Donald Trump Is President Because We Cannot Face the Truth.

[elleng]

Our nation can't stomach the stark reality of its history.

'Nobody who's been watching the goings-on in places like Scott Walker's Wisconsin, or Pat McCrory's North Carolina, or the independent failed state of Brownbackistan out there just north of Nebraska for the last few years could seriously have believed we would find 37 Republicans at the state level around the country whose political principles contained sufficient iron to allow them to stand up against the onrushing catastrophe.

So Monday's voting among the various presidential electors was as much a formality as it ever has been, even though the current president-elect fits every single criterion set down by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 68—low character, foreign influence, etc. etc.—as a reason for electors to go into business for themselves. If there is a modern parallel, it's the attempt to recall Walker in Wisconsin back in 2013. That effort failed, despite having gathered over a million signatures, largely because, faced with the opportunity to be full-grown citizens, the people of Wisconsin thought that the recall cost too much and that removing Walker from office was just going to be too…much…bother.

So it was on Monday. There were people who braved the cold to hoot and holler; in Wisconsin, there was even a protest inside the room where the state's electors were meeting. The vote lasted 15 whole minutes.

On Sunday, on CNN, host Michael Smerconish argued that electors should ignore the criteria for actual presidents set down by Hamilton this time around because the electors themselves didn't meet that Founder's exacting standards, either. But running through all the commentary was a sense of terror that, one day, the country might actually decide to live up to its founding principles, rather than simply slapping on the old tricorn and yelling about taxes. There are terrible truths about this nation that the public cannot be allowed to know, lest it act on them in ways that disturb the horses.

It was this terror out of which the Warren Commission was formed. It was this terror that kept Lyndon Johnson from revealing Richard Nixon's treason to the world and to Hubert Humphrey. It was this terror that engendered Nixon's pardon. It was this terror that allowed the Reagan campaign to dodge how it may have fudged the release of the hostages in Iran, and it was this terror that allowed Reagan himself to skate on Iran-Contra. It was this terror that welcomed the meddling of the Supreme Court in the Florida recount of 2000.'>>>

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a51678/trump-wins-electoral-college/

[katmondoo]

1. Our reward ignoring all of this, is Trump for President

[Blanks]

2. Brownbackistan would be south of Nebraska. eom

[JudyM]

3. Excellent piece, straight to the point.

This is crisis time and we are all just watching.

With all respect to President O, we can no longer afford leaders who are overly focused on peaceful collaboration and not enough on righting wrongs.

[Solly Mack]

4. K&R

People like to think of that pebble in the pond sending out ripples of goodwill. It's the most common way of thinking about it. It's not a bad way of looking it - as long as you accept that if a good deed can spread ever outward, so can a bad one.

I see that pebble in terms of history, because once thrown that pebble is now the past and any ripples are now the future.

And not every pebble was thrown in goodwill.

For good or ill, America has thrown a lot of pebbles.

We can pretend the past is so far away from us that wrongs can no longer be corrected, but when we do, we put our own hammers to our democracy and chip away at it.

Each and every time we bow to the notion that justice isn't practical, we give permission to be treated unjustly.

[rtracey]

5. so

if you voted for Fuckump, Bernie, the green party, the libertarian party, you are getting what you deserve.

[world wide wally]

8. It shouldn't be any surprise to anyone

[JudyM]

7. K&R.

[greymattermom]

9. Brownbackistan is so failed that it's lost

somewhere north of Nebraska.