An Observation in Preparation for the Trumpocalypse Tomorrow
By DW Davis
@DWDavis (25805)
United States
January 19, 2017 9:07pm CST
Thanks to @JolietJake for the interesting description of the Trump Inauguration.
A lot has been made about Clinton receiving more of the popular vote than Trump, which she did. Now, you know I'm a math teacher, so this fact has been rattling around in the back of my mind for some time. I decided to take a closer, but not too close, look at the "final" popular vote numbers from the election. However, I chose to take a slightly different approach.
Neither of the major candidates, as you know, won a majority of the popular votes cast. That leaves us with an interesting conundrum. I love conundrum's because it is so much fun to say conundrum.
Here's the breakdown as I see it rounded to the nearest million voters:
For Trump - 63 million popular votes Not Trump - 73 million popular votes
Not Trump beat Trump by 10,000,000 votes.
For Clinton - 66 million popular votes Not Clinton - 71 million popular votes
Not Clinton beat Clinton by 5,000,000 votes.
No matter which candidate you supported, the cold hard fact is, more people did not want your candidate to be President than did, so neither candidate would have been the President of choice for the majority of the American people.
Of course, none of this matters because...Electoral College. The Constitution doesn't even require a popular vote be allowed or considered when selecting a President. But it's always interesting to look at the numbers.
So, Mr. Trump, 46% of the American people eagerly await your inauguration as President and look forward to your tenure in the White House. The other 54% of us are hoping and praying you don't screw things up. Have a great day tomorrow, Oh Exalted Orange One. I honestly do wish you a good four years ahead, for all our sakes.
Will you be watching the inauguration? Still don't know if I will. The decision hasn't been made if we're going to stream it live in the classrooms.
13 people like this
12 responses
@just4him (318848)
• Green Bay, Wisconsin
20 Jan 17
I had to set it on my DVR because I had to be out of the apartment because they salted and plowed during that time. I went to a movie - Rogue One. Very good. I've also now seen the inauguration and I have hope. It's slim, but there's hope, just as there was when President Obama took office 8 years ago. There's always hope. So now we will see what these four years hold for us.
2 people like this
@JudyEv (346592)
• Rockingham, Australia
20 Jan 17
Our elections sometimes come out 43% to 47% or something like that with the two major parties which means the people are almost equally divided in their opinion as to who should lead them. It might be easier if there was a much bigger difference - but it is what it is.
2 people like this
@DWDavis (25805)
• United States
20 Jan 17
Imagine what it would be like if someone had to win the majority of the popular vote to become President, and if no one did, we had to have run-offs to decide. It would be a mess.
How many parties usually wind up in parliament down your way?
2 people like this
@JudyEv (346592)
• Rockingham, Australia
20 Jan 17
@DWDavis We have two major parties but lately several 'independents' have held the balance of power which is a worry. Sometimes the independents know a little about the issue they stood for and little about anything else yet our laws depend on which way they swing. One party which is causing concern now is the One Nation party led by Pauline Hanson. It is a similar phenomena to Trump. The 'ordinary' citizen doesn't believe the major parties are listening to them and they believe Pauline Hanson is. We could easily have a major flood of voters to One Nation.
2 people like this
@crossbones27 (50117)
• Mojave, California
20 Jan 17
Quite interesting when you put it like that. lol
2 people like this
@Poppylicious (11133)
•
20 Jan 17
I read this and then looked up and out of the bus windows... the sky on the horizon is orange. I hope it's not an omen! The school will have to stream it live, surely. The kids need to see such a spectacle and say they were part of history. In case the world now goes all skewy, you know?!
2 people like this
@teamfreak16 (43418)
• Denver, Colorado
20 Jan 17
I'm not watching it. I don't like the guy. Never have.
2 people like this
@anniepa (27955)
• United States
16 Mar 17
This was the first Inauguration I haven't watched or listened to when I was working in my adult lifetime. I went to the casino, I figured I couldn't possibly lose as much there as our country was losing that day. His "American Carnage" speech was the most divisive I've ever heard, or should I say the snippets I heard after. He sure didn't even pretend to be there for those of us who didn't vote for him. So much for the normal "President of all Americans" we've all grown used to!
1 person likes this
@anniepa (27955)
• United States
22 Mar 17
@DWDavis I saw that too, I think it was his Budget Director, Mick Mulvaney or something like that. I call him Mickey Mouse, except that Mickey Mouse would be better at his job. I guess we have to remember that since we live in an alternative reality with alternative facts there would also be an alternative definition of "compassion".
1 person likes this
@DWDavis (25805)
• United States
22 Mar 17
@anniepa I found his example of a single mother of two in Detroit being taxes into poverty to pay for things like PBS and Meals-On-Wheels disingenuous also. Considering the demographics of most of the population still in Detroit, chances are that single mother of two pays no taxes at all, and if she earns an income, she's probably collecting the Earned Income Credit.
@TiarasOceanView (70022)
• United States
20 Jan 17
It was great to read your synopsis of this you being a math teacher.
It explained a lot of what I could not understand.
Yes he is going to be the president whether anyone likes it or not.
I may not be watching it live but I for sure will be listening to what he has to say at some time later one way or the other.
1 person likes this
@TiarasOceanView (70022)
• United States
21 Jan 17
@DWDavis Yes he does, I did listen but somehow it was so short and to the point it was not boring at least lolz
1 person likes this
@anniepa (27955)
• United States
16 Mar 17
@LoriAMoore I'd normally agree but this isn't a normal President and I don't think children should be encouraged to celebrate him. He's a disgrace and far from a role model.
1 person likes this
@DWDavis (25805)
• United States
21 Jan 17
@LoriAMoore I agree. The LA and Social Studies teachers on my team wanted to stream it, since we no longer have cable TV at school due to budget cuts, but we never heard anything back.
To be fair, we didn't show either of Obama's inaugurations in our middle schools either. I think they did show them in some of the high school civics classes.
1 person likes this
@HebrewGreekStudies (1646)
• Canada
15 Feb 17
Our current "newish" Prime Minister made electoral reform one of his promises...but then I think the math scared him a little and he cancelled the promise (a popular phrase around here lately is "39% is not a majority").
1 person likes this
