The Final Tally

Here is the final, certified count of the votes.

# of Votes - 2016 Presidential Election

   Hillary Clinton                 65,844,610

   Donald Trump                62,979,636

If you enjoy percentages:

            Hillary Clinton                 48.2%                
            Donald Trump                 46.1%    

If you talk to a Trump supporter or follow conversations about this online, you'll hear a lot of "Democrats need to get over it, already." And they're absolutely right. We should all get over Democracy. Because in democracies around the world, whoever gets the most votes WINS THE ELECTION. Clearly we no longer have a Democracy in America. So maybe you should take that into account when telling people to "get over it".

As a thought experiment, imagine that those numbers were reversed and Hillary won while getting fewer votes. Do you think Trump supporters would be "over it"?

In America, we have a 200 year old edifice called the Electoral College that was created for two reasons. One was to give rural, slave states more power in electing the President than was warranted by their population (since slaves didn't count as a whole person). The other reason was to put a bulwark of elite Americans between the common rabble and electing the President so they could intervene to prevent the election of an unqualified demagogue.

Since the Electoral College failed spectacularly at the second reason above and since the huge majority of Americans no longer live in rural areas or have slaves, maybe it's time to just kill the Electoral College and directly elect the President, hmm?

Of course, since Republicans have benefited from this anti-Democratic system twice in 16 years, they won't even consider getting rid of this stupid system. Because anything that gives them an advantage is fair game.

But Trump did win under our system, so here's the point. More people in America voted against Trump. He has no mandate. He has a minority of popular support. A majority of people are against Trump's and the Republican's policies. It is incumbent upon the Democrats in Congress to remember that and to fight every step of the way for the next four years.

In fact, it's time for all of us to fight.