A reason to vote you may not have considered…


What’s up Mouse?

I’ve been a US political junkie since the early Bush years and, as a junkie, this election has proven to be my Requiem for a Dream. The thing I’m addicted to is making me ill and may quite possibly be killing me and I am just about ready for this rampaging shit-beast of an election to finally drag its filthy carcass over the finish line. But, with a mere five more days until November 8th, I feel it’s my duty to try and convince as many of my American readers as possible to…


I know. I know. I know. You’re sick of this. You’re sick of the constant reminders that “this election is different”. But here’s the thing. This election is different. Radically different. Why? Because this election can get you laid.

Go on…

Picture the scene. A few years from now you’re in a bar in Paris, or Rio, or Dublin, or anywhere else where legendarily beautiful people are known to congregate. You get talking to a particularly gorgeous member of your preferred gender and the conversation goes like these:

BEAUTIFUL FOREIGN HUMAN: So tell me about yourself Meester/Mademoiselle American, so that I may decide eef you are worthy of my beautiful time.

YOU: Aw shucks pardner, I’m just a simple American who likes apple pie and baseball and workin’ down on the ol’ farm.

BEAUTIFUL FOREIGN HUMAN: (silently deciding not to have sex with you) I see.

YOU: Oh yeah, and one time in 2016 I helped prevent a fascist takeover of my country.

BEAUTIFUL FOREIGN HUMAN: Zut alors! We must make love immediately!

YOU: Okay. My place or yours?


BAR PATRONS: Ooh la la!


Guys, I don’t think you understand the gift that’s been handed to you. You get to stop Trump. You get to stop an actual fascist. This opportunity will not come again in your lifetime (dear Christ I hope it doesn’t). There is nothing sexier than defeating fascism. Look at the Greatest Generation, do you have any idea how much action those guys got when they got home?




Come on Mouse, don’t exaggerate. Trump may be bad, but he’s not a fascist dictator.

Well no shit, he hasn’t gotten into power yet. And Hitler didn’t say HALF the crazy shit Trump has before he got the big chair. And if he had, I sincerely doubt he would have become Chancellor.

“I just grab them by the schwanzstuckerkavern…” “Ja, ja.” “I don’t even wait.”

“I just grab them by the schwanzstuckerkavern…”
“Ja, ja.”
“I don’t even wait.”


And here’s the beauty part! You don’t even have to shoot anyone! All you need to do is vote and you will be beating them off with a stick for the rest of your life.

Mouse, this is juvenile even for you. How dare you reduce this election to meaningless sex?

Oh, I’m sorry, am I denigrating the dignity of an election where one candidate is a sex offender who bragged about the size of his penis on national television and was brought down by a guy named Bush and where the first female president was almost undone by a guy called “Weiner”? Wake up people. This is not an election. This is the low budget porno parody of an election.

I hate Trump but I want to support a third party candidate


I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I understand. I get it. I do. I have written about how America needs a viable third, fourth and fifth party before but this is absolutely the wrong way to go about it. Getting a president elected is the culmination of a party’s transition to major party status, not the end. If by some fluke or act of God or random craziness (y’know, the kind of thing that’s been happening roughly every week since mid 2015) Jill Stein or Gary Johnson got elected President they would be a general without an army. They have no senators, no congresspeople. Nothing. They would be able to get virtually nothing done of lasting consequence. You want viable third parties you need to start supporting them at the local and state level. Or, better yet, find and support candidates and initiatives for reforming the actual process of voting in American elections to allow STV or another, more representative, form of voting to allow third parties to have a fighting chance.

But what about the emails…

Unless the emails reveal that Hillary Clinton is ACTUALLY SATAN IN DRAG there is literally nothing in them that could disqualify her for the presidency more than Donald Trump has already disqualified himself.

Go out there. Vote on November 8th. And in a few decades tell your smart mouth grandkids about the time you saved their country.



  1. Well said. My vote is going to count for basically nothing (because I live in Alabama which is going to vote probably 80+% for Trump) but I’m still voting for Clinton because dammit I’ll do whatever I can to try and stop Trump from winning.

  2. This whole election is like a really shitty soap opera….I predict two possible outcomes: Trump wins but before he even can take office he will get arrested for fraud due to his actions with Trump university, whatever he is up to with his charity and his questionable tax tricks. We then get a just as dangerous racist a-hole in his place if we are unlucky, if we are lucky they repeat the election.
    Hillary wins, Trump pouts, but still ends up in prison and Hillary in an early grave because some crazy Trump supporter decides to take him by his word and take her out.

    I pray, pray that I am wrong and somehow everything will be good in the end and the whole election circus won’t have to start anew at the end of this little drama.

    And that I will finally be able to watch Agents of Shield in peace. Because that is actually a great show I love to watch, and which doesn’t destroy every bit of my believe in humanity.

    1. The irony of Trump saying Hillary needs to be in jail when he himself is being ACTUALLY brought to criminal court for raping a 13 year old is just too much. Never mind the fraud of Trump University on top of that.

      1. It’s not been widely reported yet. The accuser is still anonymous and bailed on her press conference which limits how much the media can report because at this it’s still anonymous hearsay.

    2. This is not going to happen. All of these accusations against Trump are in civil court. He did not do anything illegal with his taxes. These are all civil, not criminal, matters so he will not be arrested, at least not for anything currently in the public domain. If he does win and is arrested, he will still become president unless he steps down or is impeached – being arrested does not overturn an election. If he does not take office after the election, the VP-elect will become president, i.e. Pence. There will not be another election.

    3. But think about this, Swanpride: If a fascist takeover does happen in the United States, perhaps it will become bad enough that Germany will send you and all of the other Germans to fight against and defeat it. Just imagine. You could get to be known as Germany’s Greatest Generation, who didn’t just prevent a nefarious leadership’s rise, you helped give a whipping to a regime that threatened the world as we knew it! You too could be looked at with the twinkle in the eye that the youth of the 40s get now, and your country will cease to be the one known as the former home of the most infamous ruler, and instead one of the heroic nations that defeated the monster!

      …Or in any case, perhaps you Germans could gain some good public relations by giving the Americans some nice first-hand advice on how to live on a continent some jerk has built a gigantic, infamous wall on. I mean, there’s always a silver lining somewhere, right?

  3. Someone asked me whether I was supporting Clinton, and I said that if she committed an armed robbery on national television, I’d still vote for her. Trump scares me that much.

  4. An army needs a general. Since I early voted I can already claim to have done my part to prevent a horrible president. Go Gary.Make America Classical Liberal again.

    1. Personally, this female has no use for vegans. If you’re a vegetarian we can still have dinner because we can make something with cheese, but if you’re a vegan…? No dinner dates with me! ;0-)

    2. Since when does that work? The last time I told an otherwise extremely nice girl I was a vegetarian, she narrowed her eyebrows at me and said, “Oh, and do you have a reason?”

      1. Granted, she did give me a salad the next day, but that was probably despite it, and it was only after I told her that it was because I was raised that way that she relaxed.

  5. You can bet I voted Clinton. I live in a swing state too, so hopefully it counts for something.

    I firmly believe she will win, but the mere fact that Trump has a decent chance sickens me. HE sickens me. What’s that joke you’ve made on this blog a couple of times? “I would piss on him if he were on fire, but only the parts that weren’t burning”.

  6. I’m already planning on voting for Hilary, but your argument has just sold me even further.

    Seriously, where’s Quentin Trembley when you need him. Even HE’D make a better president than Trump would.

  7. Your argument has only one flaw in it that I can see. The last ones to defeat the fascists were the Greatest Generation, but who came about as a result of their frenzied victorious lovemaking?

    The baby boomers. The debt-accumulating, climate-fucking, Brexit-voting, Trump-supporting baby boom generation.

    All that sex I am surely and certainly headed for as a result of voting against Trump might not be worthwhile if that’s the result sixty years from now.

    (I mean, granted, given that they’ll probably living on rafts by then, it’s hard to imagine them doing much /worse/…that, or we’ll just have to be extra-sure to use contraceptives.)

    1. I wanted to point out that the aforementioned fascist himself came out of all that action the Greatest Generation got for winning World War II. (1946 is now the only year to give us 3 Presidents.)

  8. Um, yea, first of all, there’s the burden of proof that said crime ACTUALLY occurred, which is on her to prove. I’m holding judgment here, in case she can, you know, actually prove he raped her. So far the only part I seen where she has a case is that she supposed to have one person testifying she procured girls for sex, because the other person she has listed is just heresay.

    Clinton on the other hand, has committed TREASON! Forget the emails not being turned over properly. She got an Iranian scientist, someone who was helping us by providing information on Iran’s nuclear program, killed by NAMING him in one of her ‘private emails.” This was a valuable foreign asset that she lost us through her carelessness. Now they are supposed to have proof that she is providing weapons to ISIS, and helping to cover up child sex trafficking? Yea, while Secretary of State, she got the missionaries in Haiti off the hook for trying to remove kids, not even orphans from Haiti. Some of these ‘Missionaries’ were convicted child sex traffickers!

    Which way am I going to vote? A possible rapist or a traitor and child sex trafficker? Is that even a question?

    Mouse, I understand you like to watch our elections and feel the need to put your two cents in, but please try to get more facts. This election does need a third candidate, but we don’t have one. So its the lesser of two evils. A fraudster who stole a few million, or a traitor who’s selling your country. Pick.

      1. Shahram Amiri, this is according to the Washington Examiner quoting Senator Tom Cotton, from my home state, and the Clintons, in Arkansas.

      2. Alright Hillary discussed Amiri (though not by name) in an email in 2015 five years after he had already been imprisoned by the Iranians. That’s a pretty weak smoking gun.

      3. The Washington Examiner is owned by The Washington Times. It used to be owned by Sun Myung Moon’s church, but I think it’s changed hands. Essentially, it’s far right wing; Breitbart with standards, if you will.

    1. If you would like to demand “facts” from Mouse (which he has already provided by the way), it would help to actually provide some facts yourself. Cite your sources when you make ludicrous claims like these.

      1. Lobo, I try to get several different news sources before I accept anything as fact. And just because I don’t have a thousand links to click to at a moments notice doesn’t mean I can’t find a few if asked.

        On Clinton and the Sex Trafficking ring? http://www.usapoliticstoday.com/breaking-wikileaks-just-dropped-nuke-hillary-see-potential-clinton-foundation-sex-trafficking-ring/

        Any others you want? We can do this dance all day. The fact is, I HATE that anyone wants to paint Hillary with a brush after some of the things she is supposed to have pulled? If you want to point fingers over who’s colluding with the Russians? How about Hillary who sold them 20% of the WORLD’S reserve from our own backyard! From the New York Times… http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html?_r=0

        What else do you want to challenge me on? Trumps supposed rape case? Okay. From the Huffington Post… http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-rape-case_us_581a31a5e4b0c43e6c1d9834

        Neither candidate is perfect. The days of Washington and Jefferson are over. But after a year of attacks, the best they have is a few cases of ‘Locker room talk” when I’ve heard worse from rappers, and one anonymous girl saying she got raped almost 20 years ago, yet is too fearful to put her name out there? Or Hillary, who has sold us out, selling our country, and has actively covered for pedophiles and their illicit activity is the reason I will vote Trump!

      2. At the bottom of that Huffington Post article


      3. Lobo, look at the McCarran–Walter Act and you’d see he’s just upholding the law as passed by Congress when he says he’s going to stop Muslims from entering the US until properly vetted.

      4. He has not said he is going to stop Muslims from entering the country until they are properly vetted. He has said that he will not let Muslims enter the country at all.

      1. Well, thank you Mouse. I just want the whole story, and I keep getting inundated with stuff Hillary has done, and the supposed “facts” that back it up, but Trump is just a fascist because he’s saying stuff people don’t like?

        He’s not saying kill the Jews, though I don’t think Hitler did either until he did, but Trump wants to shut down these “free trade” agreements. Nothing is free. Time, the great nonrenewable resource is often the price, but in cold hard cash, American taxpayers are often footing the bill as the tariffs needed to run this country aren’t being paid, so we get taxed more.

        Basic economy, really.

        He’s not saying end all imports, just start taxing it so we can run the country properly and quit raiding the social security accounts so all that money we paid, and in my case, are paying in, goes back to the citizens who are desperately needing it.


        Don’t hate me, I’m just trying to make a better country. Give me a third option worthy of the vote, and I’d vote for them. But I’m stuck between the rock and a hard place…

      2. For me it’s torture more than anything. He’s said he would bring back torture, target civilians if they were related to terrorists and order the military to commit warcrimes. I mean, if that’s not tyranny then what is?

      3. You’re more of what a person says then what they do, aren’t you Mouse. He would have to have Congressional approval to alter the laws of our country to even start torturing anyone, which with his popularity with politicians, means you’d have a long wait.

        Just remember this, whomever the people elect Tuesday night will chart the course of not only American politics, but the world for the next 50 years. Don’t believe me? Ask put in who’s about to start WW3, and it ain’t Trump.

        Think of that, and ask whom you want in charge of your daughter’s future. I hope she grows up to be beautiful and smart, in a world of peace, but the first step is the center, the moral center, must hold. Check the various news outlets, check the facts, don’t assume a story you read or hear as news is automatically true. Do some Google searches on Hillary’s lies, and ask yourself if you’d want her in charge of your daughter’s future.

        It’s easy, as a man sitting in a chair in a different country to think American politics ate funny, but look at the stats of people buying guns, it’s gone way up. A war is coming, and if telling people that if they vote for Hillary will get them laid is your idea of a joke during one of the darkest times we’ve faced, you need to reevaluate your idea of humor.

      4. If you go to the fact-checking site Politifact and look up their respective truthfulness in public statements, Hillary scores 50% True or Mostly True and 24% Half True. At the same site, Donald’s scores are 15% True or Mostly True and 15% Half True. That’s only 30% truthfulness.

        Factchecker rates differently, but their checks also show that Hillary is more likely to tell the truth than Donald.

        I followed the debates on-line so that I could pause them and then check statements as I went. I may not always agree with Hillary, but I know I can probably believe that she’ll do what she says she’ll do.

      5. If Trump doesn’t start WWIII it will only be because he’s already in Putin’s best friend and quite frankly I do not want a president who is chums with Putin

      6. I don’t know Fabrisse, how does one check the “4 minute response time” when the DOD won’t release that info?

      7. Aw shucks Mouse, looks like we’re going to have to pack it in.

        Knight is completely right, it’s just not proper to make jokes about shitty things that exist and effect people in real life. As we all know, comedy can’t be cathartic to our dreadful existence, it can only exist as a means of a mild amusement. And you know he’s serious, because he brought up Mouse’s daughter, when there was nothing to warrant doing so, and indirectly shaming him on his moral foundation. Then again, Knight did close out on positing that Hilary Clinton will be breaking ground for World War III, so perhaps he is the true comedic genius here after all.

        With all this hate going on this past year, with each side telling the other they are voting for Armageddon, makes the drama eight years ago when Obama was elected seem like small potatoes. Can’t we all just get along, and agree that this whole thing is a shitty situation for everybody?

    2. These are some very very crazy accusations and I promise you none of them are true. But if you believe them, you shouldn’t vote for Clinton. I wish for you the ability to distinguish between news and propaganda and to let go of paranoia.

  9. I’m ready to go to my polling place in my PJs if it means getting Hillary elected. She’s not perfect, but she’s hell of a lot better then Trump ever could be.

  10. Already voted. Also while you are correct about the third party thing, I think you overestimate how much those people care. Most people talking about voting third party this election are just saying that because politics are now cool. They didn’t follow politics before now, the didn’t vote in mid-term or local elections and hey certainly didn’t work between elections building up the infrastructure a party needs to get candidates elected. I know I’m a rather cynical person and maybe I’m wrong. It could be the people saying they will vote for a third party candidate for president aren’t being election hipsters just to be cool. Maybe they really do believe that it’s time that we got a president who doubts the effectiveness of vaccines in order to get votes. Maybe they really want a president who can’t name a single foreign leader. Maybe they really are naively optimistic enough to really believe that things can’t be worse than they are now. I doubt it.

    1. Appreciate the condescension. 🙂 Still voted for Gary Johnson, though, and that’s after constantly proofing, fact-checking, and defending unfair media spin from both sides. Clinton isn’t the devil, and Trump isn’t Hitler. That doesn’t mean that either are fit to be Commander-in-Chief.

      I spent the entirety of my weekend rigorously examining ballot measures, took a hard look at the resumes of State Senators, Assemblymen, State Propositions, City Measures, and yet people still say my third-party vote is a waste because it’s a “protest vote”.

      While I understand this notion, you assume that the Gary Johnson voters would have voted for Clinton, and maybe some of them would. I know William Weld personally prefers that Trump loses, and is a personal friend of Clinton, but that doesn’t mean we support her platform, agenda, or her manner of conduct while she was Secretary of State.

      I get you’re on edge because the race is being spun as being very close, but I’m going to say this: If Clinton loses, it’s not the third-party voters’ fault. It’s not the Clinton voters’ fault. Its’ not the Trump voters’ fault.

      The fault will lie with Hillary Clinton, and her campaign, for blowing the opportunity to oppose Trump by 1) Inherent collaboration of the DNC to undermine Sanders’ presence (the primary was not rigged, I get Clinton got more votes, but come on the freakin’ chairwoman resigned just so she could join the Clinton campaign!) 2) Painting Trump supporters as “deplorables”, which does nothing to win over undecideds. 3) I would warn against calling Trump a sex offender, as there’s just as much evidence to suggest that as Bill Clinton (accusations, which shouldn’t be ignored, but you can’t apply a double standard there). “Pussy-grabbing” aside, being a sexist sack of shit does not equal “rapist”.

      If you want to get my perspective, I voted for John Kasich in the primaries. I cannot support Clinton on the basis of my ideology, but I also do not appreciate her rhetoric in many regards. She’s not a witch, and I don’t watch Fox News because of the Trump-humpers that are on that network, but understand that there are right-wingers that just will NOT. SUPPORT. CLINTON. End of story. She is pro-gun control, pro-abortion war hawk that will allow the deficit to increase, and that is anathema to many conservatives. Let us vote for Johnson or McMullin in peace, it’s still votes against Trump after all.

  11. You know what, I used to wish with all of my heart Trump wouldn’t win, either. Then I realized no one anywhere in the world gave a trapeeze flying funk if we all starved to death. So the Vatican fat cats and the Democrats would only tell us “Oh, just go to peaceful talks with the same freaking guy who has repeteadly said his party will never leave power, just like the last umpteen times, so they can screw you over AGAIN, and stop bothering us with your silly demands to take a firm side and support your democracy by helping you kick Maduro and his bastards out. In the meanwhile, what do we care if your children keep on dying because of lack of medicines, and you can’t buy anything to eat without standing in lines for hours first? Haven’t we made it clear? We aren’t actually helping you, shoo, shoo! Now let us enjoy our American Way of Life in peace!”

    So now, until we are free of Nicolas Maduro, I have decided I want the rest of the world to suffer as much as we do if not more. Go Trump go.

    Mwa-ha-ha-ha-hah, I said, evilly twirling my evil moustache.

    1. That sinking Harsher In Hindsight feeling you get when you crack a black humor joke actually believing it won’t come true, and then it does.

      Wow. So, um, well then, welcome to our world, everybody. Now we all will know what’s like to be under the absolutist regime of a lunatic. We’ve been there for seventeen years now, so you’d better pull your chairs.

  12. Sorry, won’t support Clinton. I’m voting for Gary Johnson entirely because of the reasons you listed. A vote for Johnson is not just a vote for him personally, but also a vote for federal funding and legitimization of the Libertarian Party over the next four years.

    As for the systemic reforms necessary for ending first-past-the-post system, I’m tired of being told to wait, that change will happen eventually. This is the election that proves that the two-party monopoly is a failure, and Maine is one of the first states that has ranked-choice method on the ballot. There are Libertarian candidates running for Congress, including Mark Simmons who is polling very close behind the Democrat in the 1st District of Massachusetts.

    The GOP has failed me, and a lot of other people by nominating a clown as their nominee. But I’m not going to reward Clinton for simply being less of a failure than the alternative. She can win without my help, and lose without it. Plus, California’s going blue anyways, so I know my vote won’t swing the election.

    I will tell my children that when asked to choose between corruption and racism, I chose neither. Take that for what it’s worth.

  13. What was that about Ireland welcoming sad, shattered, disillusioned, American immigrants? Will it help if four generations back we left Ireland? *sobbing hysterically*

      1. I don’t even know what I’m going to say to my daughters. “Sorry girls, for the next 4-8 years you get to live through a hellish combination of ‘If This Goes On—-,’ and The Handmaid’s Tale.”

      2. Props for remembering “If This Goes On…” I have dreaded a Nehemiah Scudder since I first read it at 19. Now I must live with its reality.

        Wisconsin’s votes for Johnson matched how much Hillary lost by. But 3rd party candidates weren’t spoilers.

  14. Hi Mouse, I’m leaving this here because the other election post has gotten a bit vitriolic for my taste, and this is really just for you anyway. I was very confused by the numbers surrounding this election. How could a country that had just 4 years earlier re-elected its first African American president vote for someone who many believe is racist? Was there a silent majority out there waiting for their opportunity? How could Clinton win the popular vote but lose traditionally blue states like Pennsylvania and Michigan? I didn’t feel like I would get an accurate answer to these questions in the press, so I decided to do my own analysis. Forgive me if this has already been reported, as I haven’t looked at any news sources since 8 PM on Tuesday – too painful. Also, these numbers are as of Sunday (11/12) morning, and some states, like California and Washington, are not final so this could change somewhat. This is what I found:

    – There was not a surge in turnout. At this moment, turnout was about 670,000 voters less than 2012. This will probably change once all the states are in, but there was not a huge uptick in turnout. In the states where Obama won and Clinton lost, turnout was down in Iowa (-2%), Wisconsin (-4%), Ohio (-5%); and up in Michigan (+1%), Florida (+11%), Pennsylvania (+4%). Florida is the only place where turnout seemed to make a significant difference.

    – Trump received less votes than Romney in 2012. As of now, Trump has about 400,000 less votes overall than Romney. He received less votes in several red states, which helps explain how Clinton won the popular vote while losing blue states. Trump underperformed Romney in raw vote totals in red Idaho, Utah (significantly), Arizona, Kansas, Mississippi, and Alaska. When looking at percent of the vote, you can add red Wyoming, Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia, and North Carolina.

    – Raw vote totals to raw vote totals, 2012 Obama would have beaten 2016 Trump. Florida is the only state that went Obama in 2012 where 2016 Trump beats 2012 Obama. Trump received about 380,000 more votes in Florida than Obama. However, Obama still would’ve won the electoral college at 303 (and the popular vote by over 5 MILLION votes).

    – Third party candidates obviously made a huge difference. In the states where Obama won and Clinton lost:
    Iowa – Trump +66K (over Romney), 3rd Party +74K
    Wisconsin – Trump +2K (over Romney), 3rd Party +113K
    Michigan – Trump +163K (over Romney), 3rd Party +191K
    Pennsylvania – Trump +226K (over Romney), 3rd Party +141K, Clinton lost by 65K
    Ohio – Trump +110K (over Romney), 3rd Party +108K
    Florida, again, is the place where the 3rd party did not seem to make the difference. Trump outperformed Romney by over 452K votes while the 3rd party candidates only outperformed 2012 by 225K votes.

    I think these numbers show that there is not a silent Trump majority out there waiting to be heard. In addition, the polls show that Trump’s unfavorable was very high even with those people voting for him, so a lot of people held their nose as they voted for him. This was not a pro-Trump election, but an anti-Clinton one.

    In the end, it doesn’t really matter because he still gets to be president. But I think facts are important, and it’s important that we take the right lessons from this election, and not view this as some silent racist majority finally making their voices heard.

    Hope this wasn’t repetitive with the news out there, and you found this helpful and interesting.

    1. It’s important to remember that simple, one line explanations: The emails, all whites are racist, Democrats are out of touch, Hillary’s a Crook, America is misogynist are reductive and inaccurate by their very nature. If it was actually possible to scientifically analyse the cause of this result (and it’s not) the final explanation would run to the length of a phonebook. It was a million and one factors combining and whichever one you instinctively favour will say as much about your own beliefs and prejudices as it will reflect the facts on the ground. I look at an election where the majority of people voted against Trump and where he still one and it reaffirms my belief that the electoral college and First Passed the Post are an absolute menace to democracy.

      1. I think there are pros and cons for the electoral college, and a president is different than a prime minister. I think in a country that is vast and diverse the electoral college provides protections for a republic, which is what America is. But my point was to dispassionately provide some facts so that debate can be grounded in something. I’m not passing judgement about what is the right recourse, if any.

      2. Possibly, but it is America from day 1. Maybe it’s time for it to change, but to dismiss it in one line is, to quote you, reductive and inaccurate by their very nature.

      3. The question as to why something doesn’t work can be very complex. But the question “does this work?” is very simple and it’s either yes or no. The system designed to pick the most powerful office on earth has a seven per cent failure rate.

      4. I disagree. I think deciding if something works or not can be complex. Also, I disagree with your failure rate. If you’re coming to the discussion that the idea is the person with the most votes win, then yes but that’s not how our electoral system is designed. It’s a calculation of individual votes and number of states. I don’t know enough about international governments but I don’t think there are many true, 100% democracies out there. So, does the electoral college have a failure rate of some amount (I disagree that it is 7%) if the point is to elect the person with the most votes? Yes. Does it have a failure rate when it comes to keeping a diverse and large coalition of states united as one country? Not yet. We’ll see how this one goes but I think we’ll make it through. And the president might be the most powerful single person in the world but the presidency is not the most powerful branch of government in the world.

      5. And I come at it from a different view, hence complexity. I’d argue that Gore actually won Florida and therefore won the popular vote and the electoral college but didn’t become president for a separate issue not really related to the electoral college.

        And I agree that there were lots of things that the founding fathers did that were awful. I’m also open to the idea of changing or getting rid of the electoral college. I just think it needs more thoughtful debate than you’re giving it. It does have pros and cons and ignoring that is what I think is bad for American democracy.

      6. The Electoral College worked exactly as it was supposed to. The country (as in rural areas) won out over the city areas which was the intent behind the Electoral College. The rural areas belonged to gentleman farmers who had time to study and think, not to the shop keepers, recent immigrants, and others who might not understand the American ideal who lived in cities.

        It may be time to change, but we can’t say it didn’t work.

      7. I would also like to point out that the concept of the electoral college is grounded in the idea that the states are essential fifty governments (plus D.C.), and thus each state’s ultimate vote is a vote for the candidate that is in the best interest of bettering the quality of life in that state. It wouldn’t be fair, if say, every state had an equal amount of electors.

        I think the electoral college is important because it’s not just the vote of the people that picks the president, but also the vote of the states. I think there does need to be incentive for the rural states to have a voice on the national stage, and the electoral college provides that.

        What I see as being the problem is that we need to boost voter turnout, and give the 50% of the electorate that doesn’t get off their ass because it’s pointless to go out and do it. That’s where ranked-choice/instant runoff comes into play:http://www.fairvote.org/rcv#rcvbenefits

        It encourages voters to research alternatives, it penalizes extremist candidates, whereas a straight popular vote would lead to close elections like this one being disputed

        If we can institute this sort of reform, you get more viable third-party candidates, and you also completely eliminate the notion of a spoiler candidate, since your vote goes to your second choice if your first choice is eliminated. So there are no wasted votes or votes “for the lesser of two evils.”

        That said, looking forward to the next review Mouse! 😀

  15. This was a very witty and enjoyable article, and I’m not a fan of Trump either, to put it mildly. And I was very deeply depressed by the election results. But you should know the reason many Americans (and quite a few I personally know) simply did not vote was because they genuinely believe Hillary Clinton was a candidate not worth supporting. I personally did not vote for her because I don’t agree with most of her platform, but I think those emails are something to take seriously rather than be shrugged off.

    My brother outlined a list of reasons he could not support a Clinton presidency:
    #3 HRC received money from and supported nations that she KNEW at the time funded ISIS and terrorist organizations.
    #5 She paid people to incite violence at Trump rallies and according to the video, paid mentally ill and homeless people to incite violence.
    #9 King of Morocco gave Clinton Foundation $12 million for a meeting with Hillary. 6 months later receives a brand new missile system. This, by the way, was AFTER SHE ANNOUNCED HER CANDIDACY!
    #15 Bill Clinton receives $1 million “birthday gift” from ISIS-funding Qatar while HRC was Secretary of State, Qatar receives arms flow increases of 1,482%

    He concluded with: “The only things worse than what her emails prove are the things that they merely hint at. The ones that form a picture rather than stating things in black and white. The things that the Clintons are really involved in, are truly terrifying to me. Much more terrifying than a loudmouth orange narcissist.

    And I don’t think we could have come back from HRC as President. She was perfectly willing to lie, cheat, and steal the nomination from Bernie Sanders (which emails also prove) by breaking the law. If she had become President, she could have engrained that type of cheating into the system. She could have opened up campaign finance laws and invested her cronies into ensuring that the DNC’s hand-picked candidate would have won for decades to come. I didn’t want Clinton, because I believe she would have taken away the voice of the public completely and we would have been ruled (even more so) by the elite class.”

    The only reason I am posting this is to give you an idea of why the American people did not simply vote for Not Trump. I did myself vote third-party, though I agree with your sentiment that we should be building a viable third-party at the local level. My own father worked on the committee that got Bob DeBrosse elected as the first Libertarian mayor of Ohio. He also voted for Johnson this year. I think their supporters deserve something they can rally behind for President, even though they will not win.

    Reforming the system so that these candidates actually have a chance of winning and getting into the debates to be taken seriously would be a good first step that I agree with you on, but for now just putting them on the ballot for President shows that they are here and millions of Americans are choosing to vote for them. If they were only running for local and state offices, that indicates that they could perhaps be ignored or kept from ever even seeking the highest office.

    Personally, I blame the two-party system and the electoral college for the shit that we’re in right now (and I have many American liberals that will agree with me on the latter point). And it’s not going to go away unless both are eliminated, which isn’t going to happen any time soon.

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