: middle aged white guy with a baseball cap with a picture of a chili pepper on it, cut off t-shirt, tattoo, sunglasses, beer in hand...stereotypes surely must come to mind.

Let me tell you a story.

In 1980 I was part of a religious group called The Way International. It was a Christian group that was far enough outside the mainstream that it often got labelled as a cult. The Way has a program called Word Over the World Ambassadors, kind of a missionary program, where volunteers were assigned to a year of proselytizing, usually in an area far from home. I signed up for this program and in August of 1980 left my home in Queens, NY to attend a week-long gathering of Way folks in New Knoxville Ohio, Way headquarters. There I received my assignment to serve as a Word Over the World (WOW) Ambassador in Sidney Nebraska, population 5000.

It was in Sidney where I experienced bigotry first hand.

Not that I had never seen bigotry practiced by, and inflicted on, others. When I was in my teens, homeowners in my Queens neighborhood of Rosedale organized to keep blacks from buying homes in the neighborhood. At the time, Rosedale was almost 100% white, predominantly Irish, Italian and Jewish. The homeowners formed an organization called R.O.A.R. - which either stood for Rights Of All Rosedale or Restore Our American Rights (I think it changed from one to another).  http://billmoyers.com/content/rosedale-way/ - it was never proved if R.O.A.R.  members did it, but homes of black residents of Rosedale were firebombed and vandalized. Watch the linked video. It was pretty disgusting. I was appalled at the hatred, but honestly, and to my shame, I didn't speak up or otherwise do anything about it.

But back to 1980. When I arrived in Sidney, along with three other people around the same age (I was 22 at the time) I was a little culture shocked. After all, I had come from one of the largest cities in the country and here I was in an insular rural community. But otherwise it seemed like a decent enough place. Little did I know that the community was fortified against us. Steve, the appointed leader of our group, had made a scouting trip to Sidney a month or so earlier. He secured a job for himself and looked into housing options, so the people of Sidney were well aware that a "cult" would be in their town.

It didn't take long for the people of Sidney to begin to express their displeasure at "the other" in the their midst.

I was fired from my job as an apprentice glass cutter because my employer's church objected to him hiring a "cult member". We were evicted from our duplex on New Year's Eve for the same reason and had difficulty finding another place to live due to discrimination by landlords. We were verbally assaulted in the streets and in stores, people attempted to run us down with their cars and staged a protest outside our house. We were refused service in several local restaurants; local churches organized meetings to protest our presence; a weekly radio program by a Sidney minister regularly railed against us. I was physically assaulted in a men's room at a bar one night. All because of our religious beliefs.

Before the thought "Oh that's nothing" forms in the minds of those who have experienced much worse, I thought the same thing myself. None of us were killed, our house wasn't burned down, the police weren't pulling me over and shooting us while our hands were up. And most importantly, I could have walked away from The Way and been accepted by those yahoos as soon as I joined an "acceptable" church. When I moved to another town I passed as just another white mainstream Christian and the discrimination just magically melted away. The color of my skin, my facial features or my accent didn't continue to identify  me as "other". My whiteness enabled me to walk away from the bigotry of the ignorant, a privilege that many others do not have.

So yeah, I benefit from what some call white privilege, and I haven't experienced the systemic racism, bigotry and discrimination that so many others do every day, but in part due to my limited experience with bigotry, discrimination in any form disgusts me, and I have no patience with it.

Including at the highest levels.

Clinton vs. Trump

As the ugliest and muddiest of presidential election campaigns draws to a close, a few more thoughts.

First of all, no matter who wins, I doubt that most of us will see much change in our day-to-day lives. And no matter who wins, there's a Congress who will probably not cooperate with either candidate overly much and there's another election in four years. Despite the gloom and doom, the Democrats survived eight years of George W. Bush and the Republicans survived eight years of Barack Obama. I've heard from people on both sides who are convinced that the Republic will be destroyed if the opposing candidate is elected. This doesn't mean that I think that the election doesn't matter, I think it does. If you're a conservative, you undoubtedly believe that Hillary Clinton's policies are not good for the country, or that you do not want to see liberal justices added to the Supreme Court. If you're liberal you see Donald Trump to be a dangerous loose cannon.

As most of my friends know, I support Hillary Clinton. Yes, I am aware of the accusations about The Clinton Foundation, Benghazi and the emails. From what I have read and the conclusions that I have drawn from the available information, my opinion is that while it looks bad on the surface, there is a lot of smoke and no fire. I realize that reasonable people may disagree. It is my opinion that if there were no private email server, no Benghazi deaths, no Clinton Foundation, the Republicans would create something to hold hearings about, like the never-ending Benghazi hearings that failed to conclude any wrongdoing despite a stated goal of bringing Clinton down . The Republicans have made it their mission to obstruct and character assassinate at every turn. The Obama administration has been hobbled at every turn by Republicans, whose main goal was to make Obama a one term president, and when that failed, to stop him from accomplishing anything. Their refusal to even hold hearings on a Supreme Court nominee is a case in point, with their suggestions that they may do the same if Clinton is elected further evidence of their lack of integrity. Some are even discussing impeachment before she is even elected. It is the Republican obstructionism which caused me to decide that, for the foreseeable future I would not vote for another Republican, even locally.

Donald Trump also provides plenty of reasons not to vote for him. He is a divisive figure, crude and insulting to be sure. He spews hate at every turn. But the main reason that I could not vote for him, other than my vow not to vote for Republicans any time soon, is simply that he does not know what he is talking about, does not know what he is doing, and sees no problem with shouting out "facts" and figures that have no basis in reality. He says that he will do things that are either unfeasible, not affordable or illegal. He shouts out things that people want to hear and has no idea how things work, not just politically, but economically. He has no idea how complex things are. He is in way over his head. Think he's going to bring back manufacturing jobs? He has no idea how, but he'll certainly have someone to blame when it doesn't happen. The same with all of his other ephemeral "policies".

Some people think that once Trump is in office, he'll settle down, bring in "the best people" and act presidential. As Terry Pratchett wrote, 'a leopard won't change his shorts' - Trump had the opportunity to bring in "the best people", but listens only to himself, why would anyone think that once he is the occupant of the Oval Office he'll suddenly get all meek and humble?

I do predict, that with the current political climate, whoever is elected will be a one-term president.

Media Coverage of the Election and the Ignorant Electorate

It's a vicious cycle. The majority of the electorate is ignorant and likes it that way, and the mainstream media, including talk radio by the way, are for-profit enterprises that give people what they want to hear - what will sell more newspapers, garner more advertising, create more buzz. While some individual reporters, editors and media executives might have an altruistic, "serve the public" view of their role, the bottom line is profit. The symbiotic relationship between the stupid segment of the public and the profit seeking, competitive media results in, for the most part, dumbed-down coverage. While it is true that there have been articles dissecting the candidates' plans (or lack of the same), including the feasibility of same, as well as economic impact, not to mention their legality, these types of stories generally get ignored. Yet the more spectacular coverage does get more traction and gets results. For example, the recordings of Trump talking about sexual assault got days and days of coverage, and seemed to have an effect on the polls - yet, was anyone really surprised that Trump would say anything like that? It was 100% consistent with his previous statements and his many years in the public eye. And the announcement by the FBI, 10 days before the election, that there were Clinton related emails on Anthony Weiner's laptop that they were checking out. We already know that Clinton had a problem with emails and was investigated, was it really a story that there were emails on a laptop that her top aide used? Yet, this news seemed to move the polls as well. Why? Because this kind of news is profitable for the media outlets - why is it profitable? Because the ignorant electorate likes the good vs. evil narrative, they like things simple, and they like to hear things that corroborate what they already believe.

So what happens? The candidates go along with it. The candidate who spends a lot of time laying out detailed economic plans is ignored, while a candidate who shouts out a simple slogan gets support. Hillary Clinton started out as the nerd candidate. Go back and listen to some of her back and forth with Bernie sanders during the primaries. Not particularly exciting. Lots of policy, lots of plans, lots of economics. When the conventions were over and she had to go head-to-head with Trump she thought she could do the same, but quickly turned to one liners and slogans and yes, name-calling, to battle Trump.

This will continue for as long as the voters refuse to demand substance from the candidates and stop rewarding the media for vacuous reporting. When the majority of voters stop being ignorant. 

Election Day is Almost Here

This election has been, by far, the ugliest, mud-slingingest Presidential election that I can recall in modern times (since I've been voting!) I'm not suggesting that politicians haven't disliked, or even despised, each other in past elections, but the level at which it has become personal, and the degree to which the candidates, rather than their surrogates, have participated in the vitriol is surely a new thing.

Politics has always been an us-vs.-them game, with occasional brief flashes of cooperation or bipartisanship. But I believe that the current nastiness can be traced back to the mid-nineties and Newt Gingrich. Gingrich was on a mission to unseat the Democrats as the majority party in both houses of Congress and to render President Bill Clinton ineffective. Newt's strategy was to, not only pursue the usual within-the-system tactics, but to use the power of television, then in the form of CSPAN. He made his attacks personal. Coupled with the rise of conservative talk radio, politics became trench warfare. And Democrats didn't forget, George W. Bush was vilified in just as vicious a fashion as Clinton was; if it wasn't for the unifying effect of the 9-11 attacks, I suspect that it would have been worse. Under Barack Obama it got even worse. Republicans made it their reason for existence to block everything that he attempted to accomplish.

But this contest has exceeded all previous measures of incivility. One candidate, Donald Trump, started his primary campaign with hate and insults. Substituting demeaning nicknames for his opponents in lieu of presenting a rational case for why he was the better candidate. He continued into the general election, insulting not only Hillary Clinton, but multiple segments of the population. Hillary Clinton, who likes to repeat Michelle Obama's call to "when they go low, we go high", nevertheless got down in the mud with Trump, even calling many of his supporters deplorable.

But what's depressing is that most of the electorate is ignorant, and makes their decisions based, not on any objective facts, but on sound bites, slogans, Facebook memes, and what their friends say. The insult-driven campaign works because most people won't go any deeper. Once they hear something that they want to hear, they need to hear no more, they need to research no further, they need not question their position.