2016: What a Year.

Well, this has been rather tumultuous.  Following the deaths of David Bowie and Alan Rickman in rapid succession in January 2016, it seems the universe became unstable.  The election of 2016 is not one of those "insane" or "unpredictable" things.  It's an undesired outcome for many, but hardly out of left field.   I tend to take the Vulcan approach to most unexpected data in life; I have profoundly strong, fiery feelings, but logic is king.  Don't be put off by the cold approach.

First, the turn out.  America has had a historic problem of getting people to participate.  Per Pew Research, we rank 31 out of 35 developed nations in terms of eligible voter participation (i.e., out of those who meet the age criteria to legally vote, only x% do so).  Only 56% of the estimated eligible voters turned out.  Hilary and Trump both got about 25%, while Gary Johnson and Jill Stein harvested about 6%.  This left 44% not participating. 

While most recognize that this was a year of unsatisfactory candidates, this isn't an irregularity in American elections.  A lower percentage of voters turned out in 1988 (GHW Bush), 1996 (Clinton) and 2000 (GWB).  Obama's 2008 election was actually the peak of participation at 61.6%.  What causes non-participation?  Lack of palatable choices, in part, but we've had very well-liked candidates that have low turn outs:  Obama in 2012 (58%) but also Reagan in 1984, where he literally swept the board, except Mondale's home state of Minnesota, with only 55.2% of eligible voters participating.

We must acknowledge some disenfranchisement in the system.  There are people barred or prevented from voting by active opposition, whether by those with no ill intent and going by the rules, or by those who  would actively suppress the vote.  This has become particularly relevant after the striking down of outdated parts of the Voting Rights Act; without a functional Congress, those measures cannot be updated to reflect data post 1972, and so they have been voided until such updates have been made.  This, however, does not stop the feds from intervening in egregious cases. 

Sidebar/Anecdote:  It took me over 2 hours to vote during early voting.  They only had two people working the voter ID check and the registration check.  This is due to defunding elections officials.  I was able to stay because my work schedule permitted it.  If you needed to vote on your lunch hour, it was impossible; the lines were far too long.  When you have to go back to work at a certain time, you don't have the ability to wait in line to vote.  

Back on Point:  Although it is not advertised in the work place, you are legally entitled to time off to vote:

http://www.hrlegalist.com/2016/04/decision-2016-do-employees-get-time-off-to-vote/ 

That said, these items are not advertised often, and many employers will resist taking time off to vote, particularly if the law requires them to pay you.  Combined with insufficiently staffed polling stations (budget cuts), this can curtail the ability of people to vote.  But it doesn't explain 44% of eligible Americans not voting, especially since early voting, extended voting hours, Saturday voting, and other innovations have made the polls more accessible than they were in the 1980s. If we believe that 10% of the vote can be suppressed successfully with gaining federal attention, this does not explain the other 34%. 

I'm going to say it:  if the people who had sat at home voted, Gary Johnson or Jill Stein could have become president.  You can consider that a good thing or a bad thing, but the bottom line is, this did not have to be a 2 horse race at all.  "Why don't you vote for third parties?"  "Because it's a waste"  -- is a lie.  We have enough non-participating folks in the US that they could swing an entire election or even just make a third party candidate hit the 15% popular vote mark and be eligible for federal funding.  

However, because of the low voter turnout reality in the US, the lie is true; that little percentage can swing a race.  It shouldn't.  The republic is sick when there are only two viable parties, particularly when this is due to low voter turn out. And it's an ouroboros -- people stay home because third parties can't win and they hate the other two, but they stay home and the third party can't win if they stay home, and so they get dissatisfied and disengage politically and stay home because third parties can't win, etc etc etc. 



So the big question is, what does that 44% think?  We know what 56% of the US thinks, but not those that did not vote.  As such, this can be a source of comfort for those who are preparing for the end of civilization.  We have a large silent minority at the moment.  At present, Hillary Clinton is winning the popular vote, which means that close to 400,000 people agree with her more than they do Donald Trump. 

The spate of attacks is deeply concerning.  There is a personal measure of responsibility -- don't be a terrible person.  However, the rhetoric used in the election was incendiary.  There are consequences to this.  It's not that Trump created these people or converted these people to hate.  There are now people out and proud about the person that they truly are, and they're simply using the rhetoric as an excuse to act upon it.  Racism did not magically evaporate from the scene in the 1960s, nor did those who voted Dixiecrat quietly die off.  They just learned to keep things to themselves.  Same with those who thought women shouldn't get an education, same with those who think the US is strictly a white, Christian nation.  (Even though it never was -- just ask Tom Jefferson and his Bible.)

Consider how many incidents we are seeing in the context of 300+million people.  How many per capita?  Is it an actual rise, or are we just finally started to pay attention to the suppression and suffering of others when we have a visible scapegoat?  Honestly ask yourself, prior to the Trump presidential campaign, did you track and become an advocate against hate crimes toward Muslims?  I'm not defending Trump in the least -- I find him reprehensible -- but it is naive to think he created all of this; he merely capitalized upon it, as any basic politician can. We have a responsibility to fight such ugly behavior.  Stop being a bystander.  I don't care whether you agreed with Trump on the issues and voted for him -- if you are a half-decent human being, you will not tolerate violence -- physical and verbal -- against others.

But what about the children?  There have been rather disturbing videos posted about white children bullying minorities, particularly Muslims and Mexicans.  Here's the thing:  reflect how politically aware you were prior to 18.  Were you your own fully formed person?

Or were you mimicking your parents and their rhetoric while you lived under their roof?  Although bullying recently "went viral," it was always there.  Cyberbullying is simply an extension of real life, which is that the parents did a bad job at raising a good citizen.  Some parents are grown-up bullies themselves.  So it's not strictly Trump.  Monkey see, monkey do -- but the most important monkeys are parents. If they themselves are supporting and echoing Trump without any sort of nuance, guess what kids will latch on to?  Ironically, parents are criticizing the "bad behavior" of anti-Trump protesters -- who are statistically likely to be the older siblings of the asshats in middle school and high school. 


The protests are an expression of anxiety.  We cannot invalidate those feelings.  I don't think it's being a collective crybaby -- it's not just that their girl didn't win the election. Anxiety is worrying over the potential options and unknowns.  The person who won the election used rhetoric and affiliated himself with people, such as Mike Pence, who have an agenda that would disrupt their daily lives, if all his ideals came true: no gay marriage, limited access to women's health care, arbitrary firings based upon religious whims, and other items that would change the paths of their lives.  I'm picking on Pence, but there are other people in Trump's corner whose potential policies may disrupt lives - Muslim registration, anyone?  I don't expect everyone to adopt protests as their cup of tea.  However, try to understand it as an anthropologically necessary pressure valve. 

Do the protests have to be so public?  We can -- and do -- put constraints on what is appropriate at the workplace and in the academic environment.  This is a matter of professionalism.  I don't think it was appropriate or professional for professors to cancel class because of feelings -- not all students are sad about this election.  Bringing your own drama into a classroom is unprofessional - nobody cares if my cat died or I caught the spouse cheating (I wouldn't bring that up anyway, since I would be incriminating myself).  I'm there to do a job, and so are my students.  However, if I am holding them to a professional standard in the classroom, then I wholly expect them to find an outlet elsewhere.  If it's typing away on a blog, ranting on Facebook, or going into the street to find others that make you feel less alone in the universe -- fine.  No outlet whatsoever is daft and self-destructive.

To be frank, we would have likely seen similar outbursts at some point -- perhaps not now, but eventually -- if Clinton was elected. Black Lives Matter has been active during the first black president's terms; progress at the top end doesn't mean that the bottom is ascending upward at the same rate.  Clinton glossed over this in her positivist campaign but it's clear that many people within the perceived Democratic base have anxiety and fear of the future; the continued fatal shootings of black men by police and the aftermath of the LGBTQ community at Pulse Nightclub are just two prominent examples.  Clinton advertised that we can fix these problems with unity -- that doesn't translate to people who already have tight, local social cohesion and yet still see the same results in the real world.  Trump tapped on fear as an anti-establishment candidate, just as Bernie Sanders did.  Bernie, however, took it in a different, progressive direction and did not ignore it as Clinton, the establishment candidate, did.  When pitting an establishment and an anti-establishment candidate against each other, if the discontent is enough, the anti-establishment will win, regardless of exact platform. 

Please, note, however, I do not think Bernie was a guaranteed win.  Bernie struggled with the loyal Clinton contingent left over from the 1990s, particularly older women and African Americans in the South.  Let us also not forget that there are still Christians (both Catholic and Protestant) in the US that would never vote for a Jewish guy; Protestants were suspicious of the Catholic JFK, who is still to date our only Catholic president.  I will put in the disclaimer that I still Bern, and Vermont is always lovely at any time of the year.



What will President Trump do?  That is a major question.  Some hold out the hope that he will resign once he knows how hard the job is.  He did look a little dazed after the 90 minute meeting with President Obama.   Unlikely; that signals defeat and Donald Trump is not a loser, as he commonly says.  The question really is, how much is going to delegate?  And to whom?

Republicans are quick to say Trump is their president and their candidate, but if one looks at voting record in comparison to what Trump says, there's a clash.  Trump mentioned single-payer health care, which made Republicans clutch their chests; Obamacare was communist enough!  So the question is whether America is getting a hard-line Republican in the first place.  The anxiety about Trump on both sides is "what is he going to do?"  The man has no previous record for us to refer to.  This may actually generate tension between Trump and the Republican Party; he wore the label, but he doesn't abide by brand standard.  So Trump is unpredictable if he decides to be a hands-on president, and Congress may see a few unholy alliances in an effort to block or promote legislation.  It's better than twiddling thumbs. 

If he does delegate because the job isn't as fun as he thought it would be, then we have to consider how much Mike Pence actually matters.  On paper, he's very socially conservative, regardless of whether he defines himself as an evangelical Christian or a Catholic; the only consistency in religious practice is his love of Chicago Cubs (grats, mate).  He's contradicted Trump on a number of issues.  Will Trump delegate to him only things they agree on?  Even if Pence does get the lion's share of the work in a number of issues, we must remember that even he has his political limits.  Both on legislation relating to "religious freedom" and abortion, he was forced to step back on his most severe demands; the man can compromise and knows when it's prudent to do so for his survival.  That's still a positive sign, especially since Trump does not seem to have many instincts in this realm. 

And then who are the other people Trump would delegate to?  I believe the only person he fully trusts to be competent is Ivanka, his daughter.  We may scream nepotism, but she has demonstrated herself to be effective.  I think Chris Christie is still just Ivanka's dog walker.  Ben Carson as Secretary of Education is a terrible choice, but not a bad choice for Surgeon General.  It's in his wheelhouse;  in other areas he isn't as competent -- that's most of the human race, however

Most of my analysis boils down to watch and wait.  I've made comparisons to the 1922 election, wherein Wilson was followed by Harding.  The parallel does not extend to the elections of 1926 and 1928, as some popular memes would have it.  That's too far in the future, as far as I'm concerned. Trump himself is a wildcard -- I don't know if he's going to deliver on his promises or if this was part of the same circus as his WWF/WWE appearances.  Do recognize, however, that he has dredged up the worst in an aggressive, vocal minority of people -- the private hatreds kept out of polite company til now.  Be on guard, be an ally to others, but don't let your fear dictate your life. You likely had nicknames for people who lived in constant fear and desperation over FEMA re-education camps and death panels for Grandma under Obama.  Tin foil hat, anyone?  One size fits all, both sides of the aisle.