There is a lot of random nonsense floating around the interwebs talking about the electoral college and how it might save us or how it is meant to protect the farmers or the people with a smaller voice or what have you.  This is all utter bullshit.  The electoral college had one purpose and one purpose only and that purpose was, along with the three-fifths compromise, to enshrine slavery as an American institution.

We Americans loves us some revisionist history.  Our founding fathers are now gods that walked among us instead of the petty, vindictive, self-centered men whose biggest democratic breakthrough was counting human beings as chattel in our founding documents in order to create our country.  Our Civil War wasn’t about slavery, no, it was about States’ Rights, a vile lie retold ad nauseam to shelter our fragile egos from the mistakes of our horrendous past.  The electoral college was designed to make sure those running for president did not ignore the small towns and villages of the country, when in reality it was to make sure that a tiny minority who believed in a sub-class of humans could continue to treat that populace with as much scorn, contempt, violence, and death as they see fit.  In other words, the electoral college was designed so people like Donald Trump could be elected.  The Senate? Same thing.  Slave owning states would be vastly over-represented in our legislature.

Don’t get me wrong, intellectually, I’m sympathetic to the electoral college.  There is an argument to be made that it forces candidates to pay attention to rural states.  There is an argument to be made that rural concerns are so outside the experience of urban centers that a special weight of consideration should be given to their needs.  There is no basis in reality that these arguments were the primary reason or even much more than an afterthought into the creation of the electoral college.

And that’s what grinds my gears.

Personally, I think rural communities should be given some extra weight.  Slavery was brought into existence by a tyranny of the minority, but there is also such thing as a tyranny of the majority as well.  The problem is they have a bit too much weight now.  They can have the Senate or they can have the electoral college.  They shouldn’t have both.

Oh, Jeb Bartlett, why were you not running for President?

Well, folks, Republicans control the House, the Senate, the Presidency, and will shape the Supreme Court in their image.  And Donald Trump is at the helm.  Flying Spaghetti Monster help us.  We’re in for a bumpy ride, buckle up.

There is a lot of “oh, things won’t be too bad” and “there’s another election in four years” and “people were scared when Obama was elected” and “we can correct the ship then” going around now.  The people that are saying this look to be exclusively white and mostly male.  And they’re right, we’ll be fine.  Whatever damage Trump is able to inflict these next four years, white, male, middle America may have a few scrapes and bruises, but we’ll be just fine.  Everybody else?  Not so much.  Oh, I mean, sure, other groups will recover too.  Eventually.  The damage done to them, though, will take decades to repair.

We’re already seeing this somewhat with the Supreme Court’s decimation of the Voting Rights Act back in 2013.  “Congress just needs to tweak some things, what could possibly go wrong?”, John Roberts said, apparently having no historical background into the realities of voter suppression efforts both past and present.  Three years later, still no tweaks, voter suppression is in full swing, and the Republican “fix” is likely to be a simple repeal of it altogether.

Then there’s the absolutely terrifying reality of Rudy Guiliani as Attorney General.  For those not keeping count at home, we have an incoming President who won in large part on whipping up fear of Muslims that is likely to appoint a person who has spent every day since 9/11 whipping up fear of Muslims.  How do you think that’s going to turn out for Muslims this next four years?  You think things are going to get magically better for them if we manage to vote Trump out?

Oh, and did I mention that the incoming President thinks abortion should be illegal and women should be punished if they have one and he chose as a Vice President one who feels exactly the same?  And did I mention that states have been biting at the edges of Roe v. Wade for over eight years now and there are more states in Republican control now?  Oh, and there’s that pesky fact that Republicans now control the entire Legislative Branch of the federal government.  How much more damage do you think they’re going to be able to do in the next four years?  How many years post-Trump do you think it will take to repair that damage?

Latinos?  My imagination just comes up with way too many scary scenarios for them.  The mind boggles.

Of course, there’s also the rest of the world to consider.  The U.S. has still not fully recovered from George W. Bush’s World Tour of Bombardments.  Obama has deftly rebuilt our reputation with our allies fairly well, but the bombardments continue.  NATO being scrapped is an actual possibility with Trump.  His statements on the rest of the world have been so bizarre that really anything is possible.

I don’t know what to say except sorry, world.  Sorry, women.  Sorry, minorities.  LGBT community.  Religions other than Christian.  I really thought we were better than this.  I was wrong.

Entirely too many people are going to vote for Donald Trump today.  Right now, it’s looking like somewhere around 45% of voters will peg Donald Trump as fit to be President of the United States.  This represents a scar on the psyche of our nation that will not easily be healed.  I have no answers to give.  Like The Weekly Sift, I don’t even know why we’re having this conversation.

This election has scared the hell out of me like no election ever has.  Even though I knew logically from the beginning that it would result in the first female President of the United States, there is still agony and angst at the fact that this election is way closer than it ever should be.  There is this cult-like fanaticism surrounding Trump that is absolutely terrifying.  He’s a successful businessman despite all the evidence that the only thing he has even moderately succeeded at outside of his inherited real estate empire is building a brand around his name.  He has a great respect for women despite every single word that has ever come out of his mouth about women being abhorrent.  He has a great relationship with The Blacks despite the African-American community as close to unanimously as you can get being against him and his characterizing the community as ghettos and war zones, always to white audiences.  He has a great relationship with The Latinos as well except for the fact that he regularly demonizes them and wants to break up their families and attacked an American judge of Latino heritage and said he wasn’t able to do his job because of that heritage.  Then there’s Muslims.  At least he’s consistent with his denigrating that group without claiming any affinity with them.  That, I think most of all, his followers admire him for.

How do you combat this?  I don’t know.  Support for Trump is just so outside the realm of reality that I don’t know any solution except to stare dumbly like I would if an alien spaceship proceeded to land in front of me.  Never since I’ve been politically active has there been someone so distinctly unqualified to be President and yet here we are with Trump having a non-zero chance of winning.  When Sarah Palin hit the national spotlight with her ill-conceived Vice Presidential nomination, I was convinced we couldn’t get any lower as a nation.  Trump is the super-Palin. playing to even baser fears and even less articulate, and I have no faith anymore that we have hit bottom.  Flying Spaghetti Monster save us.

Anyone watch the Tammy Duckworth/ Mark Kirk debate last night?  Anyone?  Hello, is this thing on?  Well, let me tell you, you missed something.  You want to know how the Republican party got to Trump?  Look no further than Mark Kirk.  Kirk, for all intents and purposes, is Trump’s more restrained brother.  He is the friendly face that Republicans put forward to hide the rot just beneath the surface.  Kirk dropped that friendly face last night.

Really, you should go watch it (part 1) (part 2) (part 3).  It’s only 90 minutes and the recording kind of sucks at points, but still worth it.  What better do you have to do?  If you want an object lesson on what white male privilege, look no further.  Here are some notes to watch for:

He actually cuts Duckworth off in the middle of her answer when she’s saying that his stroke does not disqualify him from being a Senator.  Well, the stroke doesn’t, but your rudely interrupting for no reason certainly should.  He does this throughout.  It was also weird how he was always looking away from her when she talked.  Not sure what’s up with that.  He also mocked Duckworth’s family’s immigration story.  That’s probably when he’s most Trump-like and what should cause him the most harm.  One thing that will probably not get much traction, but should, is Kirk’s mocking dismissal of Duckworth’s plan for free college tuition and its $60 billion price tag which he compares to the moon landing which cost $25 billion.  This shows a criminal ignorance of inflation.  NASA says that it would cost $104 billion to send someone to the moon today.  He either doesn’t understand transgenderism or is uncomfortable talking about it because he switches to gay rights when asked about transgender protections.  “She is so arrogant” before getting cut off for speaking out of turn.  Again, visions of Trump dance in my head.  Another telling moment is when Kirk refers to “real Republicans and real Democrats” implying that Duckworth is not.  Duckworth’s expression when Kirk asks if she’d go to 23 and Me to verify that nominees fit the check boxes that she wants is priceless.  The whole “can’t we just find the best person for the job” is so ignorant.  Yes, we should, but there is no such thing as “the best”.  There are a bunch of people equally qualified and wanting to find an equally qualified Asian woman for the Supreme Court instead of a white male is just common sense.  He interrupts the one female panelist when she’s asking a question about Congressional approval ratings.

You can see in Kirk the steady march to Trump.  He is so dismissive of Duckworth in both mannerism and speech.  Kirk doesn’t by any means represent the beginning of the march to Trump, but he is indicative of how we got to where we are today.

And wow is Duckworth polished.  “Families like mine are the ones who bleed first” when talking about letting people know the costs of war is one of the best line I’ve heard in a long time.  I also liked “if you need a high capacity magazine to go hunting, you’re a very bad hunter.”

As an aside, it would be awesome to see an ad campaign featuring “The Trump Doesn’t Fall Too Far From The Tree” which highlights Trump apples falling off the tree while spouting his brand of nonsense and then other Republican candidates spouting the same nonsense while falling off the tree as well.

After the dust settled from the Presidential Primaries, it was a foregone conclusion that I would be voting for Hillary Clinton.  This wouldn’t be a “hold your nose” vote, nor would it be a “lesser of two evils” vote (which dumbs down the definition of evil to ubiquitousness).  She is accomplished and fire-tested over 30+ years.  She has a decently detailed plan for her vision for the U.S., even if that plan is a little wishy-washy around the edges.  In other words, she is the consummate politician.  That is not a compliment.  But nor is it a condemnation.  It is simply a recognition of a reality that should be obvious to all if it weren’t for the mythology that has been built around the Clintons throughout the preceding decades, only a fraction of it truthful.  Yes, there are some serious head scratchers in that fraction of truth, but not a single bit of it is outside the realm of what anyone with 30+ years of public service while in the limelight of the 24-hour news cycle would find attached to themselves.  Unlike everyone else running for President this year, it is nigh impossible to make the case that Hillary Clinton is unqualified to become President of the United States unless you throw a heaping spoonful of lies and deceit into your argument.

Like most Presidential elections, with the glaring exception of Obama’s first term, this would be a vote where I do my duty, choose the best person for the job, and vote.  That person this year would be Hillary Clinton.  Sure, there was a twinge of excitement that I would be voting for the first female President of the United States, but mostly this would be an unemotional vote for the correct choice.  Then came Donald Trump.  I have been asking for decades why anyone thought Trump was a good anything.  Even if his businesses were wildly successful (which they aren’t), he has always been a blowhard and a bully and yet people of all spectrums looked up to this man as a paragon of capitalism.  It baffles me that the sheen is still on that polished turd of a man for 40% of the population, but it feels good that he is finally being shown to millions as the horrible human being he always has been.  In fact, he is worse than even I could have imagined.  Republicans have been playing around the edges of the basest fears of the United States’ psyche for decades now, but Trump has cannonballed right in, gotten out of the pool, shook like a wet dog getting everyone soaked and then cannonballed right back again and repeated that cycle ad nauseum this election cycle.  It’s been like a horrible accident that you can’t look away from.

Given all of the above, I have gone from studiously making the right choice to absolutely gleeful that I will be voting for Hillary Clinton.  A feat, I would not have predicted going into this election.  Congratulations, Donald Trump, you have accomplished the impossible.  FIRST FEMALE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, BITCHES!  I actually donated some money, which again is the only time besides Obama’s first term that I have done so.  Hillary winning is pretty much a foregone conclusion at this point unless she gets unmasked as an alien or something equally ridiculous, but I think it is important not that Hillary win in a landslide, but that Trump lose in a landslide.  I am happy that Trump has exposed this face of the United States.  I think it is a necessary part of healing wounds that have festered for decades, but it is equally important for the rest of us to stand up strongly and declare that Trump is not who we are.  Republicans especially need to make this clear.  You may disagree with Hillary on almost every issue, but it is better to have someone you disagree with in the Oval Office than it is to have someone who cares only for himself in that seat behind that desk.

As a final aside, I made a prediction at the beginning of this campaign that Clinton would defeat Trump by somewhere close to 20% of the popular vote and an electoral landslide.  It is shaping up to be an electoral landslide with Clinton decently ahead in almost every battleground state, but as to the popular vote, well, not so much.  Clinton is starting to push +10% ahead in some national polls, which is still amazing, but the third party candidates are staying stubbornly strong at 7% of the popular vote, which is also amazing.  Normally, support for third parties drops as the vote gets closer.  There has been some shrinking of third party support, but not nearly as much as previous elections.  Since this election has broken so many norms, it is hard to predict what the outcome would be if it were a two person race, but despite popular belief, third party votes tend to pull proportionally from both parties (no Nader was not a spoiler for Democrats, get over it) so if Clinton’s +10% margin continues you can assume that 55% of the third party votes would go to Clinton and 45% would go to Trump.  In other words, Clinton would get a bump of around 5.5% and Trump 4.5%, which doesn’t help my prediction much.  This means I grossly overestimated how many people would see through Trump’s facade.  There’s still time for a miracle on that front, though, and if anyone can pull it off, it’s Trump

You cannot win this Presidential election.  To believe that you can requires a level of self-delusion that puts you up there with believing the moon landing was faked or that the government is spraying chemicals on us with airplanes.  Not only that, you don’t deserve to win.  You simply have not put forth the effort to make your parties a reliable political entity.  You’re like a Starbucks barista with five years of experience believing that they should be CEO.  Neither of your parties have won elected office much past Dog Catcher.   Libertarians only have 143 elected representatives in office nationwide right now.  Only 43 of them were labelled as Libertarian on the ballot.  Greens are even worse.  They only have 137 in 16 states, half of which are in California.  There are over 500,000 elected offices nationwide.

Even in this election where we are supposed to take you seriously, you just haven’t put forth the ground game to be worthy of the Presidency.  Jill Stein isn’t going to be on the ballot in all 50 states.  You’re missing South Dakota, Indiana, North Carolina, and Georgia and you likely won’t be in Oklahoma and Nevada either.  That’s 45 electoral votes definitely down the tubes and another 13 likely down the tubes.  You need 270 votes to win.  Those 45 electoral votes is 17% of that number.  Add the other 13 votes and you’re at 22%.  Not to mention, you’re still waiting to see if you’ll be on the ballot in four other states.  Libertarians, you’re a little better.  Johnson will likely be on the ballot in all 50 states (though you’re still missing Kentucky, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire as of this writing), which will represent the first time you’ve achieved that goal.  This has more to do with an upswelling of support from insider Republicans against Trump than it does the power of your party so take it with a grain of salt.  Maybe there’s a future there, maybe not.

Then there’s the fact that half of your base in both parties is kind of crazy.  The Libertarian party is by far the worst offender.  Your conventions are equal parts Burning Man and entitled selfish pricks.  The Greens suffer from this as well, though.  Your party is infused with woo.  You have a large anti-vax population, you’re strangely anti-GMO despite no scientific proof it’s dangerous, and your chosen candidate actively panders to that segment of your population which proves it’s not insignificant.  The Green Party is at least getting better in this regard.  You used to be really anti-science and are now just mildly so.

To all those new to the Green or Libertarian party, yes the two party system is fucked.  Thank you for finally starting to pay attention.  Enlightenment is good.  Your parties are still laughably unready for the Presidency, though.  The Presidency is about building coalitions to pass meaningful legislation and you have zero support at the national level.  How do you think that’s going to work?  The only “message” your vote will send is that you’re not worthy of being courted at the national level.  Maybe I’m wrong and this will finally be the turning point that will dissolve our two party system, but I’ve got over two hundred years of history that says I’m right.  If you want real change, you should assume I’m right and get an entry level job as a barista.  Then you can get out there and manage a Starbucks store or three.  Then go on to become regional manager.  Earn that CEO position.

I thought it would be fun to pigeon hole the presidential candidates into their respective Dungeons & Dragons alignment.  I recognize that these aren’t going to be perfect, but it’s one of those things that are fun to game out.  All references to alignments can be found on Wikipedia.

Hillary Clinton is by far the most difficult of those running for president to pin an alignment unto.  Mostly, this is because the body of works around her spans decades, some of it true, most of it rumors and innuendo spread by the same machine that gave us Donald Trump.  It’s kind of fitting that Hillary is literally facing the human embodiment of the smear machine that has been revved up against her ever since she first tried to bring some form of universal healthcare to the United States back when Bill was president.  So, with a whole bunch of caveats and qualms, I declare Hillary Clinton to be Neutral Good:

A neutral good character typically acts altruistically, without regard for or against lawful precepts such as rules or tradition. A neutral good character has no problems with cooperating with lawful officials, but does not feel beholden to them. In the event that doing the right thing requires the bending or breaking of rules, they do not suffer the same inner conflict that a lawful good character would.

Calling her Neutral is a fairly easy call.  Mostly because she is definitely not Chaotic or Lawful.  She is way too organized and resourceful to be Chaotic as proven by her running very effectively and successfully for public office.  And she certainly has, shall we say, malleable relationship with the law as evidenced by the email scandal.  And before you go all “We don’t want no lawbreaker in the Oval Office!”, remember, you also have a malleable relationship with the law.  All of you, on a daily basis, break laws that would result in fines and possible court dates.  A majority of you, on a weekly basis, break laws that would get you thrown in jail.  The only difference between you and Hillary is she faces a litany of laws as a person in power that you will never even know exist.  Argue all you want that the laws she breaks are “more important”, but she is much more qualified to determine which laws are important and which are not.  And if James Comey, the Republican Director of the Federal Bureau of Intelligence is not willing to recommend charges against Hillary for breaking laws as a result of trying to make her life a little easier, you should trust that he knows what he’s talking about as well.  If you think that the Clintons “got to him”, you may be suffering from CDS, Clinton Derangement Syndrome, a condition that leads to belief in wild conspiracy theories and watching of Fox News.

Unless you’re Jimmy Carter, calling anyone Good is a stretch and Hillary Clinton is no exception.  I think her body of work leans more towards Good than not, though.  She left the Republican Party because of the veiled racism she saw back when Nixon was running for president ( And so much has changed.  *sarcasm*).  She did volunteer work for the Children’s Defense Fund and continued to do work for children throughout her law and political career, culminating with the passing of the State Children’s Health Insurance bill after the failure of an all inclusive health insurance plan.  She’s served on multiple charitable boards and a few corporate boards as well, including Wal-Mart, where she successfully fought to make Wal-Mart more environmentally friendly.  She has fought relentlessly for women’s rights both in the United States where she’s helped formed rape hotlines, helped establish the Office of Violence Against Women in the Department of Justice, and helped enact all sorts of laws regarding foster care and adoption, as well as abroad where she has spoken many times about the plight of women around the world.  And these are just a few of her many accomplishments.

All of the above is why I think Neutral Good is a fair enough assessment.  Out of all the assessments, I would certainly consider this my weakest argument.  But like I said, when you’re dealing with someone who has been in the public eye as long and accomplished as much as Hillary Clinton, the whole Alignment system kind of falls apart.  One thing I can say for certain, if you can read about her and hear from the people who have worked for her and come to the conclusion that she does not have what it takes to be President of the United States, you live in an alternate reality.  Disagree with her politics.  Disagree with her way of getting things done.  Fine.  But she is as ready for this job as any human being can be.  Fact.

I thought it would be fun to pigeon hole the presidential candidates into their respective Dungeons & Dragons alignment.  I recognize that these aren’t going to be perfect, but it’s one of those things that are fun to game out.  All references to alignments can be found on Wikipedia.

It can incontrovertibly be said that Jill Stein is Chaotic Good:

A chaotic good character does what is necessary to bring about change for the better, disdains bureaucratic organizations that get in the way of social improvement, and places a high value on personal freedom, not only for oneself, but for others as well.^[8] Chaotic good characters usually intend to do the right thing, but their methods are generally disorganized and often out of sync with the rest of society.

It is tempting to cast the Green Party candidate as True Neutral because the Green Party are like druids and druids must be Neutral.  Get it?  No?  Good, because if you did you’d be a level 36 Dork.  First edition rules.

Jill Stein has had a pretty solid career as an environmental activist.  Her story arch shows someone who has gone from Lawful Good earlier in her activism to her present Chaotic Good as the 2016 Green Party candidate.  In her early activism, she worked within the system to help make Massachusetts more environmentally sustainable.  She fought against coal plants and trash incinerators and helped push the state towards renewables and green energy job growth.

Stein’s path towards Chaotic Good can probably be traced to a single event.  In 1998, she campaigned for a Clean Elections Law that was repealed by a Democratic legislature.  This caused her to leave the Democratic party permanently and join the Green party.  Since, she has run for elected office multiple times, mostly in Massachusetts.  Those offices include Governor, U.S. House, Secretary of the Commonwealth, Town Meeting Representative, and President of the United States.  Of those, she has only won Town Meeting Representative of the city of Lexington, MA.

Stein is currently trying to poach voters unhappy with the DNC and who don’t understand that Bernie Sanders lost the Democratic primaries a long time ago despite not dropping out.  She even crashed the DNC hoping to lure disaffected Sanders delegates to her.  Thus her move to Chaotic Good was complete.

Stein also has some pretty strange positions further enshrining her Chaotic cred.  She wants to “quantitatively ease” student loans into non-existence, whatever that means.  She wants to “nationalize” the Federal Reserve, which fine, but even Fed know-nothings like Rand Paul aren’t calling for that.  She wants to close all of our foreign bases claiming they are bankrupting us.  She was for Brexit before she was against it.  She wants to pardon and put Edward Snowden in her Cabinet.  The Green Party supports homeopathy and her stance on it is wishy-washy at best.  And last but hardly least, she has no chance of winning the Presidency and is knowingly acting as the Democratic spoiler in a close election where Donald Trump might actually become President of the United States.