With apologies to fellow Kossack Bronmaderine, I wanted to diary this story again, because it's really a quite striking visual:
See the Current results and more at economist.com
See the Current results and more at economist.com
That's what a electoral map of the world would look like, if everyone got a vote. The image above is current as of about 6:30 EST on Sun, Oct 5. I altered it slightly; if you follow the link above, you can check out the cool Flash version with all the bells and whistles. Their methodolgy is as follows:
The Global Electoral College
The Economist has redrawn the electoral map to give all 195 of the world's countries (including the United States) a say in the election's outcome. As in America, each country has been allocated a minimum of three electoral-college votes with extra votes allocated in proportion to population size. With over 6.5 billion people enfranchised, the result is a much larger electoral college of 9,875 votes. But rally your countrymen—a nation must have at least ten individual votes in order to have its electoral-college votes counted.
Now, there are of course several caveats to this poll; even though the Economist leans slightly Conservative, one would assume that responses to the poll would be heavily if not completely skewed toward more educated, higher income internet users in the countries represented, who might tend to be more liberal in their thinking. The Economist.com is probably not widely read in rural China, Sub-Saharan Africa, or other places where, sadly, problems of food and water delivery infrastructure trump internet access. However, one could perhaps reasonably assume voters from those places would spare a thought for which Candidate might best help their countrymen, and that would be reflected in the results.
If nothing else, it demonstrates clearly that a World Community, from whom the US could sorely use a shot of goodwill, has a clear preference in this race. The wingnut response to this assertion, of course, would be:
"Well we Ameruhkins don't care what them forriners think, we can take care of ourselves, and we'll pick our own Preznit. We want a guy and a sassy gal we can have a beer with, not one who drinks wine from like, France or something."
And of course, letting people who hold that opinion, or some linguistically refined but essentially identical worldview run this country for one second longer is something that we cannot stop fighting. It's gratifying to know that literally the whole world is with us.
Note: Almost the whole world. The one country in Red is Georiga. Say what you will about that conflict, but it's clear what their motivation is. Other than that, it's clear blue skies across the globe.
I'm starting to let myself hope. It's been so long, and I'm finally ready to believe we're going to do it. I'll keep fighting, knowing that the majority of the country, the majority of the world is watching and hoping with me.