A couple of personal notes before I begin. Like a lot of Americans this week, I wake up in the middle of the night, and, for a moment, don\u2019t remember Tuesday. But that crushing memory returns quickly. I used to read the news to go back to sleep. Now, that\u2019s a path to another sleepless night. So I read old history articles instead, keeping a distance from the events of today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I do confront today\u2019s news, I try to do it on my own terms. I feel that same distress I have before surgery. I know I have to have the procedure, but there always a strong \u201cfight\/flight\u201d urge to jump off of the gurney, and flee down the hall in my open hospital gown. Now, like that pre-surgery stress, I have to face down the urge to run, and force myself to confront the reality of another \u201cTrump America\u201d. I know my reaction might get better in weeks or months, but for the moment, it\u2019s almost overwhelming. And besides, there will be plenty of reality to confront in the next four years. We all need to take it a piece at a time, not all at once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I also joined my family in an \u201celection avoidance activity\u201d. Coincidentally, we planned on a trip to \u201cThe Wilds\u201d in eastern Ohio yesterday. It\u2019s a sanctuary where many endangered animals roam in protected pastures. So Thursday, instead of \u201cdeep diving\u201d into the results, I was in the back of a beat-up pickup truck, getting \u201cup-close and personal\u201d with exotic species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0We literally fed a rhinoceros in a field, and scratched her back. We dodged ostrich nips, hand-fed lettuce to a giraffe with their amazingly long tongues, and learned from afar about a species of beautiful animals called Przewalski\u2019s Horses.\u00a0\u00a0They cannot be tamed, and while they are gorgeous, almost cuddly, they have a secret weapon.\u00a0\u00a0Unlike other horses-species, these beautiful \u201cponies\u201d have canine teeth, able to rip and shred.\u00a0\u00a0And they have no compunctions about using them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So here\u2019s the figures (of figures lie and liars figures). When the notoriously slow California vote is projected to completion, almost 160 million Americans voted. (Current prognosticators are ignoring at least seven million votes not yet counted). That\u2019s about four million more than 2020. So let\u2019s dispel the first fallacy: more Americans voted in 2024 than ever before. Donald Trump got about 4.5 million more votes than in 2020, and Kamala Harris about 1.7 million votes less than Joe Biden. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that dispels the second fallacy: while this was a landslide in the electoral college, it was incredibly narrow when viewed through the prism of that old American principle; \u201cone person, one vote\u201d. The difference is less than a million, a little over one half of one percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To put a finer point on it, Trump really won the election by 247,583 votes.\u00a0\u00a0That the total of the difference in the \u201cBlue Wall\u201d states. And that\u2019s a lot bigger difference than either Biden\u2019s winning or Clinton\u2019s losing result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, the voting margins don\u2019t matter. This is a winner take-all deal, just like when the Bengals gambled on a two-point conversion to beat the Ravens last night with 34 seconds left in the game: score and win by one, fail and lose by one (they failed). The Electoral College is like that too, no matter how narrow the popular vote, the winner take-all Electoral votes are awarded regardless of the gap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My rough estimate: Trump clearly motivated his voters to the polls. And there was a \u201cswing\u201d from 2020. While Biden reached more of the white, working class voters, some turned to Trump this go-round. And Harris performed well in the suburban vote, but didn\u2019t deliver the urban vote the way Biden (or Obama) did. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We hear all sorts of \u201cWednesday Morning Quarterbacks\u201d giving advice to the Democrats about what they did wrong. I have friends who are dead sure they have the answer, and angrily blame the intellectual or moral arrogance of the Democratic Party for the loss. Others look at misogyny; that like Hillary Clinton, the headwinds for choosing Kamala Harris as President were too strong. And still others want to blame Joe Biden, for not knowing he was getting too old to run for the job, soon enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All of those are true to some extent. And I do think, that my Democratic friends, need to do exactly what the Republican Party did after the Romney defeat in 2012. We need to do an \u201cautopsy\u201d of the 2024 election, and make determinations for changes Democrats need to make. But keep in mind, it really only comes down to a small sliver of voters in the large scope of things. It\u2019s no good \u201cthrowing the baby out with the bath water\u201d. We need numbers, we need time, we need, like the pathologist, to make dispassionate decisions about what happened. And unlike the Republicans in 2012, we need to heed the results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDispassionate\u201d is not the mood of the day.\u00a0\u00a0We are, right now, like the Przewalski\u2019s Horses, ready to rip and shred, both Republicans, and our fellow Democrats.\u00a0\u00a0Instead, we need to face our reality:\u00a0\u00a0Donald Trump is President, and, if we weren\u2019t lying before, our Democracy is in greater danger than any time in our history.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Sure we need to fix what\u2019s broke, but we better be ready to stand together for what we believe.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It might be our last stand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"