Schönrechnen
— “Schönrechnen” is a German word I love. It means to interpret some inherently bad numbers to put a positive spin on the results. Start-ups do that to improve the looks of their accounts. And it does a lot of work for non-republicans in the US right now.
It’s fine for Trump to crow about his massive election win, but everyone else should realize how historically small his victory actually was. And how he might not have won at all if not for the pressure the Republicans have put on our systems of voting over the past decades (all manner of voter suppression), the billionaires propping up his campaign with hundreds of millions of dollars when he couldn’t keep pace with his opponent in non-PAC fundraising, and the will of post-pandemic voters worldwide who wanted the incumbents out no matter what. Mandate schmandate.
Note: You wouldn’t even need all of those “cumulative 237,000 votes” to go the other way — all you’d need is half + 1. So we’re talking about ~118,500 voters out of ~155 million. That’s razor thin.
Obama’s win in 2008 (365-173) was far larger than Trump’s win this year (312-226), measured either by Electoral College results or the popular vote. Obama’s 2012 reelection against Mitt Romney (332-206) was a larger win than Trump’s now.
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But my god, look at the results Thompson was writing about in 1972. Richard Nixon won the Electoral College 520-17 and the popular vote by 23 percent. He won 49 of 50 states. “Jesus!” indeed. This now is not that. This is bad and dangerous and dark, but while Trump’s win was brutally clear, it was still a very close, deeply divided election.
It’s like they’ve been served a hot pile of shit to eat—which, kids, you must not ever eat—but the chef put some basil and balsamic on top and now look just like in Italy.
The fact is, the US elected an autocratic regime into almost unmitigated power. It doesn’t matter how close the margins were. This is as black and white as it gets. There are no grey areas here. A pile of shit is a pile of shit. The quicker one realises that the better for the country and world.
The Nazis only needed a couple of months to turn the whole of Germany around. Twelve years later, at least 70 million people had died. In 1945, no-one was talking about how the NSDAP didn’t even have a majority in 1933.