They Still Can't Do Math

The problem with Bernie Sanders' fans, in a nutshell, is that they're idiots. In an election post-mortem started yesterday, one of them stated, "The 3rd-party votes weren't enough to make a difference in any states, even if all of them had gone for Hillary." This got a lot of applause and no contradiction at all from other Bernie People. In other words, they're still not even close to being able to do the math. They are impaired.

Trump carried 30 states and won 304 electoral votes; Hillary carried 20 states plus the District of Columbia, and won 227 electoral votes.

Of the 30 states Trump won:

* He got 1,252,401 votes in Arizona and Hillary got 1,161,167, a difference of 91,234, less than the 106,327 Johnson got.

* He got 4,617,886 votes in Florida and Hillary got 4,504,975, a difference of 112,911, barely half of Johnson's 207,043.

* He got 2,279,543 votes in Michigan and Hillary got 2,268,839, a difference of 10,704, about 1/5 of Stein's 51,463.

* He got 2,970,733 votes in Pennsylvania and Hillary got 2,926,441, a difference of 44,292, less than Stein's 49,941.

* He got 1,405,284 votes in Wisconsin and Hillary got 1,382,536, a difference of 22,748, less than Stein's 31,072.

In none of those 5 states did I even need to consider both Johnson's votes or Stein's. One or the other was greater than Trump's margin of victory over Hillary. All together, those 5 states have 86 electoral votes, meaning that if Hillary had taken them all, she would have had 313 electoral votes to Trump's 218, and we would be busy working toward Hillary's goal of 500 million solar panels nationwide within a few years and strengthening the social safety net and pushing harder for equal pay for women and ethnic minorities, instead of wondering when enough Republican lawmakers will finally find a bit of decency and/or shame and/or sanity within themselves, so that we can impeach Trump and remove him from office. I also didn't need to consider the 111,850 people nationwide who wrote in Bernie, the 731,788 votes for Evan McMullin, the 203,010 for Darrell Castle, the 74,392 for Gloria La Riva or the 763,419 votes for others. If all of the 3rd party votes had gone for Hillary, it might well have swung more than 5 states.

And then there are the approximately 110 million people who had the right to vote but didn't. That's something to look into as well, those 110 million folks.

At least 2 things are abundantly clear: 1), in the 2016 Presidential election, 3rd-party and independent candidates most certainly did make a difference; and 2), the idiots who think they didn't make a difference in any states won't be convinced otherwise by this blog post.

Okay: maybe out of all of those millions of idiots, a handful might actually suddenly understand, because of this post. It's possible. By and large, however, they are math-proof. Concepts which seem so elementary to some of us -- such as that in a winner-take-all system, in an election where 2 candidates are far, far ahead of all of the others, you should vote for 1 of the 2 leading candidates if you can see any difference at all between them, because if you don't might get stuck with the one you like less, and that there is a huge difference between our horrendous mess of an election system and the system of proportional representation most countries are fortunate enough to have, where not voting for one of the 2 leading candidates actually does not always equal throwing your vote away, and where the Green Party is not a horrible joke -- concepts like that are beyond them. Over their dear pointy heads.

We're not going to get the votes of people who can't do math, with math. We're going to have to get their votes some other way.

Maybe if we consult psychologists who deal with infants and toddlers for a living. Ask them how the tykes are best persuaded to stop throwing their poop. Other than that, right now I got nothing.

Evan McMullin

Utah has not gone to a non-Republican Presidential candidate since Lyndon Johnson's landslide victory in 1964, when Barry Goldwater won South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and his home state of Arizona, and Johnson won everything else. But a poll of likely Utah voters released today shows Trump and Hillary tied at 26% each.

You're right, 26% each leaves 48 more percent. So could someone else win Utah? Yep, maybe, if this poll isn't a fluke. Gary Johnson? Well, he has 14% in this poll, which doesn't look too shabby compared to 26%. But Evan McMullin has 22%. Read all about it in this CNN article.

What's that? You say you don't even know who this McMullin guy is? Me neither. Let me do some research. Be right back.

Okay: shouldn't come as a shock to anyone that McMullen is a Mormon from Utah. He used to work for the CIA, he used to be a counsel for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, he used to be the chief policy director of the House Republican Conference, a position he resigned only shortly before declaring his candidacy for President 2 months ago. His candidacy is supported by some prominent Never Trump Republicans.

Nationwide, he's polling around 2%, having pulled slightly ahead of Jill Stein. He doesn't seem to be making a really big splash anywhere other than Utah.

The last time a third-party candidate wan any electoral votes was in 1968, when George Wallace, running a pro-segregation campaign for the American Independent party, won Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and 1 of North Carolina's 13 electoral votes.

So, anyway, this McMullin character is definitely bad news for Trump in Utah. More bad new for Trump in Utah: the Salt Lake Tribune, Utah's largest newspaper, endorsed Hillary today. Oh, but that might not actually be such a shock to the Trump campaign: the Tribune also endorsed Barack in 2008 and 2012, and Barack still got trounced in Utah by John and Mitt. Seems the Tribune may have occasionally been just a smidge to the Left of Utah's voters in generally.

So, back to Trump 26%, Hillary 26%, Evan 22% and Gary 14% in Utah in today's poll: what does it mean? I don't know. It's just one poll. Up until now Trump had been way out in front in Utah, and maybe he still is and this one poll is a fluke. Or maybe Trump is through in Utah, and today's poll is just beginning of how bad it's going to get for him there. Or maybe it's somewhere in the middle. We'll see.

Utah has 6 electoral votes, and the latest projections show Hillary ahead by over 150 electoral votes even if Trump wins Utah, so none of this seems crucial right now to the outcome of the election for President. Still, the first loss of Utah by a Republican Presidential candidate since 1964 would be striking. If the Republican candidate actually ends up coming in 3rd in Utah, that would be extremely striking.

And if this poll is both not a fluke, if it's indicative of Trump's share of the vote plummeting not just in Utah but generally -- okay, that's me getting way ahead of myself. Never mind. There's no need for anyone to picture the happy dance I'm doing as I write this post.

US 3rd-Partiers: The Anti-Bismarcks

In the 1860's, Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of Prussia, who a few years later would become Chancellor of Germany when he finished taking over Germany on behalf of the Prussian monarchy, which amounted to taking over Germany for himself, because the Prussian King and soon to be German Emperor (Kaiser) either didn't notice or didn't care that it was Bismarck who was actually in charge -- Ah say Ah say in the 1860's, Bismarck said, "Politik ist die Kunst des Moeglichen." ("Politics is the art of the possible.") Or maybe he said, "La politique, c'est l'art du possible." Or he very well could've said it in English. He was talking to another German dude and he probably said it in German, but he and his pals were a little more cosmopolitan than Amurrkins sometimes realize.



Don't get me wrong: Bismarck was a reactionary and I disagree with most of what he did. On the other hand, however, in the 1880's he instituted universal health insurance and universal pensions for the elderly in Germany. He did this in order to undermine the Social Democrats, against whom he had a -- well, pathological aversion, spying on them, having them arrested and banning their publications and so forth. Really terrible draconian stuff. Bismarck introduced the insurance and pensions in order to combat the Social Democrats, to take the wind out of their sails. (Worked pretty well, too.) But in spite of Bismarck's motives, the universal health insurance and pensions for the elderly marked the beginning of a strong social safety net and were undeniably a boon for the very underprivileged Germans whom the Social Democrats wanted to help.

On the 17th of October, 2014, on Facebook, a Leftist Amurrkin supporter of 3rd parties proposed that anyone who'd ever associated him- or herself with either the Democrats or the GOP be completely barred from the political process. As opposed to voting Democratic because Republicans are worse.

At last check he still has not responded to queries about exactly how he hoped to accomplish this.

Good intentions are useless if they're completely divorced from reality, and conservatives sometimes co-operate with the Left when the Left is strong enough that they have no other good choice. In the midterms it's going to be the Democrats or the Republicans, and the Democrats really are to the left of the GOP, not as far left as I am, but far enough to the left of the GOP that the space between them is clear to see. Vote Democrat, for women's rights and more equitable tax codes and a stronger social safety net and non-creationist science education and the environment and sustainable energy and financial re-regulation and to keep psychos who think Obama's a secret Kenyan Muslim Communist from running this country.