Post Election BlogPost for My Grandchildren

Dear Emily, Jonas, Adrianna, Preston, Lydian, Adam, Gideon, Lily, Ransom, Maggie, Parker, Gage, Tyree, Reagan, Micah, G~, Clancy, Annabelle, J~, Benny, Marshall, Rachael and Baby E~,

One week ago today we had an historic Presidential Election in this great nation, The United States of America. I will not lengthen this post by talking about the personality or platforms of the candidates, you can read all about it in various articles on the internet. Personally, I didn't care much for either one of the candidates, Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, but they were the chosen candidates of their political parties(along with 4 others who never stood a chance to win) who were on the ballots.

The votes were cast, Mr. Trump won and sincerely asked that the nation come together and Mrs. Clinton graciously conceded. Unfortunately, there are so many people in this nation who don't know or care about how our political system works that they have decided to stage violent protests against Mr. Trump. Many of them are actually being paid by outside interests to insight violence in the streets. Those who are unhappy with the outcome of the election are calling for the more liberal states to secede from the nation (BTW - they won't be able to pull this off as they would have to force people to go along with it), for people to move to Canada (Canada has said they don't want them) and worse, to act violently and throw a fit in protest because they didn't get their way.

They say Mr. Trump did not win because he didn't have the majority of the popular vote, (votes by the people) Mrs. Clinton did. Well, the people do not elect the President, the States elect the President.  I do not know what kind of political system we will have when or if you ever read this post, but I want you to understand that nothing was stolen, nothing in our political system was broken, that it worked exactly as the founding fathers who wrote the constitution intended. To that end, I attach an article I wrote and posted on Facebook and another article which will help you understand some of our voting history.

Know that I love you more than life itself and I hope, pray and work everyday for you to live in peace and happiness. God Bless you all. - Grandma Cindy

To my friends from other countries (and even some here in the USA) who don’t understand.

ELECTORAL COLLEGE 101

1. The PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES is elected by the individual states. He is not PRESIDENT OF THE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES. He is President of the States, therefore he represents the interests of the 50 States and the District of Columbia.

2. The USA is not a true democracy by design. The reason for this is because history teaches us that true majority rule democracies tend to implode and don’t last. (Think of it as two Wolves and a sheep all voting on what's for dinner.) It is a Republic. A Democratic Republic, not a Socialist Republic or Communist nation (as in the People’s Republic of China). WE THE PEOPLE elect, by popular vote and simple majority the people who will represent us.

3. The votes we cast in each precinct, elect by simple majority, our Local and State officials, our U.S. Representatives and U.S. Senators and the “Electors”, selected by the political parties of our individual state, to represent the people of said state in the vote for President. In Idaho we have 4 Electors. In California there are 55. If we elected the President by popular vote, only 11 states would be needed to elect the President, the other 39 states wouldn’t matter. Or, only the largest cities would elect the president and the people living in rural counties would have no voice. There would be no need to come together in unity if the most populous areas knew they could basically ‘rule’ the entire nation with their votes. Would the people of NYC, Chicago or LA really care about the basic needs or desires of the farmer, factory worker, construction worker or educator in Wichita Falls, Terre Haute or Bismarck? Think about it.

4. On Tuesday November 8, 2016 This country held 51 separate elections, each state and the District of Columbia, to decide who would represent each state in the vote for president. There are 538 electors (One representing each congressional seat and senators and 3 from DC) so a majority of 51 percent, or 270 Electoral votes are needed to win. Mr. Trump received over 300 Electoral votes. He is the winner.

Before you start calling for a change to this system, think about what it would mean to the entire nation. This system works exactly how it was designed to work. For more information, Read the U.S. Constitution – Article II, Section I, Clause II.

DARRELL HUCKABY: Take a seat — history class is in session

·         By Darrell Huckaby

news@rockdalecitizen.com

·         Nov 12, 2016

Goodness gracious sakes alive, does this country need a history lesson! Never in the past four years have I wanted so badly to have a class of people to teach. Teenagers or adults or senior citizens — it wouldn’t have mattered. I have seen so much appalling ignorance about our country, its history and its constitution that I have just wanted to grab the populace and shake them until they understood.

For starters, I am tired of hearing about our democracy and the popular vote. We are not a democracy, and a whole lot of people should be really glad about that, too, because in a democracy, mob rule applies. The majority is the boss of everybody, and if we had been a democracy in 1865 slavery would have never been abolished. If we had been a democracy in 1920, the women would have never gotten the vote. If we had been a democracy in 1964 and 1965, those historic pieces of civil rights legislation would never have been approved. In fact, if we had been a democracy in 1776, the Declaration of Independence would never have been adopted because the majority of the colonists were afraid to pursue independence, just like a majority of Americans opposed women’s suffrage and abolition and sweeping civil rights reform.

For the record, Abraham Lincoln did not get a majority of the popular vote in 1860, and Bill Clinton did not get a majority of the popular vote in 1992 or 1996.

“Oh, yes he did!” screamed one of my Facebook friends this week. “I know Lincoln got the most votes and so did Clinton.”

Most means plurality, y’all. A majority is 50 percent plus one. And while we are on the subject, we are not a democratic republic, either, no matter what the revisionist history books might claim. That’s just a term Andrew Jackson coined for political purposes in the 1820s and it stuck with some people. We are a republic. We have a federalist form of government where the power is supposed to be divided between the states and the central government and neither is subservient to the other. Both are supposed to get their powers directly from the people.

And by the way, the U.S. Constitution does not give any of us the right to have a say so in who becomes president of the United States. Oh, no, it doesn’t. That power is vested entirely in the Electoral College, and under the Constitution states still have the authority to decided how those electors are chosen. It wasn’t until 1842 that the last state started allowing the people to vote for those electors.

If we eliminated the Electoral College people in two-thirds of the states would be virtually disenfranchised when it came to presidential elections. All the time, money and effort would be spent wooing voters in California, New York and Florida.

Now about the transition of power. Political parties are not mentioned in the Constitution and were thought to be a dangerous thing by our founders. But parties arose almost immediately because people have always had differences of opinions about political issues. The first 12 years under the Constitution found the government in the hands of the Federalist Party. But in the election of 1800 — also called the Revolution of 1800 — Thomas Jefferson, leader of the Democratic- Republican Party, was chosen to be president. When John Adams, his Federalist opponent, stepped down on inauguration day in 1801, it marked the first time in the history of the world that a group in power had relinquished power without violence or threat of violence, simply because the people said that’s what they wanted. It has worked that way ever since.

And now the people have spoken and the message is loud and clear, under the Constitution, that the people want this country to go in a new direction. And no matter how much they hated to do so, Hillary and Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, and President Obama did and said all the right things this week to propel us toward that smooth transition.

And yet in many of our nation’s cities, ignorant young people who have no knowledge of how this Republic is supposed to work are dying to get attention by marching in the streets and generally acting the fool — and, no, these are not the peaceful protests guaranteed by the First Amendment. You must have a grievance to protest. These are spoiled brats and attention-seekers and they should be ashamed.

And if you are interested, I have about 38 years worth of lessons stored up. Class can start as soon as everyone gets here.