Trump's Win

A couple comments on Trump's presidential election win.

1. Clinton won the popular vote by an estimated 2.09%. This election was the results of a very recent bias in the Electoral College that favors Republicans. A very small percent of the US population are swing voters (5-10%) and a small shift can result in a large change due to our winner-take-all system. There isn't necessarily a need to do analysis of "Why did Trump Win / Clinton lose" or to change our fundamental priorities.

2. The US would be better off with a parliamentary system with mixed member proportional representation. Under this system, a prime minister whose party failed to get 50% would be required to get support from third/fourth/fifth parties to pass their agenda. It would also decrease partisan polarization.

3. Education played a significant factor

4. I am wondering why people have a hard time figuring out what is fact (aka false news). I think that we fail to teach critical thinking in our schools, that people rely upon their trusted friends and experts (who due to segregation both of race, class and politics tend to think like they do), and that the US is built on a system of lies. These lies include (among other lies) patriarchy, racism, classism / economic inequality is due to merit (the American Dream), America is the best country, heterosexism, gender should be based on sex, an unsustainable economy based on environmental destruction, that the torture and murder of millions of animals for our luxurious eating pleasure is acceptable, and that stealing the land from the indigenous nations was fine. For instance, even with a very easy to understand and analyze scientific question of Climate Change most Democrats probably think that their party will slow down climate change to an acceptable level - and they're verifiably wrong. Part of the solution is that we need to break down the segregation so that we are building relationships, trust, and listening with people who are very different from us. We need to have friends and neighbors of different classes, races, religions, political views, etc. We need to desegregate our schools (with well-funded public schooling - and maybe a massive tax on private schools). This is going to take an extremely long time.

5. Electoral backlash. If Trump does anything too controversial, I'd expect a wave of Democratic victories in the mid-terms. Dems will win many governor, state house, and Congressional elections. This reaction is what happened in 1994, 2002, and 2010. Dems will have a hard time winning back the House of Representatives due to gerrymandering, but winning state races will allow them to fix the gerrymandering (or gerrymander in a pro-Dem way) with the 2010 Census redistricting.

6. Social movement backlash. Now is a great time for existing organizations to grow and to start new ones. I've joined Reclaim Philly, an off-shoot of the Sanders campaign, which is trying to 1) take-over/reform the Democratic Party and 2) build community power. We had 200 people at our first city-wide meeting after the election - most of them stood the entire time. The follow-up West Philly branch meeting had 80 people. There are lots of good resources for how to start/grow a group on CampusActivism Resources

7. Trump isn't necessarily any worse than your typical Republican president. He has been appointing political insiders and multi-millionaires to his Cabinet. It's very likely that he'll betray his base and they're going to hate him for it.