It’s safe to conclude that NPR “reporter” Scott Detrow did not vote for Donald Trump, and did vote for Hillary Clinton.
Detrow pettily seeks to diminish the significance of Trump’s electoral victory, indeed to deny that it was a victory at all.
Donald J. Trump will be the next president of the United States.Detrow refused to report on the death threats made by Hillary Clinton supporters against Trump electors. And he desperately sought to rationalize the attempt by the racist Left to steal the election, after the fact, as it had sought in 2000, for Al Gore.
That's been the case since Nov. 8, when Trump won 306 electoral votes, despite losing the national popular vote to Hillary Clinton by nearly 3 million.
“But the fact Clinton won the national popular vote by such a large margin, combined with the unconventional and unpredictable — and to many, threatening — way that Trump carried himself before and after winning the White House, led to an unprecedented effort to lobby electors to vote for someone else.”How would Trump’s “unconventional and unpredictable” campaign style justify sedition? All that Detrow is saying is that for him, Trump’s mere victory justified sedition. As for the racist Left calling Trump’s conduct “threatening,” all that means is:
1. They were projecting, since they were the violent ones;The number of states and counties (80% of the nation’s counties) Trump won equal a landslide.
2. Trump was threatening to them, because he was in danger of winning, and thereby of stopping their galloping totalitarianism.
The expectations of a Hillary Clinton landslide, confronted with reality, equal a Trump landslide.
By the way, why did Scott Detrow not cite how many electors Hillary Clinton ended up with? It was 227, rather than the 232 she initially won. Detrow sought to diminish Trump’s victory.
Detrow asserts that Trump lost the “national popular vote to Hillary Clinton by nearly 3 million,” but that is contradicted by NBC News, which cited the popular vote difference at 2.6 million (2.86 million, according to the New York Times), and by the reality of routine, Democrat electoral fraud, which probably exceeded the official difference in the popular vote.
Finally, NPR’s headline is dishonest: “Donald Trump Secures Electoral College Win, with Few Surprises.”
(By the way. How did Clinton’s popular vote edge go from one million on election night, to 2.6 or 2.86 million?)
There were plenty of surprises. One was that with the nation misled to believe that faithless electors would put the election result in jeopardy, more electors turned on Hillary Clinton (five) than on Donald Trump (two).
A related surprise was the lack of an elector revolt. Larry Lessig, a professor at Harvard Law School, had repeatedly asserted that he had 20 electors in the bag, ready to switch from Trump to Clinton, and was going to rob Trump of the presidency. Ultimately, only two Texas electors betrayed voters, and neither of them switched to Clinton. One cast his vote for Ohio governor John Kasich, while the other opted for retiring Texas congressman Ron Paul. Thus, Lessig had nobody in his pocket.
Donald Trump Secures Electoral College Win, with Few Surprises
December 19, 2016 4:52 P.M. ET
By Scott Detrow
NPR
Donald J. Trump will be the next president of the United States.
That's been the case since Nov. 8, when Trump won 306 electoral votes, despite losing the national popular vote to Hillary Clinton by nearly 3 million.
And on Monday, the result was ratified by Electoral College voters, who gathered in state capitols across the United States to formally vote for president.
Trump secured 304 electoral votes — two fewer than he earned in November, according to the Associated Press, which tracked results from capitol to capitol. That was despite a pitched effort by some on the left who wrote letters to Trump electors trying to persuade them to switch their votes or not vote at all and keep Trump short of the 270 needed.
Not only did it not happen, but more electors tried to defect from Hillary Clinton Monday than from Trump, by a count of seven to two, as of Monday afternoon. Three Democratic electors in Maine, Minnesota, and Colorado tried to vote for candidates other than Clinton. The electors' votes, however, were disallowed because of state rules binding them to the statewide popular vote winner.
The Electoral College gathering is usually a formality — a chance for political activists to gather amid pomp and circumstance to formalize their party's victory in each state.
State Won by What happened Succeeded Final vote
Colorado Clinton An elector who tried to vote for John Kasich was replaced by an alternate elector, who voted for Hillary Clinton. (State law requires electors to vote for the winner of the state’s popular vote.) No • 9
• 0• 0
Maine Split vote* A Democratic elector voted for Bernie Sanders instead of Clinton. He was ruled “out of order,” and he voted for Clinton in a second vote. No • 3
• 1• 0
Minnesota Clinton An elector who tried to vote for Sanders was replaced by an alternate elector, who voted for Clinton. (State law requires electors to vote for the winner of the state’s popular vote.) No • 10
• 0• 0
Texas Trump Of the state’s 38 electors, one voted for Kasich and one for Ron Paul. A third elector resigned and was replaced by an alternate, who voted for Trump. Yes • 0
• 36• 2
Washington Clinton Four of the state’s electors broke ranks to vote against Clinton. Three voted for Colin Powell, and one for Faith Spotted Eagle. Yes • 8
• 0• 4
Note: Maine awards its electoral votes by a mix of congressional district and popular vote, rather than winner-take-all. Its 3-1 electoral vote split was expected.
Credit: Scott Detrow, Alyson Hurt and Domenico Montanaro/NPR
But the fact Clinton won the national popular vote by such a large margin, combined with the unconventional and unpredictable — and to many, threatening — way that Trump carried himself before and after winning the White House, led to an unprecedented effort to lobby electors to vote for someone else.
Electors found themselves inundated by letters, petitions, tweets and Facebook posts, urging them to cast a ballot for an alternative candidate.
Many people behind the lobbying campaign cited a Federalist Paper written by Alexander Hamilton, which frames the Electoral College as a safeguard against "foreign powers" that try to "gain an improper ascendant in our councils" — a potentially relevant line, in the midst of revelations that Russia attempted to disrupt this year's election by hacking and releasing Democratic emails.
Hollywood celebrities even got in on the act, recording video pleas to electors. But, unsurprisingly, that effort had no effect on Trump electors.
"They don't understand us," said Pennsylvania elector Ash Khare. "I received over 70,000 emails. I received over 5,000 letters. I received over 500 phone calls at all times of day and night." But Khare, like most electors, is a longtime Republican political activist who was proud to cast a ballot for Trump.
"I've been an elector since 1996," Khare told Harrisburg public radio station WITF. "But I've never been asked to do anything because we never won since 1988."
Maine elector David Bright announced Monday morning that he would cast a ballot for Sanders. But Bright ultimately changed his vote to Clinton, after his initial ballot was ruled out of order.
A Minnesota elector, Muhammad Abdurrahman, tried to vote Sanders, according to Minnesota Public Radio reporter Brian Bakst. He was replaced by another elector who cast a ballot for Clinton.
Two Texas electors defected from Trump — one went for Ohio Gov. John Kasich, the other for former Texas Rep. Ron Paul. The Kasich defector, Chris Suprun, told The Hill beforehand his plans. Another Texas elector, Art Cisneros, resigned instead of voting for Trump. He spoke to NPR earlier this month.
Many Republican electors dismissed the pleas to "vote their conscience," pointing out that their consciences were perfectly fine with Trump.
With protesters heckling from the gallery of Pennsylvania's House chamber, Pennsylvania elector Robert Gleason seemed to pointedly respond to their efforts.
"My fellow electors," Gleason said, "let us always remember this shared moment when we stood up for our constitutional system, followed our conscience, answered the call of Pennsylvania voters, and did our part by electing the next president and vice president of the United States, Donald Trump and Mike Pence."
On Monday night, Trump issued a statement saying, "today marks a historic electoral landslide victory in our nation's democracy." In fact, in nearly 80 percent of previous presidential elections, the winning candidate earned a larger share of the electoral vote than Trump.
There are two more steps in the process. States will submit a "certificate of vote" to the Federal Register by Dec. 28. Then, on Jan. 6, Congress will formally tally the Electoral College's votes in a joint session and make it official.
"Larry Lessig, a professor at Harvard Law School, had repeatedly asserted that he had 20 electors in the bag, ready to switch from Trump to Clinton, and was going to rob Trump of the presidency. "
ReplyDeleteClinton actually lost four electoral votes and Trump two.