America Is No Longer A Democracy

Hillary Clinton is heading towards a 2 million vote lead in the 2016 presidential race, but it means nothing.

Donald Trump will be the next president because of a system that does not depend on the votes of the people.

Thomas Jefferson, one of the most powerful forefathers, said it this way: "Where the law of the majority ceases to be acknowledged, there government ends; the law of the strongest takes its place, and life and property are his who can take them."

Issues of Democracy

Trump manipulated the election just has he done beauty pageants and reality shows by focusing on the electoral college. Pundits asked why he was visiting Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania so often. Those three states, which he carried by a total of 101,000 votes, gave him his lead in the electoral college.

With votes still being counted, Clinton had 63.7 million compared with Trump’s 62 million. Her lead was expected to grow.

The electoral college was created by the founding fathers because they feared letting the people elect a president. They especially feared a close race where the outcome was disputed.

Electoral College

The popular vote winner had lost three times previously, though winning by only a small margin until 2000. Al Gore won that election by 543,895 votes. And there was a dispute over the vote count in Florida that was settled by a Republican-dominated Supreme Court.

Voters had no say in the decision.

But never had there been an election where the popular vote winner had a lead as big as Clinton’s. With votes still out in several left-leaning states, including California, it was considered likely her lead would exceed 2 million.

The presidential election is the only important vote in the U.S. that is not determined by every vote cast. Mayors, governors, senators, et al, win by getting the most votes.

One thing is for certain, the French writer-traveler Alexis de Toqueville needn’t have worried about the “tyranny of the majority.”

Instead there is a possibility of a tyranny of the minority seeking to take away abortion rights, same sex marriage rights.

Polls have repeatedly shown that a majority supports these controversial rights. And for those who doubt polls, they were correct when they said Clinton would win the popular vote.

“According to the Brookings Institution analysis, the less-than-500 counties that Clinton won nationwide combined to generate 64 percent of America's economic activity in 2015. The more-than-2,600 counties that Trump won combined to generate 36 percent of the country's economic activity last year.

“Clinton, in other words, carried nearly two-thirds of the American economy.”