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| Source: Media Cache |
It’s a full week since the disaster that is the American
elections, the shock has worn off for some and others are still in mourning.
For some, the outcome of the elections came as no surprise, I tend to think
these are the people who have long given up on humanity. For some of us,
somewhat optimistic, we hoped and thought the outcome would be different.
While I could go on about how tragic the outcome is and how
it’s an indication of the racial and gender discrimination that still exists and
is deeply rooted in our society (because this really isn’t just about America)
I will instead talk about post the election.
Hillary seems to have lost this election in a similar manner
to Al Gore in 2000, while Hillary hasn’t won the election she won the popular
vote. I’m not entirely sure how the voting system works but a candidate can
either win both the popular vote and the electoral college vote or they can win
just the electoral vote (I’m not sure if I’m using the right words here). In
order for a president elect (smirk, big words) to win the election the
candidate must receive a majority of electoral votes (there are 538 electors on
the college).
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| Source: i.ndtvimg.com |
According to NBC news Clinton won the popular vote by a bit
over a million votes, yet the orange one gets to run the country (the picture along side is a bit biased but I don't care :) ). I’ve said
this before (in my previous post actually), I’m a firm believer of the quote by
Emma Goldman that says “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal”. A candidate who hasn't won the popular vote has been sworn in four times in the American democratic history. I could go into a long
winded lecture about who (unjustly) lost the election when and what the
circumstances were, but I refuse to be such a bore. All I can say is it’s happened
four times before this and the last time it happened was in 2000 when George W.
Bush was declared the winner of the general election despite having lost the popular
vote to Al Gore.
Following George W. Bush’s rather unfavorable actions during
his presidency (This is according to some shady website I found called the dailydot)
I would have thought there would be a change in the American voting process. According
to this website George W. Bush failed the American people; he failed to bring
those responsible for the September 11 attacks to justice. His policies led to
the great recession, and last but not least he did not advocate on behalf of
the LGBT community (He and Trump are alike this way).
The American people chose Hilary and they got the orange one
that goes by Trump instead. This goes to show that this democracy is a lie, how
can the opinion of 538 flawed (probably old white) men sideline the opinion of
some 130 million people? I understand that this system was probably established
based on the fact that the 583 are probably chosen by the general population
and their opinion is therefore an indirect representation of the people’s opinion.
But shouldn’t the electoral vote then be disregarded in the case where it
differs from the popular vote? The electoral college evidently doesn’t
always know what the people want.
That being said, we can all agree that the American voting
system is a bit peculiar, it takes forever, and then when it does eventually
come to a conclusion the people don’t always get what they want. One of the things
that stands out for me is that it is biased towards a certain class and race. State representation on the electoral college is not based on the size of the state
(writing more about this would leave me confused and angry but here’s where you can
read up on it if you are interested: www.nbcnews.com)
Besides the election outcome itself (I kid you not, when I
first saw that Trump won the election I thought it was one of those fake news
that Facebook has been publishing lately) what I find surprising post-election
is the strength of the US Dollar against major currencies (i.e. Euro, Japanese
Yen, Canadian Dollar, and the Rand)! Somehow I had assumed it would plummet if
Donald Trump won the election, but obviously I was wrong.
There is a lot that I could go on about (If I may be so vain)
relating to the US elections but nothing I would say would be new and I don’t know
enough about US politics to write anything that’s life changing, and I won’t
risk my blog being riddled with more factual inaccuracies (nobody knows how much
of what I’ve said is actually correct). Besides my factual inaccuracies we can
only hope that Trump won’t be the disaster of a president that his speeches and
interviews indicate he will be.
EoP (End of Post)
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