Happy Monday and day before Election Day even though we have election month now. Today’s post is from Stephen. Thank you so much!
I recognize that my columns have been MIA for a time, but I thought I might ease back into the routine with a subject which is both extremely important and yet for the most part trivial: voting. This year’s election promises to have one of the highest voter turnouts in decades.One the one hand, it is an extremely important election because the Marxist theology which had began to take root in America starting in the 1880s and 90s primarily in New England pseudo-intellectual circles.The ideas were popularized in America under the names of “progressivism” and “liberalism”, despite every enlightened thinker recognizing that the philosophy is antagonistic to both progress and liberty.Of course the primary source of this intellectual corruption of Marx was laid by the foundations of “transcendentalism”, or subjective reality, from the philosophical mind of Immanuel Kant, which had long been eroding reason from academia.The Marxist philosophy got other boosts from the movement to put governments in charge of education, and the importation of the Frankfort School socialists into American academia after WWII who in turn promoted the hippies’ Weatherman Underground who in turn promoted the current batch of millennial Antifa/BLM Marxists.Every generation has become more openly socialists to the point that they have finally, for the first time in history, stopped denying that they are socialists and fully admit to wanting socialism in America.Contrasting in this election is the capitalist philosophy which grew out of the same enlightenment philosophy based upon reason and objective reality upon which our society is based, which formed the foundations of our Constitution.Because the Constitution is founded in these philosophies, the leftist have stopped pretending that they just interpret the Constitution differently and that their interpretation is correct, instead have come out and openly advocate the complete abandonment of the Constitution itself as an impediment to their socialist agenda.A clearer contrast between philosophies has never been so open in the history of American elections, though the differences have been politically present for over a hundred years and began to divide upon party lines starting with Barry Goldwater in the 1960s.At the same time the national debt has been quietly spiraling out of control because of massive government spending combined with nationwide shutdowns from the current flu panic, which has catastrophically reduced annual government revenues.Further, the leftists have been striving for decades to import immigrants from nations more aligned with their socialist philosophies, primarily third world nations, in order to demographically overturn the basic philosophy with an easily bribable population through government hand-outs.Thus the contrast between the parties and candidates bears a practical as well as philosophical side. Demographically and economically the nation is rapidly approaching a point of no return, as is much of Europe.Down ticket, there are more Republican seats up for re-election in the Senate, due to the 1/3 rotation of Senate seat elections, making the almost evenly divided Senate somewhat vulnerable for the Republican majority.For all of the electoral college whining which we constantly hear from the left because of the large number of conservative rural states with low population, the media seems incredibly oblivious to the impact of those small New England states on the electoral college as easily reflected in the political division of the Senate.So, as I stated, this election is extremely important. So why is it for the most part trivial?From a personal perspective, I live in a state with a little over 1.8 million people which will solidly vote for Trump as it went 68.7% of the 600 thousand votes for Trump in 2016.Naturally this pretty much made my vote for Mr. Castle, one of just 3773 votes somewhat meaningless. However, imagine the alternatives in contrast. If I had cast my vote for Trump, my single vote would not have moved the meter in the electoral college even the slightest bit in his favor. Had I voted against everything I believe and voted for Hillary, again it would not have made the slightest dent against the overwhelming margin in Trump’s favor.One single vote in a solidly Republican or solidly Democrat state makes as little difference as to be completely irrelevant. Those of us living in states which are solidly one way or the other have the rather depressing luxury of knowing that our vote will effectively have no impact on the way our state trends, thus no impact on the outcome of the federal election.Contrary to the stupidity of the leftists, there is no “popular vote” for President. We have to weigh our impact on our state’s electoral vote decision.If I lived further northwest, in Ohio, my vote would have more of an impact being a state which in this election is likely Republican, just to push the numbers up in a more comfortable margin or down to signal to my fellow voters that the state is not quite to be taken for granted.On the other hand, were I living straight north of here, in Pennsylvania, that is an important swing state in this election. My vote in Pennsylvania would be extremely important and could possibly turn the entire election. If the margin in such a key pivotal state was narrow enough, my one single vote could very well determine who became president.It is a misnomer, badly defined, in economic theory of Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem, of what they call a “dictator”; that one single solitary person who determines the outcome of the lexigraphical preferences of the entire nation. (More precisely and far more accurately, it should be described as the pivotal position rather than dictator, but then the theorem would not sound nearly as impossible and thus not nearly as impressive.)Thus, votes in swing states are as important as the election results themselves for the very reason that they are the ones which turn the election. Votes in “safe” states are largely irrelevant by and large. I mean, in a landslide states which were considered safe may very well flip to the other party, but those votes in that state were still not crucial because the other states had already overwhelmingly decided the outcome without you.One only has to look at the 49 states carried by Reagan in his re-election sweep which included California and New York going Republican. But to be honest, if they hadn’t, the election would have still came out the same because it wasn’t even close.However, dear reader, despair not in the importance of thine suffrage, for today’s swing state may well be tomorrow’s safe state, and that safe state today which makes your vote pretty much irrelevant may very well be another election’s pivotal swing state.For example, again my home state. Most people recall of the 2000 election contest between the wooden cigar store Indian and the frat boy, the hanging chad fiasco which was Florida and the litigious nature of that contest. (Made even more poignant now that both sides appear to be gearing up for an even more pronounced and widespread legal challenge to the current election results.)What people fail to remember or notice is that the election was decided by just five, count them five, electoral votes, 271 to 266 in the electoral votes.. West Virginia happens to have precisely five electoral votes. Except for voting for Reagan along with almost every other state in the nation, West Virginia had traditionally been a solidly Democrat state. With over 70% of the people registered Democrat it was difficult to even get people to try to run for office as a Republican. They elected Robert Byrd effectively as a Senator for Life, and all five Congressmen were Democrat.However, I recall that I had occasion to mention to some fellow West Virginians that West Virginians may be left-wing socialist Democrats, but they were ARMED left-wing socialist Democrats, thus they were going to surprise everyone and vote Republican. And they did.You see, Al Gore had made a very strong stand on gun control as his central issue, and as leftist as West Virginia was, and depending on the issue often still is, they were having none of that gun control. It was a step to far for the left leaning electorate. (That was also the election where the red/blue labels became affixed permanently to the respective parties along a rural/urban dividing line.)Yes, people look to Florida because the vote counts were closer, however, but for the gun control issue Gore would have won West Virginia and won without Florida. (The gun issue was so divisive that he even lost his own home state of Tennessee, something even Mondale did not do, so yeah you could claim Tennessee was just as pivotal as West Virginia, but we are not gracing them with such an acknowledgment.)Be thou in a swing state or not, have a fun election.
