The time is now to fight on every front against the consolidation of a rigged Republican system.
Trump lost the popular vote by 2.1%. (And that doesn’t take into account what the popular vote might have been if not for voter suppression.) That’s not a minor flaw. That should have been too large a margin to allow Trump. What is even more disturbing is that the Electoral College didn't choose him by one vote or by 1% - its tally gave him a larger lead. That's really distorted. It's also the second time in 5 presidential elections that the candidate who lost the popular vote was inaugurated.
The existence and continuation of the Electoral College has been rationalized as being a mechanism to "veto" a misguided citizenry which chooses someone dangerous to the US. But consider who the Electoral College selected in 2016:
· Loser of the popular vote by millions of votes
· No government experience
· Has had a number of business failures - at least one a huge disaster. This is in his specialty / “area of strength”.
· Has a dangerous temperament
· Has significant conflicts of interest, which he refuses to genuinely correct
· Fact checkers have found him to make many serious falsehoods
· Psychological issues: See 8/8/16 Scientific American item which estimates how Trump stands on a scale of attributes associated with psychopathy.
· Publicly spoke disparagingly of US military leaders & intelligence agencies (although he has no background in either area)
· There were questions of Russian influence in the election on his behalf
The Electoral College has shown that it does the opposite of protecting us from dangerous candidates. The need for its elimination is now established.
State "winner take all" rules for assigning all Electors to one candidate may not inherently bias the Electoral College toward one party, but it does prevent each state's allotment of Electors being approximately proportional to the state's popular vote. As a result, it creates the potential of the Electoral College being unrepresentative of the people.
Yet, we hear little from politicians or the media saying something as simple as, "The Electoral College was the law in 2016, but we need to fix the problem so future elections are by majority rule." This is the fifth time the Electoral College picked the loser of the popular vote. I'm dissatisfied with how much we hear about Russian influence compared to how little about the Electoral College. We don't know how much Russian influenced altered what would have happened, but we're 100% certain what would have happened if presidents were elected by popular vote.
Confirmations of Trump's nominees are handled by the Senate. Unfortunately, that means confirmations are done by a body which is biased by having two Senators per state rather than a proportional representation of the population. In current terms, that means rural states (those with small populations) have greater influence than their number of their voters justifies. It's also worth noting that each state has as many members of the Electoral College as it has members of the House and Senate. So, the Electoral College is not proportional to population either.
The elections for president, and members of the House and Senate are all impacted by voter suppression. Hundreds of polling stations have been eliminated in poor communities, reduced allocation of resources result in voters in some communities having to wait in line for 5 hours to vote, there have been selective voter roll purges, there are changes in rules to make it harder to register to vote and harder to be accepted as a voter at polling stations, etc. The Voting Rights Act has been weakened, allowing selective suppression of minority voting.
Gerrymandering has significantly distorted the composition of the House of Representatives.
In the 2016 elections for the House of Representatives, nationally, Republican candidates received 49.13% of the votes and Democratic candidates received 48.03% of the vote. But election-bias resulted in Republicans receiving 55.4% of the House seats and Democrats getting only 44.6%. These figures only reflect those people who were able to vote despite voter suppression efforts. Looking at individual states, you can see some had disproportionate numbers of seats for Republicans and some for Democrats. Proportional representation based on those who were allowed to vote would give a small majority to Republicans, but not as decisive nor "a mandate." Since Wisconsin was one of the states that played a role in Trump's Electoral College selection, it's worth noting what happened there. Statewide, Democratic candidates for the House received 49.85% of the votes compared to Republicans getting only 45.89%. Although the Democratic candidates received more than the Republicans, Democrats were only given 37.5% of Wisconsin's House seats. Since gerrymandering had so much effect there, other election-biasing laws may have impacted the presidential vote as well.
The Senate is not as straight forward, as only 1/3 of Senate seats are up for election each 2 year cycle. Wikipedia shows nationwide, 2016 Democratic Senatorial candidates received over 10 million more votes than GOP candidates. What is more meaningful is that no Republicans won Senate seats previously held by a Democrat, but Democratic candidates beat Republican incumbents in 2 races. Since in the nationwide vote Democrats received over 10% more votes than Republicans in 34 races, it would have been more proportional for the Democrats to gain 3 or 4 seats rather than 2, but this is not an obvious "election bias." However, it does remind us of the structural bias of having two Senators per state regardless of pupulation.
According to PBS :
Fourteen states installed new restrictive voting laws, which have historically targeted minorities, before the 2016 election, including in Wisconsin and Ohio. And this general election was the first since the Supreme Court struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in 2013 that required federal approval on any state election law.
Neil Albrecht, executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, said voter identification laws hurt turnout in the city’s high-poverty districts this month, noting that 41,000 fewer people voted there in 2016 than in 2012.
We can't say just how many votes for which candidates were impacted by these laws, but we do know the laws' designs and implementation are such that poor and minority communities are expected to be more impacted than other communities which are more inclined toward the Republican politicians who enacted the laws.
At this point, 25 state governments are fully controlled by the GOP. Voter suppression and gerrymandering tend to follow. Any states dominated by the GOP after the 2020 Census will be able to institute a new round of gerrymandering. As each state becomes controlled by the GOP and passes election-biasing laws to guarantee their continued domination, forces such as the Koch brothers can move their focus to other states not yet rigged. While certain states may never come under GOP control, we're moving in a direction where these election-biasing mechanisms may leave Democrats as a permanent minority in the federal government and most state governments, leaving Democrats powerless except in a few states.
As an example, see this Lexington Herald-Leader article These 5 wealthy, out-of-state men helped finance the GOP takeover of Kentucky’s House. The article begins, "Last fall, a group of five wealthy men from out-of-state dumped at least $211,500 into Republican efforts to take over the Kentucky House of Representatives for the first time since 1921."
In the latter part of the Obama years, large numbers of Pres. Obama's nominees for various posts were never considered. As a result, the new government created through these various abuses against majority rule may now be able to fill all these posts with officials who will help them further erode majority rule. Any Supreme Court Justices these anti-majority forces confirm could be acting to continue the anti-majority agenda for decades on the Court — with no way for the citizens to vote him out.
Now let us consider Trump's nominees / appointees / associates. For the moment forget about any policy differences with them.
· Trump's National Security Advisor Flynn had to be removed because of his connections with Russians.
· His Attorney General lied under oath, and had met with the Russian ambassador twice during the campaign months before election day.
· Others associated with Trump have had Russian contacts, and have been dishonest or evasive about these
· Trump's nominee for Labor Secretary had to withdraw because of all the information that came out about him.
· Kellyanne Conway, a spokesperson and advisor, encouraged viewers to buy Trump's daughter's products.
These are the kinds of officials one gets when the electoral system is rigged to keep a minority in power.
Trump has major potential business conflicts of interest. There is no excuse for Trump refusing to use a blind trust. What is even worse, there is no excuse for the fact there is no legal requirement that it be done. The point is not an assumption that this or that politician *will* be corrupt. The point is that history shows us that some politicians are corrupt, so precautions are needed. Suppose we're certain Trump will be honest. If Trump put his businesses into a blind trust, it would prevent a future corrupt president from saying, "Trump didn't use a blind trust and nothing went wrong, so why should I have to use a blind trust?" Maintaining protections from conflicts of interest is a practical precaution and helps maintain citizens' confidence in government.
The potential conflicts of interest aren't limited to the immediate financial kind that first come to mind. Employees at Trump's Washington Dc hotel are interested in forming a union. There are possibilities they may encounter problems which they would not if their employer was just a private citizen. A blind trust might not even prevent officials at the Labor Department from being aware that the union was at a Trump hotel and thinking that blocking the union might bring rewards at a later time. Also, if another country wished to influence Trump by giving incentives for new Trump properties in their country or by patronizing Trump properties in the US, Trump might hear about these moves on the TV news. A blind trust won't prevent that.
Aside from the most immediate personal kind of conflict of interest, Trump's choices have had more general kinds of conflicts. Trump wanted a company boss to head the Labor Department, which is supposed to be an unbiased agency in disputes between companies and employees. For agencies which deal with scientific matters, he chose people who reject the scientific consensus.
There are attacks on the press and claims that the president's "alternative facts" are at least as significant as real facts. And there are orders forbidding government scientists and agencies to make statements consistent with the scientific consensus on important matters.
As a nation we have a very high incarceration rate. By law, our states take away the right to vote from former prisoners (generally, ex-felons, but some states do it more broadly.) This means millions of US citizens who have already served their sentence are forbidden to vote. This is another factor biasing US elections, especially considering the very disproportionate rates at which some groups in the population are arrested and imprisoned. (Beyond the general question of states disenfranchising ex-prisoners, there’s also the question whether states should have the authority to restrict voting rights in federal elections.)
Billions of dollars in unlimited political spending are influencing our elections. It's not just that vast amounts of money are being spent buying air time and such, it's also the money spent on the learning and strategy of how to manipulate people with ads and other media. A tiny percentage of the population is getting highly disproportionate influence. It wouldn't even be as bad if those billionaires had to spend their own money to do it. But now that corporations can spend unlimited amounts, the billionaires don't have to take it all out of their own pockets. A billionaire who holds a significant, but minority, part of a corporation's stock can get the corporation to spend money to help pro-billionaire candidates. The corporation effectively takes money from all of the stockholders, so the billionaire doesn't have to pay all the money himself. The corporation doesn't even have to ask the other stockholders whether this is OK with them. So, millions of Americans with retirement investments in stocks (directly or through mutual funds), have billionaires taking money away from their retirement by having corporations use that money to support pro-billionaire candidates.
We're entering a vicious circle. Election-biasing state laws are consolidating one-party dominance in state and federal government bodies. Now the minority-based federal government is installing figures in places such as the Justice Department and Supreme Court who will allow the continuation and expansion of election-biasing laws. With this opening, we can expect a considerable increase in new election-biasing state laws, and the elimination of federal laws and agencies that would regulate this.
In theory, these anti-majority mechanisms could be eliminated with Constitutional amendments. However, to pass an amendment it's necessary to get a 2/3 vote in the House AND a 2/3 vote in the Senate AND the approval of the president AND the approval of 3/4 of the state legislatures. Back in the 1970s, before many of the recent election-biasing laws, the Equal Rights Amendment for women was unable to reach those requirements. Even assuming all of the politicians in those government bodies reflected the wishes of average Americans, to meet all of those requirements would mean you needed the support of at least 70% of the population. But since the elections are so rigged, you would probably need more like 80% of the population supporting the changes and voting in candidates for those changes. And that assumes the candidates that are elected to make the changes don't get lead off course by big money donors or political insiders.
Our politicians and media tell us the above political system is "the greatest democracy in the world." If this is what "democracy" means, I shy away from using the term to describe what we need. I use "majority rule" instead.
So, I'm left asking: What next? Democrats in Congress have put up some opposition, but they don’t really act as if the future of the Democratic Party is at stake. One point we need to consider is that the extent to which the system is already rigged and is in the process of being further rigged puts limits of what can be accomplished solely by rigged legislative means. Our resistance has to take place throughout society.
The Women's Marches on Jan. 21 may have been the largest coordinated protest day in American history - even taking population growth into account. There are other marches which have been held or are planned on various issues. These are crucial. They put the minority rulers on notice and the push the Democrats to do more. These may not be normal activities for the Democratic Party, but these are not normal times. If Democrats want a future, they need to aggressively build a stratgy to reverse anti-majority election biasing.
If you want to win in the elections or otherwise, we need numbers. We need a central theme that can appeal to the greatest number. We saw that a crucial part of Trump's base was blue collar workers and others who feel left behind economically over the last period of time. These are the kinds of people who will suffer the most under billionaire rule, so these are people we need to reach out to. Some of them began with assumptions that business people were the solution, not the problem. And their economic insecurity can make them act too emotionally to see clearly now. But there are immediate issues affecting their family budget on which we can work with them. We need to get as many of them as we can to join in working people’s issues. The more they fight for their family budget issues, the more opportunity they will have to see how business and minority rule politicians respond to family budget issues.
On the Democratic side, we saw what energized the Sanders campaign was income inequality, student debt and similar issues. The largest number of people (Democrats, Republicans and independents) can be reached with a serious effort to the working majority. To gather the greatest number to fight minority rule, we may have to focus less on inequality between white men and women / minorities, and push economic gains for all working people of all genders, races, religions, etc. Some efforts to help "all working people," such as a higher minimum wage, will actually disproportionately help women and minorities. But the forces of minority rule will not be able to use it to divide and conquer as they have been doing in response to efforts just for underprivileged groups. Here are some working majority issues we could focus on:
· Healthcare, lower drug prices
· minimum wage
· overtime pay qualification
· Social Security, Medicare
· "right to work" laws
· "fair trade" deals
· income inequality
· money in politics
· prosecuting bankers
· student debt
· foreclosure protection
· veterans programs
· union rights
· child care, Family leave
Generally, we should stop and think, “Is this an issue that gets large majorities in public opinion polls, or is this an issue progressives care about but will be used by the minority rulers to divide us from other working people?” Right now, we may not be able to fight every battle. The question is which battles can build the movement which can build majority rule.