So reads the headline from an opinion piece just published in the Washington Post, by Charles Lane.
It is fallacious to invoke this statistical byproduct of Nov. 8 to question the legitimacy of Trump’s victory — as opposed to that victory’s desirability, which is questionable indeed.
As all concerned knew going in, the object of the presidential election game is to win the most electoral votes in what are essentially 51 state-level contests (the District included)…
Aiming for 270 electoral votes out of 538, both Clinton and Trump focused on 13 swing states; Trump won that contest-within-a-contest by 816,000 votes.
Voters, too, behaved as they did based on the known rules. The popular vote reflects not only true preferences but also strategic voting (or abstention) by people in non-swing states, such as deep-blue California and deep-red Louisiana, who might have done something else in a direct-election scenario.
My comment earlier today in this front-page thread made essentially the same argument:
Calling him the ‘presidential popular vote loser’ does nothing to make us look anything but petty, pretend that somehow we really won, and does nothing to change the facts on the ground.
My comment was not well received:
You want to worship Hitler, go for it. probably won’t go over big here.
I am happy to inform you that I am not a Hitler worshiper, nor am I a supporter of T Rump. Not knowing him, I believe I nevertheless can safely conclude that Lane, too, is neither of the above.
But, back to Lane’s argument, the facts remain:
There’s no use multiplying hypotheticals. While the Clinton popular-vote edge is so large it might represent what would have happened in a direct election, we can never be sure of that.
Lane goes on to explore some of the implications (positive, negative, and unknown) of implementing a national popular vote.
This is not to validate the electoral college per se. To the contrary, 2016 reinforces long-standing concerns about the democratic adequacy of U.S. presidential elections.
If we elect the president by popular vote, would it increase voters’ sense of engagement — or alienate them as candidates used more national media and less state-level retail politicking?
This is outside the scope of my topic here. I encourage those so-interested to read Lane’s piece, and if desired, discuss them further.
But facts on the ground are facts on the ground, and Lane’s concluding statement is my concluding statement:
As for the game we have now, Clinton lost, and the sooner people accept that, the sooner they can move on to the task of limiting the damage Trump might do in office.