Time is running out! The Electoral College is scheduled to vote on Monday. Please add your voice to those demanding a delay in the vote so the electors can be fully briefed on Russia’s interference in our election, interference which arguably cost Hillary Clinton an electoral college victory.
There are a number of different petitions to sign on Avazz, and MoveOn.org to demand that the electors be given a briefing before they vote on Monday or that the vote be delayed until such a briefing can be arranged.
Avazz has a petition demanding that electors get a briefing before they vote.
MoveOn.org has one demanding that the government declassify all evidence of Russian interference and host intelligence briefing for electors before Electoral College votes on December 19. There are a number of related petitions there as well.
Post information about these petitions and the issue in general on Facebook and Twitter and other social media. Post some of the memes I’ve made on the subject or make your own.
At this point, these petitions may be something of a futile endeavor, as the CIA has reportedly said that there will be no briefing, but I think it’s still worth it to stand up and say something about this travesty.
If the vote isn’t delayed, consider joining one of the candlelight vigils that will be held in all 50 state capitals tomorrow night, intended to support those electors who do what’s right and vote against Trump. You can also support this campaign by taking a photo of yourself with a candle and posting it to social media.
For more information on the vigils, see here.
As I see it, there are three main reasons why the electors should vote against Trump.
He lost the popular vote by more than three million votes, demonstrating just how screwy it is that we decide our elections not based on who gets the most votes but on a convoluted system that essentially makes the votes of white rural voters worth more than those of people of color. Electors, protest this absurdity by voting against Trump!
The Russian hacks. Do we really want the outcomes of our elections to be determined by dirty tricks engineered and overseen by Vladimir Putin? Do we want to have a president who is beholden to the autocratic Russian leader?
Trump has made clear that he intends to oversee a kleptocracy designed to benefit himself and his friends. He has refused to take even the most basic steps to disconnect himself financially from his businesses. He will be violating the laws, and the constitution, from the moment he takes office.
Any of these things would be enough to render Trump an illegitimate president. But all three? Voting against Trump is not just an option for the electors. It’s their duty to their country.
Six months from now, none of us want to wake up to this:
Here’s another version of the puppet graphic:
And a blank one if you want to add your own words:
I’m going to be making a lot more of these little propaganda posters in the next few days and weeks. Please spread them around! And make some of your own!
I don’t think that my vote, as a Nebraskan, should count more than other people’s votes.
I also don’t think that Congress needs the extra power they receive in the presidential elections by gerrymandering congressional districts.
Every state has rural and city voters. The system as it is now makes many of their votes pretty useless unless they are in a swing state.
Beth,
The way things are now, rural voters have disproportionate power. As a person living in a progressive city in a purple to blue state, my vote does almost nothing. Cities are where the majority of the citizens live and metro areas the vast majority, yet the interests of city people are almost completely ignored both on the state and federal level. The outsized power of the mostly whiter and older rural citizenship has given us more racist, sexist, and homophobic policies and it enacted the very economic policies that help Wall Street but hurt those very same rural folk. So fuck the rural vote. We’d be better off with the cities – the majority of the populace – having more electoral power. Both metro and rural people would be better off.
BTW, I still remember last time you posted here. You called us mean. I forgot why. You admitted to showing your ass, trolling, and getting banned here at some point in the past. So I’m not sure why your concern trolling about how paying attention to the needs of the majority of the citizenry would be bad should be taken seriously.
After eight years of “HE’LL REPEAL THE TWO-TERM LIMIT AND DECLARE HIMSELF PRESIDENT FOR LIFE!” conspiracy theories, even something as simple as taking the initiative here would almost certainly get him shot. The rest of the Dems have no excuse, of course, but I can’t really blame Obama for not wanting to end up dead.
@Bethd
As I said, there are almost 50 million rural voters in america.
If a candidate ignored you, then you could get together with others and protest in a way that’s guaranteed to get attention. There are certainly more than enough of you.
and the fact that you are commenting here means you have the means to connect with other rural areas throughout the country. So you can’t use the “we’re too far apart to gather” excuse.
There is no reason to have or to defend the electoral college. Your vote will still matter when it’s gone. It’s just that right now your vote matters more than certain other groups, and that’s not democratic in the slightest.
@Bethd
Why would “politicians” choose to ignore the less densely populated areas of the country? The USA is still a federal republic, with elected representatives from each state in the bicameral legislature, right? A legislature which has, and which continues to exert, more power on the functioning of government than the Executive? Not to mention the various state governments? How would abolishing the Electoral College change this?
Small/sparsely populated states already get extra representation in government in the form of the senate.
As it stands now millions of voters in solidly blue states (california, especially, and my state of Illinois among others) get much less bang for their vote than rural voters. Essentially we are being disenfranchised because of where we live. And since there are a lot of people of color in these states, they are being systematically disenfranchised as well.
The electoral college is basically, in its effect if not in intention, a big gerrymandering scheme that advantages rural and white people.
At the very least we should end the winner-take-all system for the electoral college.
As it is, presidential candidates only have to pander to the concerns of a handful of “swing” states, which are all medium-sized. Except for Florida. Well, maybe also Pennsylvania, but that’s kind of borderline. So while low population rural states may have disproportionate representation in general, their concerns still don’t matter that much on the presidential level.
David, the sad truth is that we went high and they went low and most Americans are low. The truth isn’t fun enough for most Republicans…they must have a conspiracy or a Bible moment. The world didn’t go forward when we did…the rest are in the 50s and think that women really wanted to be with those dildos.The rest are just homophobic and racist and think that is the right way. They are wrong but that doesn’t seem like something we will see in my lifetime and I’m young.
Complaining that you must have the greatest influence over both the senate and the president despite making up a minority of the populace is a sizeable “fuck you” to both the other 250+ million folk you share your country with and the notion of representative democracy. Why should you be a privileged class?
It also says that the president has far too much power and influence. The position clearly needs to be cut down to size, given that the office and the hugely elaborate and extended song-and-dance that builds up to the election is just one big tumor that’s sucking the life out of the rest of the country.
Thanks, David! I signed both petitions. We’re at 68,000 signatures.
Fun fact: Once you sign, Avaaz will take you to another page. If you quickly return to the original page, you might be able to see your name flash by, along with the flag of your country.
And I would love nothing more than Trump to go down in history as the straw that broke the camel’s back.
I hope something happens. I’m unfortunately worried, so many electors remain steadfast in their support for Trump. Electors all over the country are receiving death threats, which really needs to fucking stop because that is doing less than nothing. Michigan is especially a problem, since laws prevent even the hope of a faithless elector vote.
Everyone who replied:
Thank you. Thank you so much. Up until about a year ago I was of the opinion that the electoral college should be abolished. Then my parents (Trump supportors / major conservatives) made me feel very, very dumb for having that opinion. They pounded my head full of “facts” that we wouldn’t be represented, etc (I live in Idaho) and the arguments made sense, especially making me feel dumb… You reminded me of why I had that opinion in the first place; they act like the president runs everything and that rural areas have no representation, and that cities are just hiveminds that would trample everyone else.
Thank you. I know I’ve been a real assbag in the past, and I apologize once again for that. I’ve been having a tough time lately, feeling completely betrayed by my parents-two intelligent, very ambitious and sucessful people-suddenly supporting a demagogue and acting like he can do no harm. I am a transgender person, so it’s hard for me to fathom how they can say they love me when they support such an evil administration that will likely harm me.
Because I’ve lived so long under their chatter, and because I look up to them so much, I try to see things from their point of view. I try to give conservative thought a chance.
But it doesn’t really work anymore. How can I keep giving chances to views that are rooted in such toxic hatefulness? It feels like when I was younger Republicans weren’t this evil, so it feels like there are two choices:
Maybe they always were and it’s out in the open now, or they have zero integrity in the values they claim to stand for. Neither option is good.
But each day that passes I find it harder and harder to find commonality with my own parents… It feels like I don’t want to be around them anymore. It sucks.
Sorry for such a long post.
How did the party of Lincoln end up where it is today? Well nothing that big and that human is simple, but I think it comes down to racial politics and two decisions, one by LBJ, and one by Nixon.
In the mid-60s the Dems controlled the south, almost absolutely, largely because the Republicans had won The War of Northern Aggression. There was wiggle room for Republicans along the edges of the south, and they controlled the west, as they, for the most part, do today.
Then Lyndon Johnson took a look at the situation, especially the makeup of SCOTUS and what MLK called the arc of history. It was clear to him that the idea of civil rights was becoming more and more acceptable, even in the South. I think he decided that if Civil Rights legislation was going to happen anyway, he wanted the Democratic Party to get the credit.
Working with Republicans, he got the Civil Rights Act passed and actually started enforcing some of the rulings of SCOTUS and large segments of the South had a large hissy fit and some expressed their ire by becoming Republicans, which doesn’t make sense, but that is what they did.
Then Nixon saw all that anger at Johnson and decided on the whole Southern Strategy. The thing about the Southern Strategy that really fucked over the Republicans was 1) they had to pander to the more extreme conservatives (in this case conservative meant racist), thus selling their birthright with people of color for a bowl of Winning the next election and 2) set up an attitude where winning was the only thing. This attracted the really big rich, especially since the Dems had also taken up with those damned Unions. The whole thing was a political positive feedback situation that has done what positive feedback always does… gone completely out of control.
In other words LBJ took the long view and Nixon took the short view. The Republicans won a few elections but lost their souls. That does not make the Dems all noble and everything. I’m sure LBJ’s motives were far far more political than noble. But the result of all of this forced the Dems to be more inclusive. In the long run that will be the winning strategy, as Johnson realized. It’s just taking a little longer to win over the rest of the country to the idea because of the active and very expensive efforts of some very rich men to keep the average guy from realizing who is really to blame for the fact that these days a high school diploma will not automatically earn you a living wage by giving them a series of scapegoats and lying their asses off.
At least that is the way I see it. ?
@Bethd
At the very least you were able to come clean. I’m sorry that your parents’ cognitive dissonance had to be based on discrimination of all things. I’m still trying to get my devout Catholic mother to start treating trans people as real instead of “not a real gender” in between her passive aggressive demands for me to change my entire personality to suit her. I can’t imagine what it feels like to be in your boots.
Best of wishes to ya.
http://m.imgur.com/qOK9Bx1?r
I really wanna hang on to the tiny hope that he might not be POTUS in the end. Can’t really do anything from this side of the ocean though…
Are there petitions that allow foreigners ?
I’ll never repeat it enough, but what happens in the US doesn’t stay in the US, so it’s pretty legitimate for the rest of the planet to have a say. POTUS basically means president of the world, to a certain extent, so y’know…
(Yes, I fully realize the irony of being a foreigner and wanting to do something, while protesting other foreign interferences, but there’s gotta be a difference between making yourself heard and, y’know, what Russia did, right ?)
Unrelated, but the “party of Lincoln” thing mentioned above reminded me of something. I’ve been trying to do research on this before, but for some reason I really can’t figure it out, probably because I lack some key context. Can someone point me to a good explanation of the history of both parties ? I’ve read various things mentioning that Republicans used to be the progressives and the roles basically reversed at some point, and I’m extremely puzzled about that. For one, my country doesn’t really do the whole “centuries old parties” thing, so I guess that’d be the start of an explanation, but I don’t really get it.
I saw this posted somewhere a while back, possibly on this blog, and thought it was helpful:
http://www.vox.com/2016/7/20/12148750/republican-party-trump-lincoln
@sinkable John: Otrame’s summary above is pretty good, as far as it goes. However, the swap started in the early part of the twentieth century.
Between the Civil War and Woodrow Wilson, the Republican Party pretty much ran Washington, largely by reminding everyone that the Confederates were Democrats. This caused the GOP to become the establishment party, and forced the democrats to become more progressive, culminating in FDR.
@Bethd: I grew up in Nevada, and my folks now live in Missoula, so I feel you.
While we’re on the subject, can anyone recommend me a good article or argument (you don’t have to find it compelling, just well-written, by someone who’s not ridiculous) on why the electors should NOT nullify Trump? I have a good one in favor of it, and would like my students to read a counterargument.
I asked about this on Facebook, but a certain conservative of my acquaintance decided to take over the thread ‘splainin’ to me how important the Electoral College is. We got nowhere. I tried to redirect him, but it was useless.
I have to say, I find it sort of frustrating that the same people who have been telling me for years how undemocratic and condescending and awful affirmative action is are now telling me how people in Wyoming need extra votes to make it up to them for…um…something.
Speaking of articles and the like, can anyone suggest a snappy title for a paper on why Incels present a terrorist threat?
Ideas for compelling sub-headings also welcome.
The history of party in the United States is the history of the United States. Party history goes all the way back to the Revolutionary War, and is inextricably intertwined with American history ever since. Unfortunately it’s difficult to get a solid American history that includes party, because most “for the masses” history doesn’t want to “get political,” so the politics are excised. This leaves people’s motives in doing what they did largely unexplained, and IMHO is one reason why American history is such a boring subject in school.
http://billmoyers.com/story/none-dare-call-treason/
With a due respect. Fuck trump but fuck this anti-russian nonsense.
https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/cyber-panic/
I dont have good internet so i cannot follow everything as close as David and some of you. Im on a ship in Black Sea at the moment. I have been since June. So if theres any info I’m missing here i am open to correction.
I feel like there’s still something missing in the Republican story. When did they start absolutely refusing to work with the Democrats on anything? That’s definitely behavior I see more on the GOP side. The Democrats are far more likely to “reach across the aisle” and offer compromise, even when they have a majority. You know, like good guys and grown ups.
When, in general, did this country develop the idea that people with different political views were not fellow citizens, but literal enemies?
And how do we change that?
@Karalora, roughly when Fox News started, I think? Trying to avoid hyperbole, but it really did seem to become a widespread problem right around when Fox News started normalizing lies as truth.