We won the pop vote by 2,500,000 and lost E C vote by less than 100,000.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

It sucks. We lost. The nation lost... As the kids say "Don't hate the playa, hate the game." Trump is the product of a byzantine system which emphasizes land mass over actual voters.

That being said the popular vote means a lot in a symbolic sense. Our candidate was the more popular candidate by far, and she not him represents the will of the people.

Losing hurts. Losing sucks. It sucks even more for the vulnerable people who depended on us.


As part of the majority it is our obligation to oppose Donald Trump by any peaceful means necessary.

[Botany]

1. We didn't lose the E.C. ..... they cheated

Ohio, Wisconsin, Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Florida were very
dirty.

We need an audit!

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. It's a byzantine system.

One of the purposes of the Electoral College was to prevent a demagogue and/or tyrant from taking power by investing in the Electors the power to ignore the popular vote if the voters of the state voted for a demagogue. By custom they vote for the candidate who garnered the most votes.

[edhopper]

4. And like everything else

the Rethugs will pervert the system to gain power.

[CousinIT]

5. What the EC was purportedly designed to PREVENT has HAPPENED in spite of it.

Get rid of the goddamned thing already.

HRC WON. Full stop.

It's easy to sit there and say "too bad. so sad." to those who will lose their lives, health, savings, homes under this sociopath. Millions are going to lose healthcare, now and in the future (Medicare and Medicaid) and ALL OF US may lose our social security or suffer devastating cuts to the program that are totally unnecessary and that we un-wealthy can ill afford. There is NO WAY to underestimate the economic damage and destitution this will cause. I suspect you and many here on DU aren't old enough to remember what the Great Depression was like, or what life was like for seniors before Medicare and Social Security. You simply have NO CONTEXT within which to view what is likely to now happen.

EVERY GAIN ordinary Americans have made in the past 75-80 years -- EVERYTHING that has been designed to improve our lives and which has in fact improved millions of lives in the US -- is being TAKEN AWAY and we will have to re-fight twice as hard as the first time to get any of it back.

So excuse me if pithy phrases like "oh la de da we lost too bad so sad" just don't cut it.

MANY LIVES ARE NOW RUINED (even if some of them don't yet realize it) because of this goddamned out-of-date and useless EC system which has RESULTED in an outcome which it was specifically designed to PREVENT. It has done this TWICE. It is BROKEN and it needs to GO.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

6. Federalist 68

"Men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice."

...


"Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States"



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._68

[CousinIT]

7. Pure horse puckey.

Abolish the EC. Period. It doesn't work. Except in the opposite way from which it was intended.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

9. That takes a Constitutional Amendment

The small states that benefit from it are not going to vote for an Amendment that removes their privilege.

[yallerdawg]

15. Not to mention the Republican majority.

"If it works, don't break it."

[Abq_Sarah]

65. Good luck getting smaller states onboard

Although it would save them money if they knew it was pointless to hold a Presidential election since their citizens would have no voice.

It might seem appealing today to have the 3 or 4 states with the largest population determine for the rest of the nation who their President will be but if those states flipped red, I doubt you'd be calling for the end of the EC.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. I did everything within the law to stop him and will continue to do so and urge others to continue

I did everything within the law to stop him and will continue to do so and urge others to continue to do so. Outside of that I have no recommendations.

[treestar]

14. But geez this is a demagogue

so if they fail to vote him out the EC has failed completely Doesn't put in the one most people want and doesn't prevent demagogues.

[yallerdawg]

18. The Constitution does not tell Electors how to vote.

The states do.

So what we really want Electors to do is function like "unpledged superdelegates." Or not? Gets confusing.

[treestar]

19. Whoever the majority wants should be POTUS

I guess the unfair part is how some states voters' have more say, mainly the smaller the state's population the bigger the person's vote. I can talk since I live in a state with the smallest possible number of EV's. (Though we are blue).

[DemocratSinceBirth]

30. They were designed to be superdelegates who could correct mistakes

They were designed to be superdelegates who could correct mistakes when voters become prisoners to their passions.

[yallerdawg]

34. We end up in the weeds, though.

California has Hillary ahead by 3 1/2 million?

The US has Hillary ahead by 2 million?

Simple math tells me that if we just count the other 49 states, the popular vote is for Trump.

It starts to get "complicated."

[DemocratSinceBirth]

36. Theoretically a candidate can win the E C with 23% of the vote.

[yallerdawg]

41. Based on voting-age Americans...

over 70% of us support or don't care if Corrupt Trump "won."

I don't know what that says about America, but it says something.

[EL34x4]

59. Complicated indeed.

Watching the election, Trump was leading the popular vote count the whole evening, until California's tallies started coming in. California's massive population of democratic voters skewed the entire count.

At any rate, people who argue against the electoral college seem to do so with the belief that Republicans are incapable of winning the popular vote. If the contest was a popular vote one, we'd see entirely different campaigns. We would've seen Trump flying off to Texas doing GOTV drives and flying off to California and New York to persuade Republican voters not to stay home. Neither candidate would've given a damn about fighting for an extra 10,000 votes from battleground states.

In winning the popular vote, Hillary won a game that nobody was playing.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

55. The Founding Fathers had the prescience to see voters could get it wrong.

In Germany's last free election before WW ll Hitler's party won a plurality.

[pangaia]

53. Here is their chance to dump the demigod..

[Quayblue]

2. I agree it is our obligation.

There are too many people who are due to severely suffer.

We cannot stand by.

[HipHipHillary]

10. Move on...

We need to move on and use some of this energy on something constructive.
Sitting here crying is not going to change things one bit.

The EC was put in place to elect a president. We may not be happy with it, but it is done.
The popular vote is something you would use to elect a king.

I remember many people chirping that when Trump wins the PV and Hillary wins the EC, the right would have to deal with it because those are the rules. We make ourselves look bad crying like this.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

11. Why would you use the popular vote to elect a monarch?

Monarchy is a birth right.

Nobody in the United Kingdom votes for the royals.

[treestar]

13. Why worry about how we look?

They don't. And they get what they want. We let them bully us over how we will "look?" I don't get it. I see a lot of accusations the Democrats don't "have a spine" and now suddenly I'm seeing recommendations that we "cave."

We should make as big a deal of it as possible, not because it will make Hillary President, but because it will make them and their talking yam uncomfortable. It will take away some of their smugness and put some fear into them that they are not going to have it all their way.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

21. I am under no illusion we can overturn the election results. That's kind of silly.

I do believe the fact Trump is going to lose the popular vote by some 2,500,000 votes lessens whatever kind of mandate he thinks he has.


He is massively unpopular.

Not only did 54% of Americans vote against him. There wasn't even a plurality of Americans that voted for him.

[treestar]

22. And we ought to harp on that for four years

not let it get forgotten like it was in the Dubya era. The talking orange maniac yam is UNPOPULAR. He was UNWANTED by the plurality of voters. Therefore he has no mandate whatsoever.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

23. Bush lost by 500,000 votes. Racist McRacist Face is going to lose by more than five times that.

[treestar]

27. Yes! Let's make sure he is referred to as

the Loser of the votes of the People. The Unpopular one.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

33. It will always be there lingering in the background.

[Maeve]

17. "The popular vote is something you would use to elect a king"??

No, popular vote is what is used in a democracy.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

20. I don't think he or she put a lot of thought into that one.

You don't get to vote for a monarch.

[yallerdawg]

29. I get it, though.

By popular vote, we are ruled by The One.

But this is the United States of America, and we are a federation of individual states which abide by agreed-upon Federal oversight. Our country was founded on the protecting the rights of each state.

I don't see Alabama ceding its influence in matters to California simply because more people live in California. That is the tyranny of the majority, and wouldn't that make The One "a monarch"?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

31. You can argue it both ways.

Under the present system a voter in Alabama has more power than a voter in California.

[yallerdawg]

37. I'd say a measure of equal power.

California has many more Electors and Congressional representatives, so population is accounted for.

To match California, other states and other communities have to align with Alabama.

In the Senate, every state has equal power.

This is foundational to the nature of our democracy. An opposition to tyranny in any form.

If we want the US to have a progressive, liberal culture, we have to win the argument, not just the election.

[kcr]

42. Wow, I didn't know Monarchies were a democracy. Who knew?

Please, tell us where they elect their Kings/Queens. That would be fascinating to know! I'm really curious to know how that works.

[pnwmom]

64. Uh, no. People don't elect kings.

Our electoral college system was put in place to protect the power of rural Southern voters who wanted slavery.

[treestar]

12. I just hope they do it

We should assure the D Congresspersons we have their backs.

[edhopper]

16. And those 100,000 votes

were from 3 States with over 14 million votes counted.
It is hard to dismiss that at least that many Hillary votes were suppressed.

[SharonAnn]

28. I believe the voter purging in Wisconsin surely cause her loss there.

[Marr]

24. Insisting we didn't really lose is a good way to learn no lessons from this disaster.

We lost an election that shouldn't have been close. Hillary Clinton was running against a reality tv show host, for crying out loud. We need to start fixing this situation and removing the corporate Dems from control of the party.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

26. I don't think we should casually dismiss the fact that 2,700,000 more people voted for Clinton.

[TheFrenchRazor]

49. absolutely; she WON the people. Trump won the square miles. nt

[DemocratSinceBirth]

50. The more isolated you are from your fellow Americans the more likely you are a Trump voter

Geographically and culturally.

[TheFrenchRazor]

52. get a clue- certain parts of the country will NEVER vote dem. the E.C. guarantees that dems give

repugs a head-start in every single presidential election. i'm not happy with that situation. the EC needs to go, or blue states should secede. and i'm not kidding. this shit has happened TWICE just in this century, and it is going to continue happening. don't kid yourself.

[Marr]

60. You might as well wish for candy to grow in your garden.

The EC is never going away with Republicans or corporate Dems in charge. They're both perfectly happy with the game as it's currently rigged.

[lark]

25. Not my president and never will be.

I will do everything I can to oppose hm at every turn, including supporting a recount in 3 (should be 4, including FL).

[Coyotl]

32. The 2.5 million is more than the total Trump vote in 11 states. Here's the pie:

No matter how you slice it, equal justice under law has been abridged. There is a legal case to be made here that one part of the Constitution invalidates another, the electoral college.

[RiverStone]

62. Wow, this is one pie that makes me sick to my stomach

Trump said he will represent all the people. Of course, I'd call BS on that.

A leader with a modicum of character would offer up (as an acknowledgement he lost by 2.3 fucking million!) a cabinet post to a Dem or at least allow Obama's SCOTUS pick to go through. All we get is his disgusting gloating.

[Coyotl]

66. Yes, they said about the Supreme Court, let voters speak, we spoke.

No doubt they are good for their word.

[loyalsister]

35. If our candidate was significantly more popular

voter turnout would have been higher. Of that 46% we don't know who they would have voted for, but we know they were motivated enough to bother to vote. Not even to cast a defensive vote. Still, of those millions of votes she got many were defensive votes against Trump. Then, a significant number of people in MI would not have marked their ballot for everyone but president. The case that our candidate was actually a popular is weak at best.

This election is a cautionary tale. Candidates who have close associations with dishonest or corrupt individuals personally or in business will not run in the first place if they truly care about the well being of their constituents. That goes for school board, city council, etc. and all the way up to president.

We didn't deserve to be put in the middle of that ridiculous gamble with a candidate who ignored clear calcuable odds. And, I hope that in the future, the DNC will take it seriously when local Democrats tell them that the candidate is not inspiring the enthusiasm needed to win.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

38. Your argument

This election is a cautionary tale. Candidates who have close associations with dishonest or corrupt individuals personally or in business will not run in the first place if they truly care about the well being of their constituents. That goes for school board, city council, etc. and all the way up to president.

Your argument is belied by the fact that a man who has a nearly fifty year history of making bigoted statements and engaging in discriminatory practices, has been sued over three thousand times, has declared bankruptcy six times, has just settled a fraud suit for twenty five million dollars, has been cited for stealing from his own charity, and is a serial adulterer and sexual predator has just been elected president.

To suggest he is a more virtuous candidate than the candidate he "defeated" strains credulity.

He was able to convince just enough racists to win the Electoral College while losing the popular vote by a lot:

It’s worth repeating what Trump said throughout the election. His campaign indulged in hateful rhetoric against Hispanics and condemned Muslim Americans with the collective guilt of anyone who would commit terror. It treated black America as a lawless dystopia and spoke of black Americans as dupes and fools. And to his supporters, Trump promised mass deportations, a ban on Muslim entry to the United States, and strict “law and order” as applied to those black communities. Trump is now president-elect. Judging from his choices for the transition—figures like immigration hardliner Kris Kobach and white nationalist Stephen Bannon—it’s clear he plans to deliver on those promises.


http://tinyurl.com/j4qtxjq

You can ignore the fact all you want but a large part of his vote was a vote against our brothers and sisters of color, our Muslim brothers and sisters, and our glbtq brother and sisters who didn't know their place and those that dared to stand beside them.

[loyalsister]

39. A for effort, maybe

I was talking ONLY about our side. It was not contextualized by opposition specifically because the specific lessons we should learn should apply to all of our candidates. In other words, we should all have high standards for our candidates. That the GOP doesn't is their own problem.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

40. Standards matter when the candidate with the lowest standards win.

I have talked to many Trump supporters online and in real life. For every one who voted for him for economic reasons there are three who voted for him because certain groups forgot what their place was and Hillary Clinton for all her flaws and foibles told these groups they were as valuable as anyone, and they wanted to remind them and her just how valuable their lives aren't or aren't.

[loyalsister]

56. The baggage was different

Hers has everything to do with her behavior as a politician. She is not vile like Trump, but everything that people were criticizing about politics is part of her own voluntary history conducted as an official elected or in residence with one. Trump is vile, and everything we hope our kids will not be, but Clinton is perceived as being everything wrong with modern politics. The way one voter I talked with put it was, I hate Trump but I don't want to vote for someone who has been screwing us over for 30 yrs. HRC laid the ground work for the republicans to paint her that way herself.

Money in politics...
The big banks screwed people over. People see them as corrupt. HRC spoke to them then kept what she said hidden. People drew the corruption conclusion based on a reasonable interpretation of her outward behavior. "Why why why do people think Hillary is corrupt" Well, because she opened the door to that very speculation and supposition herself.

Say anything to get elected...
Tough on crime policies took income providers out of families but it was a political win. For good measure let's get rid of the governmental supplements. Some lives were ruined, others a paying for it to this day and she promoted it. The she came around looking for the votes from people she and her husband so badly exploited. She got a lot because people knew what was best for them now. Unfortunately, that only solidifies the "say anything to get elected" perception.

Special interests...
We are calling on Trump to do what he should do with his assets. Yet, the appearance of potential conflicts of interest between the SOS and the Clinton foundation is something that should be forgiven even though it provided more red meat for scandal manufacture.

All I'm saying is we were vulnerable to a vile individual who is all we hope our kids not to be getting elected because she was viewed by alot people as everything that's wrong with politics today.

[emulatorloo]

57. You get an F: Regurgitating 'Clinton Cash' lies is an automatic fail.

If you're gullible enough to believe this discredited smearjob from the alt-right Breitbart axis, you really have no credibility.

Wikileaks leaked transcripts of the speeches, and she sounded like the left liberal she's been throughout her career in public service.

As a Bernie primary supporter, let me remind you that Senator Sanders voted for the crime bill.

You buy every false meme, favor falsehoods over facts, promote every fake Republican scandal, eat up every false equivalency and every conspiracy theories.

[loyalsister]

61. I'm pointing out that the mythology was easy to create

What she did was easy to spin and people were ready to believe it. Believable mythology is easy to spread and she made the ridiculous choice to run knowing her past was full of it, and her present was ripe for more.

She made it too easy to paint her as corrupt via associations and assumptions. She knew better, is my point. And we are the ones who will pay.

I think it would have been in our interest if she had helped groom a candidate who had a better temperament and story to tell to begin with.

[kcr]

43. It sure becomes our problem though, doesn't it?

So, maybe more people on our side should do a little more contextualizing and a little less rationalizing, and we'd all be a lot better off for it.

[loyalsister]

48. You mean like suggesting our candidate was one of the most popular in history

despite the 46% who did not weigh in?

[emulatorloo]

58. More fabricated bullshit. No one 'suggested' that.

[TheFrenchRazor]

47. correct; Trump voters liked what they heard. nt

[Cosmocat]

44. HCR was elected the same DT was

You are playing 2 sets of rules, dont ball about the system that got DT elected, but ball about t5ge system that git hrc the nomination.

Side note, I voted Bernie in the primary.

[TheFrenchRazor]

54. personally, i'm not willing to give repubs a head-start on every single prez election. nt

[RiverStone]

63. Ignoring clear calcuable odds is born out of arrogance

And, I hope that in the future, the DNC will take it seriously when local Democrats tell them that the candidate is not inspiring the enthusiasm needed to win

Damn right!

If they do, then Keith Ellison will be the new DNC Chair and Tim Ryan will be the new Leader of the House Caucus. Adding, real power roles for Bernie and Elizabeth Warren, not just symbolic.

The time is now!

[jack_krass]

45. Ironically, the EC was intended to prevent the very thing that happened....

The election of a Demogauge. How? Why?

In my opinion, its because the Democratic party has abandoned rural working class Americans. Too much of our core support is in the big coastal cities. This works against us in the EC even with huge numerical advantages overall...

This was especially true of HRC, but even though she was a terribly flawed candidate, she could have had a good shot at winning this election had she done a couple things different:

-DO NOT talk about putting comapnies (along with their employees) out of business

-DO spend more time in rural areas of the country, especially Michigan, Wisconsin, and other rust belt areas.

Of course hindsight is 2020, but losing Michigan to Sanders should have struck fear into her entire team.

[TheFrenchRazor]

46. "the game" right now, is the electoral college and hackable computer vote counting. they both need

need to go.

[kentuck]

51. In a fascist government...

It doesn't matter who gets the most votes. It only matters who counts the votes.