As gratifying as it is, we all need to stop clinging to the whole "She won the popular vote" meme. It's true. She did. And without California she LOST the popular vote by 1.4 Million.
Hold on to that. Hillary Clinton won California by a bit less than 4.3 Million votes per the certified results from the Secretary of State. A freakin' landslide. She won by a 30% margin.
She won the popular vote country wide by a bit less than 2.9 Million votes.
As much as it sucks to admit, if the vote totals in other states are to be trusted then it means that outside of California the country got what it wanted, and holy fuck that's depressing.
I love living in California. I have trouble picturing myself living anywhere else. I've lived here most of my life, and all parts of the state. I love my adopted hometown of San Francisco, as frustrating as it can sometimes be. Because at least it isn't everywhere else.
I've studied politics most of my life. From my frightening and ultra conservative grandparents (on my father's side - boy, that's a whole story of its own - you have no idea how grateful I am that they aren't blood) to my liberal grandparents (my grandmother once in the early 70's broke her middle finger and had the cast set in a rude gesture, calling it her "Nixon Salute") on my mother's side, to marching for the Equal Rights Amendment when I was six to following the beginning of the Reagan Error to my own college activism on various issues to my eventual backing away from it all because even the good guys were... GASP... POLITICIANS!!!
One thing I've learned in all of my years is that I hate politics, even though I breathe it as easily as air. I hate the personal mudslinging and attempting to woo people to your side when for the most part people just want to be people - not wooed one way or another. I've learned that most people can be swayed by stupid shit pretty easily and I don't have much patience for it. I'd be a terrible politician. I'd call someone a goat-fucker and get censored from the floor and that would be the end of that.
I'm steadfastly liberal and will remain so. I'm not a progressive. That term has always seemed wishy-washy to me. When being called a liberal was an epithet I bore it proudly, like having a Scarlet "L" on my shirt. I believe in letting people be. I believe in freedom to worship whatever you wish so long as your brand of worship doesn't tell other people what to do. I believe in being non-judgmental and fail at it constantly. I believe in free speech, even in crap I despise. I believe that sex between however many consenting adults and whatever breakdown is just fine - the key being consenting adults. People. I believe that the problems with education CAN be solved by throwing money at it. Throwing money WORKS. Ask the auto industry. I believe that the role of government is to help and protect PEOPLE. Not States, not Governments, not Corporations. PEOPLE.
All that said, I really don't have any causes that I rally for anymore. It's that whole swaying of people thing. It simply doesn't interest me. It's not the issues or the understanding of the mechanics - people get swayed by stupid shit like e-mails and screaming at 140 words per second and doctored photos and opinion treated as fact. Seriously, the guy who came up with "we report you decide" deserves to be tazed in the nuts.
At the same time I want our county to be better. Dear lord, we certainly once knew how to be. The one great line from the opening rant from "The Newsroom" that has always resonated with me is something said nearly as a throwaway: "..and we didn't use to scare so easily". We used to be better than a group of people that without the guidance of their liberal cousins on the west coast elect a fucking Nazi Goat Fucker.
I've spent a lot of time since the election trying to reconcile the math. I get math. I make a living thanks to math. Some of this election's math simply doesn't make any sense to me. For example, nearly the entire city of Detroit was legally unable to participate in a recount because the total number of ballots written on the outside of the precinct bag was one number off of the receipt total inside the bag. There is a county in Northern Ohio that once the state was called for Trump (before final vote tallies were in) suddenly went 96% for Trump for all ballots counted after the state was called. It had been 55-45 Clinton prior. There are hundreds of examples of things like this in states that we all thought Hillary would carry. I've studied statistics my friends. The math just doesn't work. I could easily be wrong but because of the math I find I can’t trust it.
I can't get my head around the the belief that the election wasn't stolen. It simply doesn't add up. The problem though, is that math isn't votes and when each state certifies their vote total that's where we are, whether we like it or not. Math is complex. Complex doesn't sway people.
I'm also not sure that even math can make up a 1.4 Million vote deficit in every state save for California. We lost. We lost because people are too easily swayed by nonsense. But no one's going to care because we just can't accept that the election was fair.
I have since this past election landed on an idea that I think could work. It will be difficult but unlike nearly everything else that people have suggested it doesn't actually require a change in any laws. It's 100% legal right this second. Next Presidential Election, I want everyone to vote by mail, just like Oregon and Washington do. I want every American by the next Presidential election to vote absentee. Take the potential for hacking and computer fraud and just about any other fraud that people stupidly cling to out of the equation entirely.
Now as I live in California, this is easy. Request an absentee ballot, vote. But some states have some pretty strenuous requirements about voting this way. Some states require you to vote in person the first time you vote this way. Some states require notarization or witnesses. But ALL states have laws that allow you to vote this way.
I am working on a plan on how to build up and implement this. I don't have everything in place yet. I'll talk more about it in the weeks and months ahead. But this is my activism. This is my cause. PROVE that the elections are fair again. Prove we can trust that our elections are sound and that we can have faith in our system of government.
Because right now, you can't.