And then I wrote...
by Dick Schilling, "Editor Emeritus"
... that sometimes, placing a question in an entirely different context seems to help understanding.
As I am writing this early the afternoon of Monday, Dec. 19, television stations are breathlessly covering the on-going casting of votes by members of the Electoral College. All of them are assuring us that President-elect Donald Tmmp will get almost all of the votes he won in the various states, and thus officially be elected president.
But the role of the Electoral College still seems to be widely misunderstood, or if understood, resented by a number of persons. Some of the protestors apparently are young and so lack a frame of reference. Others are rabid supporters who feel robbed by the defeat of the election’s early odds-on favorite Hillary Clinton. And others are confirmed leftists for whom the entire United States election method is suspect.
All of this is largely the result of the fact that while Trump received enough Electoral College votes to win, Clinton had an edge in the popular vote totals, and so was the “real” winner.
I won’t go into the thinking behind the Electoral College. Those my age first learned about that in junior high civics class. Is civics still taught?
A few minutes ago, I was listening to comments by a guest on C-Span who put the situation into terms that might convey the idea in very simple terms. He likened it to a football game, where one team wins a game by a close 14-13 score, perhaps aided by some calls the losing team found questionable. So the losing team’s fans noted that their team had more passing yardage and more running yardage and so by far more total yardage, so therefore should be declared the winner, regardless of the final score.
Would that be fair?
No one is claiming Russia was able to change ballots cast figures in the election.
Pretty much everyone is convinced Russia fed E-mails to a leaker who then made them available to news media. I personally am convinced the details in the E-mails were enough to influence some voters. And I am also convinced that voters deserved to learn what they contained. I would much prefer that the source be American based. But the facts were undeniable.
Also in this noon’s news was the assassination of the Russian ambassador to Egypt. Why should that concern us? In these days of heightened world tensions, is it wrong to remember that the assassination of an Austrian archduke was a pretext (not a real cause) for the start of WWI?
I learned a new word over the weekend, in connection with what is termed global climate change. The word is anthropogenic, which means the impact of mankind on a change. It’s a word I intend to make my own!
