Monday, November 07, 2016                                           10:27 PM

We Americans say the word ‘Democracy’ as if it were intrinsically good—but that isn’t necessarily so. When you think about, every time we have a presidential election and a peaceful transfer of power, it’s a minor miracle—and we pull it off every four-to-eight years.

This election race in particular has shown that Democracy lives on the knife-edge of public opinion—not on hard facts or past performance, but on public opinion. And a media-saturated, media-balkanized culture like ours is as unreliable in its judgement as the uneducated masses of early America who spurred the founders’ decision to have an Electoral College—a group of supposedly educated people who could countermand unwise popular votes.

That the Electoral College has never done this, or felt the need to, is very complimentary to the average voter. And at this point, any member of the College who went against their state’s popular vote would have a lot of explaining to do. The idea that our democracy can be overturned has bothered many of us over the centuries, and many have begun to question the need for the Electoral College, since it was instituted before the days of public education, or reliable polling.

The Electoral College aside, the idea of Democracy has still further problems. If we look at the population as a whole, that’s about 600,000,000 people—not all voters, of course, but it’s a rough number. Now, of all those hundreds of millions, one million of them will be the best-educated minds in the country—and one million of them will be the least-educated minds in the country. Those are the outer limits of the group. But overall about 300,000,000 voters will be of below-average education—just by nature of the word ‘average’. We can speak in terms of IQ or intelligence, but those are more nebulous values to measure than education. And either way the principle is the same.

So Democracy, by definition, includes the slow as well as the quick, the illiterate as well as the schooled—voters get to vote whether they are good at it or not. I tell you, it’s unbelievable that we get through any election—or that more of them aren’t as crazy as this last one has been.

Democracy itself is crazy—the only excuse for it is that no one can claim to know what’s best—so a consensus is the only fair way to decide public issues. That doesn’t mean that a consensus choice is always what’s best—it’s just the best we can do.

I was terribly shocked last night that the GOP won the presidency. I knew it was possible, but like all disasters, I hoped it wouldn’t happen—hoped so hard that it surprised me to have my hopes dashed. I remember my deep disappointment with my fellow Americans when they re-elected Bush-43—it seemed abundantly clear from his first term that he was not a good president—and he proved my point with his second term.

But that was nothing compared to the heartbreak I felt last night as I realized that my America is dead—that the uneducated were the majority—and that becoming president-elect will do nothing to change Trump’s unfitness for the office he has won. I know more about being president than that jackass—and I’m not anyone special, I’m just a reasonable man with a little education, is all.

It’s very comfortable to be narrow-minded; it’s a lot of fun to knock Hillary; and it’s almost as easy to go and cast a vote. But when the fruits of those votes come home to roost, I hope they are prepared to own it. I would never wish anything bad on this country—but when it comes, over the next four years, I will hardly be surprised. Nor will I accept any blame—the will of the people has spoken. And neither my vote, nor my eighteen months of daily blogging about it, did anything to alter their will.

Every day I attempted, in the clearest possible terms, to explain the choice we were all about to make. I wasn’t alone—lots of people wrote op-eds, articles, and essays about this battle between good and evil. Let that be a lesson to us—next time, don’t bother pretending that anyone reads—well, not Trump voters, anyway (which means the majority, now). People too ignorant to see through him are not going to be big readers—I see that clearly now.

Democracy is the worst part of being intelligent. To know that the majority are being misled—to know that nothing I do can stop them—worst of all, to know that these morons are choosing not just their own government, but mine, is beyond frustrating. I’ve spent my whole life trying to not condescend to stupid people—because I don’t judge people based on their smarts. But some stupid people are quite sure they are intelligent—and, being stupid, nothing can convince them that they’ve made a mistake.

Well, guess what, stupid-with-attitude—you made a mistake. You left this country stripped of its dignity and you let yourself be bamboozled by a pile-of-shit in a suit. There’s nothing I can do about it—enjoy your new home, this new America, where a reality-show clown has won the presidency.

And let’s all give a big hand to FBI Director Comey—our new America has a joke now, in place of a revered agency—I think it goes well with the new presidency—corrupt, incompetent, and shamelessly self-absorbed. I don’t know which is worse—the Director without balls, or the big-balled bigot he helped to win the election.

They all disgust me—Trump, Comey, that blank-eyed cow Kellyanne, Christie, Giuliani—liars, crooks, shills—they make my skin crawl. I never thought I’d live to see the day that Americans became this mindless herd of assholes. Oh, and thanks, African-Americans—turning out to preserve Obama’s legacy was much more of a hassle than turning out to elect him twice—we understand why you didn’t bother.

But nobody deserves more credit for Trump than the Media—you fucking jack-offs had nearly two years to present this contest objectively, but I guess making that green is all that really mattered all along—fuck you very much. No, I mean it: “Fuck you!” Do you know my wife threw out her TV today? Her fucking TV, you ass-wipes. I won’t be going that far, but I also am never watching the news ever again—I’ll find something less far-fetched to listen to. Hope you made some money off this election—it won’t work a second time.

Anyway, now that democracy has been hacked, polling has been discredited, and the people have spoken (in ignorance), both Putin and Assange can crawl back into irrelevance. The Republicans will now proceed to show that, even with everything going their way, they still cannot govern like responsible adults. Perhaps it’s a lack of memory that cripples them—they don’t remember our last GOP president and the ditch he left us in. They don’t remember that president-elect ass-hat wasn’t someone they wanted either. They don’t remember that being allied with Russia usually makes one an enemy of the United States. All hail President Pussy-Grabber!