ionelv | Random thoughts on US politics

1. CBC mentioned the Somewheres vs Anywheres culture war that is shaping our current politics as it unfolded in the UK, US, Brazil, etc. Apparently, David Goodhart came up with the term in his 2017 book to describe what's driving Brexit (or as early as 2004 without the branding). This is a very astute observation that constructively and better frames the divide between liberals and conservatives and provides a clear path forward to fix it.

2. Trump won in 2016 by 77k votes (in the deciding states: PA, WI, MI) which is a larger margin than the 48k votes that Biden beat him by (in the deciding states: AZ, GA, WI). Eerily, the EV count was split exactly the same: 306 to 232. EDITED: Nevada was originally included in Biden's margin, but was not needed, thus removed. The 2020 election is in the top 10 closest ever presidential elections.

3. Shame on them: A majority (67 of 113) GOP PA representatives (and 7 GOP state senators) signed a letter asking PA US Congress Representatives "to object, and vote to sustain such objection, to the Electoral College votes received from [...] Pennsylvania". They also stated that "3 U.S.C. §15, empowers Congress to reject electoral votes that are not ‘regularly given’ or ‘lawfully certified.’"

4. I found out by accident that the original Bill of Rights package sent by Congress in 1789 to the states to ratify (and join the union) included 12 Senate articles:

The last ten articles were ratified and became the Bill of Rights in 1791.

The second article had a very interesting history and eventually became the 27th amendment two hundred years late in 1992.

The first article (never ratified by enough states to become officially part of the Constitution) is the most interesting one (aka the Congressional Apportionment Amendment) as it is the one that would have fixed the current electoral college distortions that give the GOP undue power in presidential and House elections. Interestingly, if either Georgia, Connecticut or Massachusetts would have ratified it by 1792, the US House would have had over 6,000 Representatives (one for every 50,000 people) and a fairer representation. What is also interesting is that due to this gap, Congress tinkered with the apportionment formula repeatedly until 1929 when the last tinker (the Reapportionment Act of 1929) fixed the number of Representatives at 435. Previous tinkering was done in 1911, 1850, 1842, going all the way back to 1792.

5. [Partial Credit: FB!RFB post] WaPo found that only 27 GOP lawmakers admit that Biden won. Apparently, a strong majority of Republican voters are mistrusting our elections at least since 2012, compared to say a minority of Democrats who believed the 2004 election was rigged.

6. [Credit: FB!RFB post by Stefan M] Neal Gabler coldly stated some sobering facts after 2016 election in his Farewell America, facts that are just as relevant in Dec 2020:

“The virus that kills democracy is extremism... Republicans have disrespected the [democratic] process for decades. They have regarded any Democratic president as illegitimate ... proudly boasted of preventing popularly elected Democrats from effecting policy and have asserted that only Republicans have the right to determine the nation’s course..." most recently, the Supreme Court vacancy. "They have worked tirelessly to make sure that the government cannot govern... In short, they haven’t believed in democracy for a long time, and the media never called them out on it.”

“Like Goebbels before them, conservatives understood that they had to create their own facts, their own truths, their own reality. They have done so, and in so doing effectively destroyed the very idea of objectivity."

Now "Trump can lie constantly ... because white America has accepted an Orwellian sense of truth… Trump, like all dictators, is his own truth.”