Faithless Electors Have Spoken!

by Karl Denninger, Market Ticker:

Unfortunately, not as the Demoncrats had hoped for.

Yes, there were faithless electors. One was ruled out of order and changed his vote. A second was replaced. Six more did in fact vote for other than the majority winner in their states.

Only two of them, however, voted for someone other than Donald Trump — both in Texas. The rest — six others — voted for someone other than Hillary Clinton.

That’s right, a few heard — and heeded — the call to be “faithless.”

But most of those who did decided that their statement of political protest was not to be lodged against Donald Trump and his victory but rather against Hillary Clinton and the Democrat party who attempted to subvert and in fact overturn said legitimate political victory.

The Democrats, and especially the whining millennials that I’m sure have now been once again triggered and are crying in the streets and on our college campuses, will almost-certainly again issue recriminations not against their party nor will they apologize for their actions.

No, they’ll blame the Russians, the Chinese, or….. maybe it’ll be Martians this time.

You can bet there will not be one scintilla of honest reflection from this event, just as there was not from the election itself. There was no reflection on the fact that Hillary lost three states that Democrats were not only expected to win but had won handily — all organized labor and minority strongholds — in recent contests.

Nor was there any reflection on the fact that Hillary appeared to put forward the view that she deserved the Presidency; that it was hers by nobility, rather than by hard work. There was no reflection of the rank and outrageous corruption she had displayed in her time as Secretary of State and beyond, nor the hubris of her senior staff. There was not one whit of concern over the millions of jobs that policies her husband put into place had cost the nation — polices she herself supported as well.

Three states flipped over this set of issues and yet Hillary could afford to lose none of them.

Worse, when the screaming started on “recounts” and “fraud” Wisconsin completed their count and it resulted in a tiny, statistically-insignificant change — for Trump. Pennsylvania never got anywhere but in Michigan, which had their recount halted by a judge the only irregularities found were in heavily Democrat precincts in central parts of the city of Detroit where more ballots were cast than persons signed the books for. In other words there was a small amount of fraud uncovered all right — but the fraud wasn’t in favor of Trump, it was for Hillary!

The Democrat party has two choices here. It can either accept this outcome as a spanking delivered by an electorate that wasn’t swayed by Russian hackers, but rather by the displayed public corruption of a party that not only didn’t give a damn about party member votes (in that they rigged their own primary) but also didn’t give a good damn about their party member’s economic prospects and believed they were entitled to those votes anyway and choose to reform itself. It can eject those party hacks who led it into and through this disaster, including people like Pelosi, the Clinton family, John Podesta and the dozens of so-called “tech mavens” and “socialites”, including anything connected to George Soros. Should it do so the party may in fact find a means to reconnect with the people in the coming years and rebuild itself.

Or it can continue on the path it has been on thus far and double down once again on the claim that “Russians” were responsible, that Trump is a racist, that I’m both deplorable and irredeemable (along with millions of others) and more. It can refuse to accept that kowtowing to multinational companies that move jobs overseas, draining both intellectual and physical capital is a losing strategy long-term when it comes to votes and that places like WalMart may provide short-term lower prices in exchange but in the end when you lose your job you have nothing to buy with anyway beyond food stamps and disability checks, and that’s a crappy way to live.

If the party takes the latter direction, and it appears so far that’s exactly their intention, then it will fade from prominence and leave open in the political landscape a replacement slot, just as happened with the Whigs — and much for the same reason. I have no idea who will step in to fill that vacuum, since there is no political party in the wings that fits the model; certainly neither the Greens or Libertarians have put forward the sort of organizational prowess or serious candidates over the last two decades necessary to do so.

But that the vacuum will be filled, probably by a nascent political party we have not yet seen organized, is a given.

Collections of political power are always at risk of excessive hubris. Sometimes, as occurred with the Republicans, the body recognizes, however begrudgingly, that the shift of sentiment away from them is occurring and lets it happen. His name in this case was Donald Trump.

In the Democrat case they refused to recognize that same problem within the ranks of their elite.  The challenger’s name in their case, by the way, was Bernie Sanders and instead of coming to terms with the repudiation of Democrat voters who had enough of the Clinton corruption and entitled attitude they doubled down, called names and then rigged their primary to disenfranchise their own voters — and got caught doing it. In response a sufficient number of those voters either stayed him or voted for a Republican to hand the party a loss in three critical states.

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