Donald Trump And The Popular Vote

                Donald Trump won the Electoral College vote by a large margin. What is not well known, however, is the fact that if California and New York are thrown out, he won the popular vote by a large margin, as well. In fact, if we only toss out California (and what red-blooded American wouldn’t like to do that?), Trump won the popular vote by almost 1.4 million. Exclude California and New York, and Trump got 3 million more votes than Hillary.

                Clinton, who won the national popular vote by roughly 2.8 million, won California by 4.2 million votes and New York by 1.6. Most of the rest of the fruited plain went solidly for the Donald. Progressives residing in the coastal state’s larger cities- the important places, such as New York, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles- never saw the Trump Train coming, because they’re never exposed to anyone who would vote for him. This is why they are literally at a total loss. When they were biking to campus, after stopping at Starbucks for a $9 latté, or taking light rail to their prestigious law firm, they didn’t see many Trump signs, nor converse with anybody who would consider a point of view other than their own.

                If they were chatting with their neighbor while plugging in their electric car, or carpooling in their Prius Hybrid, on the way to  a Bernie Sanders rally, they weren’t going to get an inkling of what was about to happen. When they were listening to NPR, watching MSNBC or perusing Salon.com or the Huffington Post, these most open-minded and inclusive types were never going to even consider that someone like Trump could possibly win.

                This is one of the reasons why I now spend more time perusing leftist tripe than conservative media, as maddening and depressing (though often inadvertently amusing) as it is. I want to be informed. I don’t want to be in a cocoon. I want to know what’s coming down the tracks. I would like to compare arguments, but they don’t have any anymore. The left just points and shouts “racist, homophobic, sexist, Islamophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, intolerant, non-inclusive, gun-loving, God-fearing, bastards! Your vote was a hate-crime!”

                Now that he’s been elected, it would be nice to think that Trump could actually “Drain the Swamp.” Unfortunately, the Swamp is huge and many-faceted, encompassing not only the Washington elite, but the big cities, the mainstream media, academia, the arts, Wall Street, and, increasingly, Western religions.