Post Election Day Thoughts

 

I am impressed by this year's election and how it was handled by both traditional and social media. Unlike in 2016, the news divisions of the major networks, the online social media sites, and the print media seemed to have taken the challenge of presenting real information to the public seriously.  Of course, this meant that the news divisions sometimes had to displease their corporate masters, that the social media sites had to perform limited censorship on lies posted by people friendly to a candidate, and that the print media had to call provable lies what they were - lies.

Regardless of who a person decided to vote for, the state election boards acted with appropriate dilligence to keep their elections honest, and many people from both major parties worked to ensure that all legal votes were included in the tallies for the candidates.  Not everyone would be happy. (Especially the supporters of the sore loser we have as our 45th president)  But there was no way that all could be happy in a polarized society such as ours.

My immediate impressions of some problems that must be addressed before the next presidential election are:

1. Procedures must be in place to deal with more than one type of disaster.  If major sections of this country were to be affected by natural disasters such as fires, floods, or hurricanes, what needs to be done to guarantee that the people affected by these disasters be able to cast their votes? 
2. In the case of a pandemic such as COVID-19, it doesn't make sense for people to cast their ballots in person. How can we ensure that appropriate and uniform procedures are available for people to cast absentee ballots in all of the 50 states?
3. Considering how long it took to get the results of the 2020 election, why shouldn't all 50 states be required to start counting absentee ballots before election day, and deal with provisional ballots within 48 hours of the close of polling places on election day?
4. Given that some states are using touch screen machines to cast ballots, shouldn't the states be required to have paper backup for each ballot?  In addition, shouldn't the machines be required to have double confirmation before a vote is considered cast?  (Can we afford not to be able to recount ballots as many times as needed?  Can we afford to have systems record votes before the voters intends their castings to be final?)    

Of course, there are many more procedural problems such as those listed above. But the bottom line is that all voters must be able to easily cast their ballots and be sure that their intent is recorded properly in time to have accurate results posted within 24 hours after the last vote has been cast.  

However, we must be vgilant - we can not afford to have a sore loser destroy the credibility of election results on his way out.  This is something we can't implement in law.  Instead, it has to be a custom that no one would dare think to challenge.  Unfortunately, we have a sore loser as president who will destroy what he can on his way out.  This is his way of expressing his anger at not being loved by the majority of the American public.  Hopefully, we will recover from this disaster of a presidential term....

Does anything said make a difference at this point?

By this point in the campaign, I'd expect that in a normal Presidential Race, we'd have more undecided voters. This year, we have people from both parties who are sick of the choices given to us by the two major parties, and want another choice.  Given the above chart (issued on 10/16/2016), it looks like 9% of the public wants to vote "NO" to both Trump and Clinton, leaving 6% of the public in the "Undecided" category.

If we factor out the two minor parties, the chart looks like this:

This chart implies that 8% of the vote is up for grabs, making it highly likely that Hillary will win.  Although anything can change up to election day, the above two charts do not look good for Trump.

- - - - - -

The big problem with elections is showing the public that they have not been rigged.  It is much harder to falsify votes once cast. Instead, the two parties fight to keep people loyal to the opposition from getting to vote.  But what happens when a vote is as close as it was in Florida's  Bush v. Gore battle?  One could legitimately say that the election was stolen by Bush and his friends. Yet, Gore had the grace to concede, knowing that he could have destroyed America's faith in this most important of citizen rights and duties.

In some states, the incidents of election fraud are not myths.  Elections can and are being rigged by corrupt politicians who manipulate vote casting machines.  In other states, even the dead have voted. Yet, for the most part, our elections are reasonably honest and can be counted on to accurately reflect the will of voters in the territory covered by the ballot.

Unfortunately, Trump is now putting the electoral process into question.  He is accusing unnamed "others" of trying to rig the election. He is taking legitimacy away from the process in the eyes of his supporters, and this is dangerous. Assuming that Trump loses, his followers will not believe the results of the election.  (Gore's supporters had a better claim that the election was stolen from them, but the need to hold the electoral college election for POTUS may have been more important than the accuracy of Florida's vote.) Can you imagine what could happen if a bunch of disaffected, armed Trump followers don't hear an honest concession speech from Trump on November 8th?  I shudder at the thought.

- - - - - -

If one studies German history of the 1920's and early 1930's, one sees eerie parallels to what is happening in the United States.  In Germany, hyperinflation destroyed the financial power of Germany's middle class. In the United States, the effects of globalization did the same to many in the middle class, as there was no safety net or shock absorber for these people.  No wonder why they both sought out a "messiah" to deliver them from their suffering. Sadly, neither group could articulate its problem, nor could they come up with a leader from their own ranks who could challenge a corrupt elite.  As a result, the Germans put Hitler into power, and we risk putting Trump into power.  

In America, we have systemic unemployment, and no one dares to speak those words. People in rural areas do not have access to the opportunities of the city, and they couldn't even afford to move to the cities if they could leave their homes. The one factory, mill, or mine has closed down, leaving people with no way to escape poverty.  A similar situation exists for those in the inner cities, as we have neglected the needs of the poor, and avoided addressing both social and educational needs that would help them break the cycle of poverty.  We warehouse those who break laws in prison, permanently tainting them with a scarlet letter of a criminal record, and then expect that they compete for the few jobs left for those with "checkered backgrounds".  The prison-industrial complex is hurting both rural and urban areas equally, and is helping to keep the poor in both areas from advocating for their own interests.

- - - - - - 

Globalization has hit America hard, and both rural and urban areas have suffered because of it.  No job is safe any longer.  Yet, no one is proposing the form of safety net or shock absorber we need for our labor force.  We do not provide for workers to retool themselves for the future.  We do not limit the export of jobs that can be done anywhere, so that Americans are only serviced by American workers,  Why is it that we place call centers in India, when this work can be just as easily done by people in rural West Texas, a Lakota Sioux reservation, and Chicago's South Side?   There is no reason that we don't reserve most of these jobs for Americans, and pay the higher product prices needed to bring this labor back home.  

Our elites are the problem, and they must be replaced.  However, we must be careful to make sure we know how to operate the levers of power as we throw the bums out - or we will make things worse with a rebellion that is not thought out.  Years ago, General Patton recognized the need to keep some ex-Nazis in charge of operations in occupied Germany. Contrast this with George Bush and the occupation of Iraq - he threw all ex-Baath party members out of power, and they had chaos.  

For those who still want to vote for Trump, I have one question:  Are you ready for the chaos that his election or defeat will likely cause?