Tag Archives: US election 2016

A Formula For U.S. Election Outcomes

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A Formula For U.S. Election Outcomes

I am wondering what the chances are for significant U.S. government action on the following ten issues, before 2022:

1. Equity of taxation
(popular/leveling vs. corporate/plutocratic),
2. Extract money from politics, kill Citizens United
(prosecute influence peddling and financial crimes),
3. climate change action (Green New Deal),
4. cut war spending, end the Yemen War
(and cut military-corporate subsidies),
5. Medicare-for-All
(versus insurance company gouging),
6. Social Security expansion
(versus general impoverishment for fat cat gains),
7. fund and staff welfare programs
(food, shelter, childcare, post-disaster assistance),
8. immigration reform and smart liberalization,
9. public school upgrades and teacher funding
(versus vouchers for resegregation; free college),
10. end subsidies for Christian xenophobia bigotry
(pursue Civil rights prosecutions, and Reparations).

This depends on what kinds of administrations we get as a result of national and state elections in 2020 and 2022. So, I devised a mathematical model of U.S. voting outcomes based on voter political affiliations and voting preferences. My aim is to have a tool to quantify my guesses about future election outcomes, so as to improve my speculations on when and to what degree desirable action will be taken on the ten issues stated. This exercise was better than being glum, dejected and confused about American politics, and this essay summarizes my findings. I based my model on voting behavior during U.S. presidential (quadrennial) elections instead of on midterm elections, but why not use it for both?

There were 7 of steps in devising this model: 1, determining the fractional composition of the American electorate by age brackets (15 of them); 2, finding the percent voter turnout by age bracket; 3, finding the party identification (both formal affiliation and casual identification) proportionally by age bracket; 4, collapsing all that data into the percent of the voting population that favors each of the three major U.S. political ideologies (from least to most amorphous): Republican, Democratic, and Independent; 5, examining the tabulated numerical date to divine the most general and instructive relationship, dependent on the fewest number of parameters, to devise a specific correlating and predictive mathematical formula; 6, calculate hypothetical results from this formula and then compare them (to the extent possible) with data on prior election outcomes; and 7, generalize the initial formula into an easily used estimating tool.

The Data

My source for population data was the U.S. Census Bureau [1]. On July 1, 2017, the US population was (officially) 325,719,178, and the voting age (18-85+) population (without considering legal barriers) was 252,018,630. I used data published by Charles Franklin on voter turnout as a function of age (https://medium.com/@PollsAndVotes/age-and-voter-turnout-52962b0884ef), [2]. I collapsed Franklin’s smooth data curve (for voter turnout, by age, to presidential elections) into 15 single values of percent turnout, one for each of the 15 age brackets: 18-19, 20-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-44, 45-49, 50-54, 55-59, 60-64, 65-69, 70-74, 75-80, 80-84, 85 and up. Turnout for teen and early 20s voters is 47%-55% (17%-25% for midterms), and turnout increases steadily with age, reaching a broad peak between 80% and 85% for voters 55 to 80 years old (70% to 73% for ages 62 to 79, for midterms). The population between 18 and 34 years (16 year span) is 75,913,971; the population between 60 and 79 years (19 year span) is 58,412,409. The population between 55 and 79 (24 year span) is 80,420,365; the population between 18 and 39 (21 year span) is 97,145,968. Voters between the ages of 18 and 29 (11 year span) contribute 17% of the presidential vote; voters between the ages of 50 and 59 (9 year span) contribute 19% of the presidential vote. Ah, poor youth, condemned to struggle and strive in a country (and world) shaped and directed by the crabbed and brittle prejudices of a smaller number of futureless self-satisfied property owners.

Party affiliation is of two types: being a reliable voter to a party you are registered with, or being an independent voter who will admit to “leaning” (in the voting booth) to the Democrats or Republicans, especially when you are alarmed or enthused about a particular election or issue. Those voters who refuse to declare a duopolistic party allegiance or even a “lean” are the staunch Independents. The Gallup organization has published data on the percent of voters who are Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, as well as leaners to the Democrats and Republicans, by age (https://news.gallup.com/poll/172439/party-identification-varies-widely-across-age-spectrum.aspx), [3]. Using this data, I lumped leaners in with declared party loyalists (respectively, for Republicans and Democrats), and then for each of the 15 age brackets assigned three numerical factors for the percentage of the age bracket voting in each of three modes: Republican, Democratic or Independent. From all the data described to this point, I was able to calculate, for each age bracket, the percent of the presidential vote that went to the Republican and Democratic parties, and to the Independent category. I summed up the results for the 15 age brackets to get an overall composition of the entire voting population, and rounded the final numbers slightly for convenience, to arrive at: 45% Democratic, 40.5% Republican, and 14.5% Independent. I will call this the “baseline.”

Note that all the data described above refers to conditions between 2014 and 2017.

The Formula (!)

If people voted consistently with their declared affiliations, we would have a continuous sequence of Democratic Party administrations; but people don’t, so we have flux and upheaval. In fact, the outcome of our national elections is driven by the surreptitious faithlessness of our tight-lipped (to pollsters at least) Independent voters. Our staunch Independent voters number between 1-in-8 (12.5%) to 1-in-5 (20%) of the voting population, and this fraction varies geographically and over time, in mysterious ways. What actually happens with Independents in the privacy of their voting booths is that they make individual choices about individual issues and candidates, and for each of these they vote in one of three ways: Democratic, Republican, or for one of the myriad of Independent options available, including abstention. So, the 14.5% (to take a fixed number for now) of the voting population that is incorrigibly Independent actually splits into three fractions during voting (quantified here as percentages of the Independent voting population only): I%D, I%R, and I%I. The label I%D represents the percentage of the Independents who voted Democratic in a particular election. Similarly, I%R corresponds to the percentage of the Independents who supplied Republican votes, and I%I corresponds to the percentage of the Independents who remained purely Independent. Note that I%D + I%R + I%I = 100%.

The 4.5% advantage Democrats have over Republicans nationally, based on my calculations (the baseline), can easily be overcome by a 5% or greater net contribution of Republican votes from the Independents. For example, if the Independent population splits: 50% Republican, 5.2% Democratic, and 44.8% staunch Independent (50% + 5.2% + 44.8% = 100% of the Independent population) then they contribute, nationally: 7.2% for Republicans (50% of the 0.145 fraction of the national vote made up of Independents), 0.8% for Democrats (5.2% of their 0.145 national fraction), and 6.5% (44.8% of their 0.145 national fraction) for Independent candidates. The result for the national election becomes: 47.7% Republican (40.5% + 7.2%), 45.8% Democratic (45% + 0.8%), and 6.5% Independent (14.5% – 7.2% – 0.8%). Note that 47.7% + 45.8% + 6.5% = 100% of the national vote. In this case the Republicans win the election with a 2.0% lead (with slight rounding).

By calculating several examples, as just shown, one can arrive at the following equation for election outcomes (for the duopoly horse race).

D-R = 4.5% + [0.145 x (I%D – I%R)].

In words: the percentage difference between Democrats and Republicans in national elections is equal to 4.5% plus the fraction 0.145 multiplied by the difference between the percentage of the Independent voting population that voted Democratic, and the percentage of the Independent voting population that voted Republican. The calculation for the previous example is as follows:

D-R = 4.5% + [0.145 x (5.2% – 50%)] =
D-R = 4.5% + [0.145 x (-44.8%)] =
D-R = 4.5% + [-6.5%]
D-R = -2%

Democrats lose, numerically, by 2%. Also, the actual vote going to Independents nationally is:

Actual Independent Vote Nationally =
14.5% (Independents) – 7.2% (to R) – 0.8% (to D) = 6.5%.

After playing a while with the duopoly horse race estimator formula, give above, I realized one can generalize it further.

D-R = D0 + [Fl x (I%D – I%R)].

D-R = percentage difference between Democrats and Republicans, from election.
D0 = percentage advantage (+) or disadvantage (-) for Democrats, based on affiliations.
FI = the fraction (not percentage) of the voting population that is Independent.
I%D = the percentage of the Independent population that chooses D (this time).
I%R = the percentage of the Independent population that chooses R (this time).
I%I = the percentage of the Independent population that remains I (this time).
Note that: I%D + I%R + I%I = 100%.

So far here, I have used D0 = 4.5%, and FI = 0.145. However, you can choose different numbers based on your own survey of population, voter turnout and party affiliation data, or on your intuition about a particular electoral contest. As mentioned earlier, estimates of FI can range between 0.125 (1/8) to 0.2 (1/5), and perhaps beyond.

Comparing To Previous Elections

I have not found data on the population sizes and voting splits of the Independent voting contingent in previous elections. It would be nice to validate the formula using such data. While the assumptions underpinning this model may not be representative of conditions in all prior US elections, we can nevertheless use prior election results to calculate inferences about what might have been the voting behavior of Independent voters in the past. To do that, we assume that the baseline (40.5% R, 14.5% I, 45% D), which was calculated from 2014-2017 data, has been constant (or nearly constant) since 1968. Here are the calculated inferences on how Independents voted in elections since 1968, based on the known national outcomes.

1968, Nixon
R. Nixon (R) 43.4% vs. H. Humphrey (D) 42.7% vs. G. Wallace (I) 13.5%
Remainder of the national vote is 0.4%
Independents contribute 14.5% of the national vote
Independents split: 77.2% (Wallace), 20% (R), 0% (D), 2.8% (I).

1972, Nixon
R. Nixon (R) 60.7% vs. G. McGovern (D) 37.5%
Remainder of the national vote is 1.8%
Independents contribute 14.5% of the national vote
Independents split: 87.6% (R), 0% (D), 12.4% (I)

1976, Carter
J. Carter (D) 50.1% vs. G. Ford (R) 48%
Remainder of the national vote is 1.9%
Independents contribute 14.5% of the national vote
Independents split: 51.7% (R), 35.2% (D), 13.1% (I)

1980, Reagan
R. Reagan (R) 50.7% vs. J. Carter (D) 41% vs. J. Anderson (I) 6.6%
Remainder of the national vote is 1.7%
Independents contribute 14.5% of the national vote
Independents split: 42.8% (R), 0% (D), 45.5% (Anderson), 11.7% (I)

1984, Reagan
R. Reagan (R) 58.8% vs. W. Mondale (D) 40.6%
Remainder of the national vote is 0.6%
Independents contribute 14.5% of the national vote
Independents split: 95.9% (R), 0% (D), 4.1% (I)

1988, Bush Sr.
G.H.W. Bush (R) 53.4% vs. M. Dukakis (D) 45.6%
Remainder of the national vote is 1.0%
Independents contribute 14.5% of the national vote
Independents split: 89% (R), 4.1% (D), 6.9% (I)

1992, Clinton
W. Clinton (D) 43% vs. G.H.W. Bush (R) 37.4% vs. R. Perot (I) 18.9%
Remainder of the national vote is 0.7%
Independents contribute 14.5% of the national vote
Independents split: 0% (R), 0% (D), 95.2% (Perot), 4.8% (I)

1996, Clinton
W. Clinton (D) 49.2% vs. R. Dole (R) 40.7% vs. R. Perot (I) 8.4%
Remainder of the national vote is 1.7%
Independents contribute 14.5% of the national vote
Independents split: 1.4% (R), 29% (D), 58% (Perot), 11.6% (I)

2000, Bush Jr.
G. Bush (R) 47.9% vs. A. Gore (D) 48.4%
Remainder of the national vote is 3.7%
Independents contribute 14.5% of the national vote
Independents split: 51% (R), 23.5% (D), 25.5% (I)
Bush appointed despite a 0.5% deficit.

2004, Bush Jr.
G. Bush (R) 50.7% vs. J. Kerry (D) 48.3%
Remainder of the national vote is 1.0%
Independents contribute 14.5% of the national vote
Independents split: 70.3% (R), 22.8% (D), 6.9% (I)

2008, Obama
B. Obama (D) 52.9% vs. J. McCain (R) 45.7%
Remainder of the national vote is 1.4%
Independents contribute 14.5% of the national vote
Independents split: 35.9% (R), 54.4% (D), 9.7% (I)

2012, Obama
B. Obama (D) 51.1% vs. M. Romney (R) 47.2%
Remainder of the national vote is 1.7%
Independents contribute 14.5% of the national vote
Independents split: 46.2% (R), 42.1% (D), 11.7% (I)

2016, Trump
D. Trump (R) 46.1% vs. H. Clinton (D) 48.2%
Remainder of the national vote is 5.7%
Independents contribute 14.5% of the national vote
Independents split: 38.6% (R), 22.1% (D), 39.3% (I)
Trump appointed despite a 2.1% deficit.

The 2.1% Republican Credit

In the 2000 election, G. Bush (R) had a 0.5% deficit and was still appointed the 43rd President of the United States of America.

In the 2016 election, H. Clinton (D) gained a 2.1% lead over D. Trump (R) – the same lead J. Carter (D) used to win in 1976 – and yet Trump was appointed the 45th President of the United States of America.

These “deficit wins” were due to a combination of nefarious factors: the Electoral College, pro-Republican judicial bias, voter suppression efforts (in both R and D varieties), vote counting sabotage, and undoubtedly other forms of creative incompetence.

So, today we must assume that because of embedded structural irregularities in the American electoral mechanism, that Democrats must gain more than a 2.1% advantage over Republicans in order to win national elections.

I easily concede that my simple clean mathematical formula does not contain the full range of rascally dirty realities in American electoral spectacles.

Dreams Of DSA Utopia

Could a significant politically leftward sentiment ever take hold among the Independent voting population, and this cause a leftward shift in electoral outcomes? The more socialist (or democratic-socialist, or progressive, of left) the legislators, executives and administrations that result from near-future elections, the more likely the ten issues I listed at the beginning would get serious attention – and action!

W. Clinton (D) won in 1996 with an 8.5% advantage. His Democratic administration was pure corporate, no different from center-right Republican policy before Reagan. I assume that if the voting population turned further away from Republicans, and more in favor of the most socialist-oriented Democratic candidates, that the resulting Democratic administrations would be less corporate-oriented (yes, I know this is magical thinking at present).

So, perhaps a Democratic victory with a 12.5% advantage would result in a Democratic administration that is a half-and-half mixture of corporate (DNC type) Democrats and socialist (DSA type) Democrats, and then some serious nibbling would occur on the ten issues. Mathematically, this could result if the hypothetical Independents split: 55.2% (D), 0% (R), and 44.8% stayed pure (I). The projected national election result would be 53% Democratic, 40.5% Republican, and 6.5% Independent.

An even better though less likely occurrence would be a socialist Democratic Party that gains a 16.5% electoral advantage, driving the Republican Party to extinction (instead of us!). Using the formula, we can infer an Independent split of: 82.8% (D), 0% (R), 17.2% pure (I). The projected national election result would be 57% Democratic, 40.5% Republican, 2.5% Independent.

The ultimate fantasy is of all Independents becoming enthusiastic DSA socialists, so they would add their 14.5% of the national vote to a socialist Democratic Party, with a projected electoral result of: 59.5% Democratic (pure DSA), 40.5% Republican, 0% Independent. An electorate that could accomplish this would empower national and state administrations that would address the ten issues listed earlier, with vigor and all the resources – human, material, and intangible – available to this rich nation.

However improbable the last scenario – of a Socialist political tsunami – appears in the United States of today, I think it is better to keep it in mind as a vision (more easily done if you are young), rather than acidly disparaging and brusquely dismissing it (more likely done by the old and bitter), because it can help motivate useful activism and kind action from those who want a better world with fairer politics and economics, and know that it is humanly possible to get it.

Notes

[1] Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Selected Age Groups by Sex for the United States, States, Counties, and Puerto Rico Commonwealth and Municipios: April 1, [use above title to search in “2017 Population Estimates,” link below is just a start]
https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=CF

[2] Age and Voter Turnout (Charles Franklin)
https://medium.com/@PollsAndVotes/age-and-voter-turnout-52962b0884ef

[3] Party Identification Varies Widely Across the Age Spectrum
https://news.gallup.com/poll/172439/party-identification-varies-widely-across-age-spectrum.aspx

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Why Did Russia Vote For Trump?

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Why did Russia favor Trump over Hillary in 2016?

By the broadest definitions of “military bases” and “abroad,” Russia has 15 foreign military bases:

11 are located in “near distant” territory that was part of the U.S.S.R. until 1991, when the U.S.S.R. was dissolved;

4 are in distant foreign lands (2 active in Syria, 1 active in Vietnam, 1 inactive in Cuba);

the above total to 15; and also:

7 are active on now rented “near distant” foreign lands;

3 are now inactive on “near distant” foreign lands;

1 is active on formerly “near distant” foreign land now reincorporated into Russia (Crimea);

3 are active in distant foreign lands (2 in Syria, 1 in Vietnam);

1 is inactive in a distant foreign land (Cuba);

the last five types total to 15.

Notice that the 3 active distant foreign bases are:

– the large naval facility on the Syrian (Mediterranean) coast, at Tartus, and the nearby Khmeimim air base;

– the signals intelligence ‘spy’ post near the Golan Heights (for monitoring communications by Syrian rebel groups and the Israeli Defense Forces), which was overrun by the Free Syrian Army rebels in October 2014 (at least two other Russian intelligence centers are now assumed to be located inside Syria);

– the large naval and air force base at Cam Ranh Bay, in Vietnam.

Clearly, Russia’s only distant (not in former USSR territory) foreign military base near the Atlantic Ocean is its naval and air force facilities on the coast of Syria. Its only other distant foreign military base is on the coast of Vietnam, and thus by the South China Sea (and Pacific Ocean).

The United States has about 800 foreign military bases in about 70 countries; and many encircling Russian in the countries now liberated from the former U.S.S.R.

So, it is easy to see that a major priority (perhaps the top priority) of Russian foreign policy would be to ensure the maintenance and security of its three distant foreign military bases, in particular its two large naval and air force bases, in Syria and Vietnam; and most particularly its coastal Syrian base complex. The Russian naval base in Syria is at a focal point between the Levant, Southern Europe and North Africa.

While Russia has a major military presence in Southeast Asia, with its base at Cam Ranh Bay, it also has a second point from which to project military power into the Pacific region (and globally by submarines): its military facilities in Vladivostok (Eastern Siberia, by the Northwest Pacific, Russia’s eastern flank). But its sole ‘distant’ foreign base on its western flank is its base (naval base and associated air force base) in Syria.

Given the above (my estimation of Russian foreign policy and military priorities) what can we deduce about Russian government preferences regarding possible American (US) regimes? In 2016 the US election was narrowed to three potential candidates: Donald Trump (for the Republicans), and either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders (for the Democrats).

From the Russian perspective, Hillary Clinton as US president was most likely to start covert and overt military actions against Russian interests, a.k.a. war with Syria. That same Russian estimation of potential American foreign policies under either a President Donald Trump or President Bernie Sanders would rate the likelihood of anti-Russian (and anti-Syrian) warlike activity by the U.S. as significantly lower. So, naturally they would prefer Trump or Bernie as the US president after 2016.

Since it was obvious that the Democratic machine and entrenched bipartisan neoliberal capitalist cabal would thwart the Sanders campaign and strongly favor Hillary Clinton, Russian political analysts saw Trump as their American candidate of choice. Thus Russian propaganda and agit-prop aimed at the U.S.A. during 2016 was designed to damage the public image of Hillary Clinton (not hard to do), boost the public image of Donald Trump (not easy to do, but a fascinating challenge to clever and patriotic Russian political gamers), and to launch anti-Hillary barbs couched as rabidly pro-Sanders social media messages, which were disguised to appear as authentic expressions by Sanders’ supporters.

Trump’s vanity bristles at the idea that Russian CIA-like covert election tampering could have had any positive effect in gaining him the presidency (by disaffecting potential Hillary voters), so he angrily dismisses the idea of “Russian interference.”

Hillary’s vanity is publicly outraged by the idea that her coronation as the “first female US president” could have been derailed by “Russian interference,“ and she is no doubt ‘privately’ grateful to the Russians for providing her with another excuse to cover for her cupidity, corruption and incompetence, which put off many possible Hillary voters, and which reality was the second most important cause of her Electoral College failing grade and Trump’s success there. The most important cause of Trump’s Electoral College success, of course, was his genuine appeal to white supremacy, anti-female sexism, crony capitalism and latent fascism. These last four factors also have some appeal with the Putin Regime in Russia.

We leave it to Robert Mueller (Special Counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections) to ascertain the facts, but it seems fairly clear why Donald Trump and the Republican Party dislike and try to hobble the Mueller probe, and why the machine Democrats have been so strident in wanting it to continue and expand into a coup d’état by administrative procedures.

A second and more likely to be successful alternative for the Democrats to replace Trump (and many of his enabling Republicans) is by winning elections; but that would require allowing Bernie Sanders to lead the party and set its agenda. So, that’s forbidden: party over country.

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Also appearing at:

Why Did Russia Vote For Trump?
23 February 2018
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/02/23/why-did-russia-vote-for-trump/

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Herodias Then, Hillary Now

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Francesco del Cairo, “Herodias with the head of John the Baptist,” 1625-1630

 

On reading the short story Herodias in Gustave Flaubert’s slim volume Three Tales (1877), I realized that this Biblical story of Salome’s dance being paid for by the beheading of John the Baptist could serve as an analogy to the political tragedy of the 2016 Democratic party’s national convention in the United States. This parallel is achieved if the story is cast in the following way:

Herodias: – – – – – -> Hillary Clinton
Herod Antipas: – – -> Barack Obama (understudy: Bill Clinton)
John the Baptist: – -> Bernie Sanders
Agrippa: – – – – – – -> Donald Trump
Mannaeï: – – – – – – > Al Franken
Caesar: – – – – – – -> Goldman Sachs
Assembly: – – – – – > DNC Super-delegates
Salome:
– – – – – – – – – – – – – > Michelle Obama?,
– – – – – – – – – – – – – > Loretta Lynch?,
– – – – – – – – – – – – – > Kamala Harris?,
– – – – – – – – – – – – – > Debbie Wasserman Schultz?,
– – – – – – – – – – – – – > Donna Brazile?,
– – – – – – – – – – – – – > Nancy Pelosi?,
– – – – – – – – – – – – – > Liz Warren?

During the reign of Tiberius as the Caesar of the Roman Empire, Herod Antipas was the king of Judea, which is the southern part of Palestine. Antipas had divorced his first wife, who was the daughter of the king of the Arabs, and married Herodias, who herself had been the wife of his brother Herod Agrippa. Herodias was extremely ambitious to be the queen of a great empire and had left Agrippa for Antipas to further that ambition. Agrippa was a rival to Antipas for the throne of Judea, and he had gone to Rome to conspire with Caius (the future Caesar to be known as Caligula) against Antipas. Both Herodias and Antipas wanted Agrippa killed by order of Tiberius Caesar.

Antipas was slavishly allied to Rome because he needed Imperial protection against the threat of invasion from the south by the Arabs angered by his divorce of their princess, as well as to ensure he was favored by Caesar instead of Agrippa. Herodias was fanatically allied to Rome because she saw its power as a means to advancing her aims, and of eliminating her enemies. As an occupied and subjugated people, the Jews of Palestine resented Rome and their subservient political leader Antipas, and their subservient and wealthy religious elites, but made an effort to minimize resistance to the Empire so as not to draw Rome’s ire upon themselves.

All of these incidents and attitudes were loudly and widely condemned by John the Baptist, a reformer popular with the common people, who talked about a Messiah who would create an independent kingdom free of both Romans and the compromised political (Antipas’s administration) and religious (Pharisees and Sadducees) ruling classes of the Jews. John the Baptist also railed against the immorality and weak moral character of Herod Antipas and his scheming, impious queen, Herodias.

Naturally, such talk in public was an irritant to the Roman governor (Vitellius), who was Caesar’s direct representative in Judea, as well as to the Pharisees, the Sadducees, Herod Antipas and especially Herodias, who felt threatened by it and whose vanity was deeply wounded, thus inflaming a malevolent obsession for a fatal revenge against the prophet. John the Baptist had already been imprisoned for his incitement of popular indignation and hope.

Salome was Herodias’s daughter from her previous marriage, and Antipas did not know about Salome because Herodias had had her brought up away from the palace. Salome was the key to Herodias’s scheme for revenge, and had been carefully prepared for her task. During a palace feast to celebrate Antipas’s birthday, with Vitellius and the political and religious elites of the Jews in attendance, Herodias sent Salome out to perform “the dance of the seven veils” to excite Herod Antipas’s lust. Herodias knew her craven and lecherous husband well, and before all the company he soon promised Salome anything she wanted, in payment for helping him maintain the tepid approval of the assembled company, and in anticipation of gaining her favors after her dance. Salome knew her mission, and requested the head of John the Baptist on a platter. Herod Antipas was bound by his word spoken before so many witnesses from the ruling classes, and so ordered Mannaeï, the executioner in his employ, to do the dirty deed. Concern for the hopes and dreams of his Jewish commoner subjects, and their inevitable disappointment were John the Baptist to be killed, was never a consideration.

Shortly after, Mannaeï returned with the requested platter and gave it to Salome who in turn presented it to the orgasmically satisfied Herodias. The company at the party were variously pleased, amused, curious or indifferent to inspect the bloody grimacing prize. And so was the prophet of the people dispatched for the political convenience of the Empire and the compromised Jewish elite; because of the fear and lust of Herod Antipas; and because of the malevolence, megalomania and vanity of Herodias.

Gustave Flaubert tells the Biblical story much better than I have. The 2016 American reality-show remake as a political intrigue was comparably shameful but much more tawdry.

In the painting, above, Herodias is sticking pins into the tongue that spoke out against her, and being so deliciously aroused in this climax of her revenge. The parallel to the American political events occurred between 12-26 July 2016.

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Post-Democracy America

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George Washington at Boston Commons

Phyllis Wheatley

William Lloyd Garrison

Sacco and Vanzetti

Sunset, 50 miles east of San Francisco, CA

The reason our American Corporate Masters gave us a choice between corruption (Hillary Clinton) and bigotry (Donald Trump) in the 2016 national election is that either was acceptable to them, since both are intrinsic aspects of how business is being conducted.

In 2016, the Democratic (Party) National Committee saved corporate privilege from the threat of democratic accountability. American democracy did not die because of voter apathy, it was assassinated by the DNC in a conspiracy of pure betrayal of both the American people and democratic principles, with the coup de grâce being delivered on 26 July 2016. So, instead of America today being the mythical democratic republic portrayed in school textbooks, it is actually a corporatized oligarchy – or a fascist state, take your pick – with a modest social democratic insurgency carried on mainly by idealistic younger people.

That so many Americans cannot yet acknowledge these facts is a sad reflection on the extent of ignorance, bigotry, greed, insularity and self-absorption throughout the population. It is difficult to feel sympathy for the plebeian and bourgeois slaves who resist rebelling against their own exploitation, by slavishly attaching themselves to either the Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton (and Barack Obama) pacifying personality projections of the corporatized oligarchy.

Until a widespread and very profound personal and socialist awakening occurs to the American people:

– America will be a racist nation because so many of its people find solace in being self-righteous victims.

– America will be a classist nation because so many of its people find comfort in greed and possessiveness.

– America will be an ageist nation because so many of its people find freedom in: relief from memory, adulation of inexperience, impatience with thinking, and lust for youth.

The threats to American security and physical integrity by external enemies are minor, and are reactions caused by the American oligarchy’s imperialism. The threats to American security and physical integrity by Nature are increasingly self-induced by obtuse denial in the service of laziness and selfishness. The threats to American popular freedom, prosperity, sanity and social cohesion are purely internal and frighteningly contagious, being the corrosive disintegration of individual and collective moral character, which are unfortunately encouraged by the examples of these same failings set by so many of the careerists at the pinnacle of America’s pyramid of power and wealth.

An alert mind seeking to preserve some degree of personal fulfillment in such a society could reason:

– as a weary and isolated cynic: “don’t worry, it’s hopeless, so do what it is in me to do, regardless,” or

– as an idealistic social activist: “this is the nature of war, by protecting others you save yourself.”

Our best hope for a just and peaceful society may lie in the fact that the future unfolds as a chaotic and largely unpredictable process, not as an entirely pre-determined program. Out of the mixed jumble of unexpected great disasters and serendipitous great opportunities that will cascade upon us, we may find the right circumstances to rescue and elevate ourselves as individuals, and unify ourselves as a more worthy society.

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Now also appearing at Dissident Voice:

Post-Democracy America
2 September 2017
https://dissidentvoice.org/2017/09/post-democracy-america/

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My Excellent Independence Day Rant, 2017

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John Kennedy’s grave, April 1964

My Excellent Independence Day Rant, 2017

Bigotry lets stupid people feel powerful. They are bigots because they are greedy, and they are greedy because they are fearful. They are fearful because they are hollow, and desperate for their materialism and worship of power to fill the void of their lack of character, to mask their internal weakness with an illusion of external power.

In American politics: bigotry is allowed to shape the arguments, and money is allowed to control the voting. Hillary Clinton had the most well-deserved electoral defeat in American history; Donald Trump, the most undeserved win. It’s not Trump’s fault, the preference for TV over books inoculates ignorance and bigotry against learning and knowledge.

The corporate-owned politicians lie because lying is the sound of theft. They are the agents of those who think: “The purpose of life is to enrich yourself without being impeded by the needs of others.” The news media propaganda industry is rich people paying rich people to tell middle class people to blame poor people, who middle class people are joining. The lie being pushed is that fulfillment is to be had in a system of economic apartheid without economic security and without personal freedom.

Suffer we must, for billionaires’ money lust depends on it. For consolation we can have: clueless comforting happy talk, or searing bitter bigotry, unless we choose better.

In systems of patronage capitalism it is necessary to sell out your integrity and moral character in order to advance a financially rewarded career. You have to go along to get along. It’s like the perpetuating of physical-sexual abuse through the generations: as a child (or young worker starting out) you are abused by your seniors who demand you loyally cover their asses and slavishly submit to their demands – you cannot be impeded by moral principles or self-respect; as a rising star you find even bigger abusive tyrants to follow while recruiting your own ass-kissing minions to expand your power base; and finally as (and if) a successful pharaonic mega-abuser yourself you get to beat up multitudes, remotely, by using your army of slave-drivers and aspiring tyrants. The seed of all this is weak character, the lack of courage and/or strength to maintain personal integrity regardless of the costs in terms of comfort, money, social position, recognition, and acceptance by the herd.

Q: “Why spend $600B a year on a military to protect us if you Trumpsters and Corp-pols are willing to let us die of treatable diseases and ailments?”

A: You miss the point. The purpose of the US military is to protect Big Capital (corporate assets and operations, and plutocrats’ take), not the public. Also, the economic policy of the U.S. (i.e., the corporate-owned government and economy) is militarism: the big insiders’ war machine / finance capital profit cycle. “The people” are just an excess labor mass from which to extract wealth, and on which to dump the toxic wastes and financial costs (“socialized losses”) of exploiting and privatizing the commons. The graveyards of our war dead are garbage dumps for capitalist expansion. The U.S. is neither united nor a nation, it is a colony. “We the people” are expendable commodities steadily being programmed for slavery. The American Dream: commercializing life and death, and cornering the market.

America has a capitalist system whose foreign policy is imperialism, domestic policy is colonialism, economic policy is militarism, and management policy is patronism.

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SAME OLD, SAME OLD

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SAME OLD, SAME OLD

I have given you the secrets of the human universe.
Did you notice?

You can’t change people,
only they can change themselves,
though they usually would prefer to die
than have to.

It’s not Trump’s fault,
the preference for TV over books
inoculates ignorance and bigotry
against learning and knowledge.

In American politics:
bigotry is allowed to shape the argument,
and money is allowed to control the voting.

Everything you know is wrong,
and you know everything.

It drives me crazy and breaks my heart
to see so much stupidity and cruelty
in our human world.
That is why I hate people.

The graveyards of our war dead
are garbage dumps for capitalist expansion.

I think back to all the times I was kind and unkind,
and I wish I could go back and fix half of them.

21 June 2017

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Dracula Dems and Neo-Nazi Rubes (a rant!)

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Dracula Dems:

There are basically four groups of American voters:

1, Corporatist robbers (and associated wannabe flunkies);
2, Trump fans;
3, Hillary cultists; and
4, Bernie “berners.”

The Big Capitalists and corporatists are mainline Republicans and Democrats (1), who by and large voted for Hillary Clinton this last time because she was the current face of the money-grubbing robber elite (they vote for any Repub or Dem who is the current main front for the Big Money).

The Trump fans (2) are by and large poor dumb honest bigots, many down-and-out.

The Hillary cultists (3) are by and large pale-face suburban-type dishonest bigots (and their “poor relations,” the associated darker-skinned, poorer, Stockholm-Syndromed-to-Dems, wishing-and-hoping-in-vain, and reliably suckered “minority” voters).

The awakened multi-generational anti-corporate anti-neoliberal insurrectionists are Bernie people (4).

The election of 2016 was a battle between the American people and the corporations (the Big Money robber elite), and that election was lost by the American people in July 2016, when Hillary Clinton and the DNC influence-peddling mafia (including Obama) sidelined Bernie Sander’s campaign: the authentic will of the vast majority of the American people (to this day!). The Democratic Party has no continuing legitimacy ever (and the Repub Party, a wannabe-fascist national-robbery conspiracy, is only very slightly worse).

The contest in November 2016 was between two would-be figureheads fronting the Big Money management of the USG, and Trump won that contest because Hillary was odious to groups 2 and 4; and group 2 had no other option (as Bernie was out) for registering their just complaints (no jobs, no income, poisoned water, and government didn’t care about them), and Trump appeared sympathetic (e.g., anti-TPP) while Hillary was decidedly hostile to them (pro-TPP, “single-payer healthcare will never happen,” “[blue collar] jobs are never coming back,” “[you’re] irredeemables…deplorables”).

So, the real “civil war” and “economic war” in the US is between group 1 versus groups 2 and 4 (group 3 is/are the associated wannabe flunkies of group 1). It is imperative that Berners and Trump fans realize that they are fundamentally on the same side (except for the Group 2 bigotry). The most important force for revitalizing America, and kicking out the corruption eating it out, would be a strong coalition of groups 2 and 4 to become very active behind Bernie’s initiatives, AND for the dismissing of group 3 — to Mars if possible — the Hillary cultists, who are the single biggest impediment to any useful progress in America (the second biggest impediment is the obdurate bigotry of Trump fans of all colors).

Group 1 can never be dismissed (with anything less than 1793 French methods), but as in the F.D.Roosevelt administration, it can be regulated given enough popular pressure. Group 3 are deplorable parasitic airhead irredeemables. There is no reason to ever listen to, or pay attention to, or respect any irredeemable Hillary cultist. Theirs were the key votes for Trump, whose administration actually began on 25 July 2016. The Democratic Party, under the control of Hillarists and the DNC, is a political Dracula bloodsucking on the American people. It needs to be killed with a stake driven through its DNC heart, so it fades into dust blown away in the wind, and only then can a new and REAL DEMOCRATIC party, under Bernie and Berners be formed, and the 2+4 Coalition can begin putting some straitjackets on Group 1 for the good of the nation, and world.

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Neo-Nazi Rubes:

Given the amount of ignorance, superstition, fear, bigotry and greed in the USA, it is no wonder that Donald Trump is president. He is a reflection, not an aberration.

I stand corrected (on my characterization of Trump fans in Dracula Dems): Trump voters were motivated by bigotry more than by economic hardships. From the article linked below:

“…whether it’s good politics to say so or not, the evidence from the 2016 election is very clear that attitudes about blacks, immigrants, and Muslims were a key component of Trump’s appeal,…

“Racial identity and attitudes have further displaced class (economics) as the central battleground of American politics,…

“Race trumped economics,…

“…evidence suggests that racial resentment is driving economic anxiety, not the other way around,…

“Always remember: You have to identify the disease before you can begin work on a cure. In the case of support for Donald Trump, the results are in: It isn’t the economy. It’s the racism, stupid.”

So, Trump really is the image of White (and anti-immigrant Black) America: racist to the core. See the article at this link:
https://theintercept.com/2017/04/06/top-democrats-are-wrong-trump-supporters-were-more-motivated-by-racism-than-economic-issues/

Trump is Wall Street’s puppet whose strings are being pulled through his son-in-law Jared Kushner. Trump has kicked his Goebbels — Steve Bannon — into a corner, but Trump hasn’t had Bannon thrown out of Mister T’s clubhouse yet because Bannon is useful as a political mannequin to focus the attention of the Neo-Nazi rubes, and keep them attached to the Trump brand, as the most reliably conned component of Trump’s demographics.

Hear this slaves!: your bigotry is the slave-masters power over you.

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A psychological disorder is:

“Any personal construction which is used repeatedly in spite of consistent invalidation.”
— George Alexander Kelly (1905-1967), http://oaks.nvg.org/george-kelly.html.

Kelly’s definition is the oldest likely source of the several quotes that have been blended into the well-known saying attributed to Albert Einstein (1879-1955): “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.”

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Russian-Hacked USA, and Other Follies

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Tonight (10 January 2017, President Barack H. Obama delivers his televised farewell address. In 10 days, Donald Trump will be sworn in as President of the United States of America. Below are some of my thoughts at this juncture.

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On “Russians hacked the election making the USA have Donald Trump as president, and not Hillary Clinton”:

Reading the commentary and all the comments here (on Juan Cole’s blog, “Informed Comment,” on 6-9 January 2017), I think your consensus is:

#1, that the public exposure of the Podesta (Clinton, DNC) e-mails did sway the election “to Trump,” specifically away from Clinton; and

#2, that this was a bad thing, a cause for anger, and that the perpetrators of these leaks should suffer retribution from the US Government.

On point #1: there has been no doubt cast on the veracity of the leaked e-mails, therefore if a portion of the public was swayed to vote “away from Clinton” because of these e-mails then they were swayed by truthful information that had previously been hidden from them: “transparency.” I favor transparency, and believe it serves the public interest.

On point #2: If voters being swayed by the exposure of truthful information of public interest is “a bad thing,” then those who believe this prefer voters being fooled and “guided” by powerful insiders (Orwell called them the Inner Party).

Those angry that insider (mainly DNC) plans went awry are angry at the workings of democracy with better informed voters. Why not be angry at the betrayal of fair-play and democratic principles that thwarted the Sanders campaign (the most popular option nationally)? Why not be angry that such a monumental betrayal of public trust was done for the benefit of extremely corrupt and deceitful insiders (H. Clinton and associates)?

The effort to pin blame on “the Russians” for spoiling the insider’s succession gambit is just a poor and cowardly excuse to deflect attention from the Inner Party’s colossal failures:

– to devise an economy that serves the public (the major grievance of Trump voters, also Sanders voters), and

– to maintain (not corrupt) the institutions and mechanisms of democracy (the popular will having an influence through voting, the major grievance of Bernie, 3rd party and anybody-but-Clinton voters).

If killing the messenger (Assange, “the Russians,” mystery hackers, or whoever you most want to hate) is your reaction for being shown the truth, then you are condemned to be the victim of your own follies for a long time.

Trump was elected because the public consensus is that voting now has no influence on public policy — so real people can’t get what they need and want from it — but it still can sometimes be used to throw a Molotov-cocktail-by-ballots into the cozy connivances of the Inner Party.

Who is responsible for letting it get to this point? The Russians?

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My view of the significance of President Obama’s administration (2009-20016) to American history is linked below. I wrote it in 2008.

Obama and the Psychic Auto-Shrink-Wrapping Called Race in America
http://www.counterpunch.org/2008/03/20/obama-and-the-psychic-auto-shrink-wrapping-called-race-in-america/

Here is Cornel West’s summation of the Obama Administration:

Pity the sad legacy of Barack Obama
9 January 2017
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/09/barack-obama-legacy-presidency

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It is as likely that American capitalists will preserve the Social Security Trust Fund and Publicly Funded Education, as that the Chinese will end trading in rhino horn, elephant tusk and bear liver. These are the Golden Cities of Cibola and the Fountains of Youth, which the obsessed conquistadores of temporal power can never refrain from lusting after.

Climate Change is the still wet graffiti of collective world greed pressed within the geological strata of the future.

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Climate Change Is Inevitable With Trump Or Hillary

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US population distribution by states (2013)

US population distribution by states (2013)

Election 2016 by counties

Election 2016 by counties (D. Trump = red; H. Clinton = blue)

As of April 1, 2010, the date of the 2010 United States Census, the nine most populous U.S. states contain slightly more than half of the total population. The 25 least populous states contain less than one-sixth of the total population. California, the most populous state, contains more people than the 21 least populous states combined. (from Wikipedia)
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Most U.S. People Live “Near” the Big Water

The 9 most populous states (each with > 10M people): CA, TX, FL, NY, IL, PA, OH, GA, NC, have seashore (Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf) or lakeshore on the Great Lakes.

The next 4 most populous states (MI, NJ, VA, WA, ranked 10-13) have seashore or lakeshore on the Great Lakes, and populations between 7M and 10M (each).

Ranked 14th is AZ, the first landlocked state (population between 6M and 7M).

Of the 16 states ranked 15-30, 7 have seashore (Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf) and 3 have lakeshore (Great Lakes), the remaining 6 are landlocked. All have populations between 3M and 7M.

The last 20 states have populations between 0.5M and 3M. There are 7 states with seashore (Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf), none with lakeshore (Great Lakes), and so 13 are landlocked.

Of the 37 states below rank 13:
all 20 landlocked states are included,
14 have seashore (Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf)
3 have lakeshore (Great Lakes).
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Whether Trump or Hillary is US president, Climate Change will continue unabated

In the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton won the population centers and the wealth zones; Donald Trump won the countryside (see maps). The peasants and proletarians revolted against the self-satisfied and arrogant cosmopolitans, and backed an avenging berserker they hoped (hope again!) would save them economically, and thus preserve their insular and primitive cultures. This revolt is a reaction to the supreme failure of the Democratic Party to care about the impoverished and ill-educated lives in the despairing countryside. Bernie Sanders would have swept this election. The American people lost the general election to the billionaires and the corporations on 25 July 2016, at the DP convention in Philadelphia. The Trump presidency is the direct result of Hillary Clinton’s ambition and the Democratic Party’s complicity with it.

Under a Trump presidency, billionaires and corporate bosses will openly and in full public view run the country to their personal advantage, paid for by the continuing impoverishment of the citizens and degradation of the natural environment. Many hope that by political legerdemain Hillary Clinton can be installed as the president instead, on January 20, 2017. Then, they would be relieved to know that the billionaires and corporate bosses running the country to their personal advantage, paid for by the continuing impoverishment of the citizens and degradation of the natural environment, would do so discretely out of public view.

In my view, we will never stop (let alone reverse) climate change, because the addiction to fossil fuels is universal and incurable. Basically, all the personal excuses worldwide boil down to something within the range of: “I’ve got to have it to survive,” and “I’ve got to have it to profit.” Climate change is the exhaust product of capitalism (whether of “free market” or “command economy” style), and no one is willing “to miss out” on getting more power NOW to “survive” and “profit.”

Socialistic frugality to economize and thus forestall climate change could only happen under a “dictatorship,” with a top-down enforced regimen of shared economics, as under Fidel Castro in Cuba. This is impossible globally, as well as in almost every country.

I have no doubt that essentially the same policies and trends would have occurred under a Hillary Clinton presidency as under a Trump presidency. There would be big differences of style between the two, but little differences of timing. The desperate peasants who voted for Trump simply hoped to get some economic lift by getting skilled-labor jobs in Trump’s promised America-first unleashed smokestack economy (factories and mines on the prairies and in the hills, but also Wall Street pulling the strings). There was no such hope for the peasantry in Hillary’s likely economy of outsourced smokestack industries, H-1B domestic tech industries (IT and Bio-tech) and an unleashed financial industry (high-tech along the coasts, and investment banking everywhere). It’s kind of like picking between “Ford” and “Chevrolet” economies with billionaires in the drivers’ seats either way. The gas, oil and coal will be hammered, pumped and dug up, and burned to inflate fortunes.

The one advantage of a Trump presidency and economy is that it will hit most of us with an instantaneous jab of pain and burning sensation, like the sting of a bee puncturing public consciousness, and cause an immediate mass reaction seeking to swat the offender.

In contrast, a Hillary Clinton presidency and economy would hit us like the stealthy sting of a tick, which regurgitates a highly infectious anticoagulant during its bite so it can linger draining your blood until you eventually become aware of a persistent pain and a possible enduring disease.

It was never in the public interest to support Hillary Clinton to “avoid” Donald Trump, whether before or after the November 8 election. Post-election efforts going into fantasies promoting Hillary (importuning Electoral College electors to switch their votes in favor of Hillary, while sopping up conspiracy theories aiming hatred at the Russians, and blame away from the real culprits) would be better spent on planning resistance to Trump’s policy initiatives. I suspect that within two years (mid-term elections) that disillusionment with Trump will have already become visible among the ranks of Trump’s populist supporters. Then the members of the Sanders Revolution will have the opportunity to begin combining forces with disillusioned Trump supporters, and ideally also reformed and reeducated Hillary supporters (though these are likely to be the most obdurate, i.e., brainwashed), and a second populist wave might beneficially inundate the electoral spectacle by 2020.

However the politics of the next four to eight years unfolds, two conclusions seem clear:

You cannot have capitalism without gross inequity and climate change.

You cannot have socialism with ignorant, greedy and self-centered people.

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Trump Absolutely Won, Hillary Absolutely Lost

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11 November 2016 (98th Armistice Day)

“I’d rather vote for what I want, and not get it, than vote for what I don’t want and get it.”
(Eugene V. Debs)

I wanted Bernie Sanders, and if not then Jill Stein, and if not then… abstain.

I would never vote FOR Hillary Clinton, nor FOR Donald Trump.

Electorally, How Did Trump Win?

– RURAL and RUST BELT counties are the overwhelming majority of counties in the USA.

– A majority of people in RURAL and RUST BELT counties favored Trump.

– This is how Trump won states to get the significant majority of Electoral votes.

Electorally, How Did Hillary Lose?

– Hillary only won the URBAN CENTERS in the major US wealth areas:
– LEFT COAST: LA Basin, SF Coastal Strip, Portland, Seattle
– SOUTHWEST: Colorado & New Mexico cites, and Latino vote
– MIDWEST: Minneapolis/St. Paul (MN), Chicago (IL)
– EAST COAST ESTABLISHMENT: Wash.D.C., VA, MD, DE
– BIG MONEY CENTRAL: NY, NJ, CT, RI, MA
– NEW ENGLAND: VT (Bernie’s state), NH, coastal Maine

– Hillary lost the great majority of inland, outlying and rural counties in “her” states.

Florida Vote (a swing state):

Trump = 4,605,515
Clinton = 4,485, 745
Stein = 64,019

Clinton + Stein = 4,549,764

Trump got +55,751 MORE Florida votes than Clinton + Stein

Don’t blame Jill Stein. Trump absolutely won, and Hillary absolutely lost.

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2008 Red-Blue Map by County:
2008-redblue

2012 Red-Blue Map by County:
2012-redblue

Hillary did WORSE in 2016 than the results shown in the 2012 map.

See: http://www.google.com/ “2016 US election results”
(for the numbers in every state, and individual state-county maps)

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Voter Turnout 2016

Part of Hillary Clinton’s defeat (and Donald Trump’s victory) in 2016 can be attributed to the LOWEST percentage voter turnout in US history (since 1828, when data records began). TEN MILLION fewer eligible voters went to the polls in 2016 than in 2012. Fewer than half of eligible voters actually voted in 2016.

Percentage turnout has been above 50% since 1828, except during 1920, 1924, 1996 and 2016. The % turnout for 2016 was 48.6% (the lowest in US history).

Between 2012 and 2016 the US voting age population (VAP) increased by 10 million.
(VAP in 2016 is 245.3 million)

The voter turnout in 2016 was 10 million LESS than in 2012.
(Turnout in 2016 was 119.3 million)

The percentage voter turnout in 2012 was 54.9%
The percentage voter turnout in 2016 was 48.6% (record low)

The election years with LESS than 50% turnout:
1920, 49.2%
1924, 48.9%
1996, 49.0% (W. Clinton wins)
2016, 48.6% (H. Clinton loses)

In 2016:
H. Clinton gains 47.7% of turnout (56.90M votes)
D. Trump gains 47.5% of turnout (56.67M votes)
HC + DT gain 95.2% of turnout (113.57M votes)

Net Others gain 4.8% of turnout (5.73M votes)

HC gains 230,053 more votes than DT (+0.19% of turnout)
(loses on basis of Electoral College votes)

IF WE ASSUME that:
– the eligible voters favoring Trump were on average highly motivated, so a high percentage of them went to the polls,
while
– the eligible voters favoring HRC were on average modestly motivated, so a middling percentage of them went to the polls
then
IT IS POSSIBLE that:
– in the non-voting portion of the VAP (say at least the 10M missing since 2012) there was a higher portion of HRC-leaning people to DT-leaning people,
– AND IF turnout had been higher
then
– relatively more HRC votes than T votes would have been added (to the observed totals)
AND
– that might possibly have tilted the election in HRC’s favor.

Bernie Sanders has often said that “with high turnouts Democrats win, with low turnouts Republicans win.” (Which is why Republicans favor voter suppression.)

In brief, HRC needed tidal waves of “missing voters” who favored her, in Red States.

Of course, it is entirely possible that the non-voting remainder of the 2016 VAP (126M possible voters) did not split any differently than the voting portion (the 119.3M turnout) on the favoring of HRC or DT. So speculating on how an HRC win might have been gained by engaging large numbers of presumably “missing” HRC voters may be grasping at nonexistent straws.

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Commentary On Election 2016 (follows)

Please note, I express myself freely in what follows. I am NOT concerned to spare anyone’s feelings. Nothing personal, but…

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Essential reading if you want to know “why it happened” and “what do we (really) have to do to fix the problem.” In brief: stop crying, emoting, “fleeing” your privileged white ass to Canada hoping they make good lattés up there, and messing up the streets (protesting a democratic election!!). Instead, fire the ENTIRE Democratic Party, and start that over with an entirely new crew (e.g., Bernie, Nina Turner, Keith Ellison, Tulsi Gabbard, that kind of people). You are only victims of believing what you want to believe, instead of opening your eyes and ears to reality, and then dealing with it as it actually exists. Your ignorance is their power. Maintaining ignorance (blaming others) is the essence of the delusion of “privilege.” I do not feel your pain. Wake up!

Democrats, Trump, and the Ongoing, Dangerous Refusal to Learn the Lesson of Brexit
(Glenn Greenwald)
9 November 2016
https://theintercept.com/2016/11/09/democrats-trump-and-the-ongoing-dangerous-refusal-to-learn-the-lesson-of-brexit/

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Yvette Carnell (on Facebook, just after midnight, on the morning of 9 November 2016):

“Understand what this Trump victory means. He defeated capital, the media, the military industrial complex and both the Republican and Democratic Party. Republicans said he was unelectable and ran away from him after the groping allegations. Now Trump is president. This is historic.”

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My Old Predictions on Election 2016
9 November 2016
https://manuelgarciajr.com/2016/11/09/my-old-predictions-on-election-2016/
(above shown in full below)

During last June (the CA primary, 7 June 2016) I wrote that “a vote for Hillary Clinton before July is a vote for Donald Trump in November.” By all kinds of cheating, bribery, rigging, collusion with corporate media and procedural underhandedness, the Clinton mafia, the DNC and professional Democrats managed to shut out the popular will (and its spokesman, Bernie Sanders) from the electoral process. Okay, so the corporations won. But it seems increasing clear now that Hillary Clinton’s political legacy for America will be the Trump Administration. <> (29 September 2016)

Donald Trump is the popular response of the white working class to its nearly 40 year degradation by neoliberal economics. Donald Trump is not Hitler, neoliberalism is Dracula. The neoliberal plague was unleashed in 1979 by Margaret Thatcher (in the UK) and Ronald Reagan in 1981, and has continued to be propagated in the US by a succession of corporate-owned factotums: George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and — if the Democratic Party can rig everything to come out just right — Hillary Clinton. <> (8 September 2016)

It is abundantly clear that should Hillary Clinton lose the November election (as seems more likely with each passing day) it will be a richly deserved loss. <> (8 September 2016)

The American electorate may arrive at a consensus of voting for a train-wreck they can be assured of seeing unfold in every detail, instead of voting for a stealthy railroading of them all, under the guise of social progress. <> (8 September 2016)

If Donald Trump does actually win the November election it will be because of all the Democratic Party regulars and Clinton faithful, who “voted for him” by late July, by voting for Hillary instead of Bernie: that is to say by rigging the voting processes, and collusion with corporate media to sabotage the Sanders campaign, in addition to simply casting their votes for Hillary during the primary elections and at the Democratic Party convention. <> (24 August 2016)

Had the Democratic Party really been concerned about beating Donald Trump in the November election they would have nominated Bernie Sanders, who is heavily favored over Donald in just about every electoral district, and in every single poll taken on that question (still). But, the Democratic Party regulars and the Clinton faithful are far more concerned about preserving their own situations of personal gain, and they did not want to “lose control” of the Democratic Party to the “popular will” (Jean-Jacques Rousseau), for the good of the country. <> (24 August 2016)

So today, the 25th of July 2016, is undoubtedly the first day of the Trump presidency, the beginning of its preamble which will reach a crescendo on November 8, and then be legitimized on the 20th of January 2017. The best hopes for the next four years in America, and perhaps for a generation, were strangled in their Democratic Party crib today. I will always hate all Hillary Clinton voters, and I will always pity all Donald Trump voters. <> (25 July 2016)

Trump voters are too stupid to do any better, and many of them are justifiably angry over how they have been exploited economically. It is perfectly understandable that they would rebel against their political impotence by throwing the monkey wrench of a vote for Trump into the gears of the system. So, I pity them. Hillary voters, on the other hand, are smart enough to realize just how stupid their identity politics vanity is. Is the advancement and enrichment of one very corrupt woman really worth the many sacrifices the nation and its people must endure to sustain it? Is the thrill of being able to say “I voted for the first American woman president” really more important than the futures of our children, and the welfare of so many hard-pressed people? For Hillary Clinton voters it is, and so I hate them. <> (25 July 2016)

The Democratic Party has done a superb job of ensuring that many millions of young Americans will never look on it with respect and trust ever again. It has also done an outstanding job at demonstrating — for all Americans and all the World — one of the clearest and most vivid counterexamples to the concept of integrity that has ever been devised. Seed corn has been wasted by the gluttony of the privileged, and of the stupid. Fortunately for these Democratic party “loyalists,” delusion and self-absorption will save them from ever noticing the consequences. Until karma surprises. <> (14 June 2016)

The 2016 election is between the people and the corporations. Independents will determine who wins in November (they outnumber registered Democrats and registered Republicans). Bernie is the overwhelming favorite nationally (and in swing states), and would easily defeat Trump. If the DP fields Hillary Clinton against Trump, Trump will win. <> (5 June 2016)

Among the people: Bernie’s supporters are the most alert, Trump’s supporters are the most bitter, and Hillary’s supporters are the most deluded. <> (5 June 2016)

If the Democratic Party apparatchiks (the paid minions of the 1% oligarchs) can beat back the hostile-takeover Sanders insurgency of popular and populist democracy, and put Hillary Clinton forward as the party’s champion in the general electoral joust, then President Trump will be inaugurated in January 2017. The Democratic Party apparatchiks are first and foremost fighting to preserve their patronage positions (to hell with the country). A President Trump is no threat to their ambitions, but a nominee Sanders — whether subsequently president or not — would mean that a revolution had occurred in the Democratic Party, and the Obama-Clinton apparatchik gravy-train derailed. <> (27 February 2016)

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President Trump
8 November 2016 (revised 11 November 2016)

President Trump is popular America’s (as opposed to institutional America’s) equivalent of a Brexit from neoliberalism and globalization.

Part of the political rejection elevating Donald Trump to the presidency (beyond excruciating economic pain) is a popular emotional rejection of social attitudes and would-be social norms (as advocated by “advanced” worldly people) that are taken as threats to local distinctiveness, local traditions and old “religious” and ethnic customs, where those old customs are largely forms of bigotry passed down through families as basic elements of social and personal identity.

As is true with ISIS, the Taliban, Syria’s Assad, Turkey’s Erdogan, Iran’s ayatollahs, Egypt’s generals, the Chinese ‘geriatrocrats,’ and every “conservative” authoritarian regime around the world, all socially “liberal” ideas like women’s rights (reproductive, marital, sexual) and equality with men (political and economic), secular parliamentary government, the illegality of institutional racism, the illegality of the persecution of homosexuality and gender relativity, are all seen as part of “world governing” capitalist globalization taking over and diluting (to zero) local power structures (which are basically certain types of regional-national male classes defining the nature of their societies, and compelling all others to fit into their assigned places in these inequitable hierarchies).

This rejectionist and xenophobic nationalism is keenly and emotionally felt as “patriotism,” the defending and maintaining of “our (local) way of life” against the invasions by heartless, impersonal, unpatriotic trans-national and exploitative world economic forces, with no loyalty locally or nationally (e.g., job offshoring, foreign tax-haven sheltering “world capital”), and whose human faces are self-aggrandizing elitists who have personally removed from themselves any localisms and “backwardness” that would connect them to the communities they would rule over from afar, in order to be most efficient in advancing their own personal ambitions. Hillary Clinton is a perfect example of such an elitist, happy to homogenize (and “feminize”) the USA in order to make its exploitation by “world capital” more efficient.

Hillary Clinton is certainly more capable than Donald Trump would ever be at managing the economic system that currently owns the USA. But the popular preference for a President Trump is an angry rejection of that Wall Street neoliberal globalized system. They don’t want Trump to run it better than Hillary, they want Trump to destroy it and give them something new, which makes them feel good within their local distinctiveness, as they imagine they would have “in the good old days.”

Personally, I wish the Democrats had run Bernie instead of Hillary. Oh well, you reap what you sow.

I voted for Jill Stein of the Green Party.

Trump has triumphed, and all the institutions, who were uniformly against him (including a significant portion of the Republican Party Establishment), have been shamed. The American people have unleashed their political berserker.

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However you feel about it, Trump’s victory is:
– the result of an honest democratic election,
– a victory for populism, and
– a defeat (electoral) of the neoliberal establishment.

I have no doubt we could have had the same electoral result with Bernie Sanders, as President-Elect.

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