By Roddy McCorley
Hmmm. Let me get this straight.
- Donald Trump wins the election on Nov. 8.
- So they call a recount, which he … wins. Actually increasing his vote totals in both states that were allowed to do recounts – not to mention some humiliating defeats of Hillary Clinton and Jill Stein by state Supreme Court judges who said, “basta!”
- So they stage an Electoral College revolt. The “Hamilton electors” spring into action, complete with a New York Times op-ed splash and a website donation bar. Then there’s a Big Media “to-do” – just like the recount. The Electoral College is supposed to be his comeuppance, the Trumpfixated actually talking in serious terms of getting 37 electors to switch from Trump. But Trump actually widens his margin over Hillary from a mere 74 electoral votes to 77. So he did not just survive these seditions … he used them to his advantage.
By my count that’s three electoral wins, each seemingly more improbable than the other.
It is all so improbable. It is almost like somebody wanted Democratic donors, fresh off dropping a record $1.2 billion on a failed candidate, to drop another $7 million. It is almost like someone wanted the media, unmasked in 2016 as Democrat-shills, to go “all-in” once again and fill their pages with recount-mania followed by elector-revolt mania.
Gee, who might that someone be?
Meanwhile President-elect Trump carries on as if he is already president, “winning, winning, winning” on the jobs front, the diplomatic front and on his prediction about refugees and terrorism (which, by the way, has started back right on cue in accordance with Scott Adams’ theory that ISIS was helping Hillary Clinton by ceasing hostilities until the election. Talk about foreign interference in the process!)
So I wonder … was Trump playing 4D chess all along, feigning protest while sucking the Democrats and their loyal minions in the media into wasting time, energy and attention-capital on Nos. 2 and 3?
The hamiltonelectors.com website was reserved on Nov. 13 according to whois.com. Vice-President Elect Mike Pence attended the Broadway performance of “Hamilton” on Nov. 18 where he was publicly shamed. Trump made an awfully big deal about it on Twitter, even though Pence shrugged it off. Perhaps Trump could see the Electoral College revolt coming and so decided to give the movement a little help in true “Make My Day” fashion. Trump had been successful all election season by just letting the Democrats fly their freak flag, so why stop now? “Go ahead and stage an elector revolt; voters just love when you flout their will,” Trump must have thought.
But, you may object, “How would Trump know he would win the recount?”
In the words of Antonio Banderas, Ah yes! Remember, Trump is the guy who said the election could be rigged against him. He knows Democrats cheat more than Republicans. Otherwise why would voter ID be any more controversial than any other polling place regulation, like no electioneering within 100 feet of the doors? So Trump knew that any fair investigation and recount would likely gain him votes. Cannier Trump surrogates like Ed Martin of the Phyllis Schlafly organization were endorsing the recount to gain a close-up inspection of the process. The revelation that there were 782 more votes than voters in the Democratic stronghold of Detroit provided additional proof in the pudding.
But how did he know he was going to increase his electoral vote margin? Once again, just like with the general election, Trump fully analyzed the rules of the game beforehand.
- Trump knew that most states banned faithless electors.
- Trump knew that Hillbots would simply go back into bully mode and try to intimidate those electors who were free to vote for whomever they choose. They would show up outside “red” state houses the same way he saw them show up at Trump rallies with their indignant signs and their potty-mouths, looking like the bar scene from “Star Wars,” making electors run a gauntlet just to get inside and then either staring them down in the rotundas or offering their hind-quarters from the galleries.
- It is a funny thing about faithless electors: They like to make big shows of “conscience.” But conscience votes have to happen in a tranquil environment, like in 1972 when a faithless elector made a protest against perceived “big government” trends in Washington by voting for a libertarian named John Hospers, which then catapulted the Libertarian Party to being the leading alternative party from 1976 onwards.
But, in the end, Trump-pledged electors, threatened with the liberal equivalent of slut-shaming, held fast to their commitment (all but two). The ones who might have been inclined not to vote for Trump did so anyway. This was because the Hillbullies had taken away their ability to claim conscience. If they violated their pledge to vote for Trump, they forever would go down in history suspected of being wimps who gave in to intimidation.
And lo and behold, which candidate’s electors were more faithless? Hillary’s! By a count of 8-2. You see, they could make the decision of conscience in threat-free tranquility.
Chess anyone?
Roddy McCorley is a Midwest-based white-collar professional of Irish extraction who loves rock ‘n’ roll and juvenile memes perhaps more than a middle-aged father and husband should. He knee-jerkedly hated Trump with a passion for the first two months of his candidacy and now hates anti-Trump virtue signalers with a passion. His favorite movie of all-time is “Massacre at Central High.” “If you don’t get Trump you don’t get the classic American Hero.” He has taken his pen name in honor of an 18th-century Irish patriot who was hanged at Toome bridge.
