Would Bernie have won? I don’t know, and neither do you.
What I do know is that Hillary didn’t. Mind you, that was because of the Electoral College — the majority of Americans wanted her by a pretty big margin.
But would Bernie have attracted more votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, thus guaranteeing a win? Hillary’s losses in those states was within 2%. These are states with large populations of working-class white voters who felt (wrongly) that the Democratic party had abandoned them.
When I suggest that Bernie could have done it, I am often knocked down by those who point out all his negatives and say the people would never support him. Many made the same argument a year ago during the primaries. These same people predicted with confidence that Trump would never get the nomination.
The fact is that we don’t know. This year has turned everything topsy turvy. The traditional rules I learned when getting my Political Science degree and in all my years of working on campaigns were thrown out the window this year. Nobody knows anything.
Pointing out that he lost the primaries to Hillary isn’t convincing. Primaries involve a small percentage of the voters, and are almost always the insiders and most active of the party members. Hillary had already wrapped up many of them years beforehand. In any event, winning among Democrats doesn’t mean much because in order to win the final election, you have to reach independents and even some Republicans. Hillary’s negatives among those groups was high, Bernie’s wasn’t.
We often criticize Republicans for living in a “bubble” and ignoring facts that are inconvenient, but Democrats do that too. The Democratic bubble has to do with dismissing non-liberals as rubes or ignorant rednecks or people in the fly-over states that don’t matter. It has to do with ignoring how much people didn’t like Hillary, whether justified or not.
Perhaps a different candidate — one that could appeal to the working class as well as the “liberal elite” in the big cities — could have made a difference.
“I bought my brother some gift wrap for Christmas. I took it to the Gift Wrap department and told them to wrap it, but in a different print so he would know when to stop unwrapping.” – Steven Wright
“What I don’t like about office Christmas parties is looking for a job the next day.” – Phyllis Diller
“I played Santa Claus many times, and if you don’t believe it, check out the divorce settlements awarded my wives.” – Groucho Marx
“In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it ‘Christmas’ and went to church; the Jews called it ‘Hanukkah’ and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say ‘Merry Christmas!’ or ‘Happy Hanukkah!’ or (to the atheists) ‘Look out for the wall!’” — Dave Barry
“The Supreme Court has ruled that they cannot have a nativity scene in Washington, D.C. This wasn’t for any religious reasons. They couldn’t find three wise men and a virgin.” – Jay Leno
“The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.” – Dennis Miller
“Christmas is the only religious holiday that is also a federal holiday. That way, Christians can go to their services, and everyone else can sit at home and reflect on the true meaning of the separation of church and state.” – Samantha Bee
“Christmas at my house is always at least six or seven times more pleasant than anywhere else. We start drinking early. And while everyone else is seeing only one Santa Claus, we’ll be seeing six or seven.” – W. C. Fields
“Ever wonder what people got Jesus for Christmas? It’s like, ‘Oh great, socks. You know I’m dying for your sins right? Yeah, but thanks for the socks! They’ll go great with my sandals. What am I, German?’” – Jim Gaffigan
“My grandmother passed away at Christmas time. So now I have this built in sadness every holiday beause I’m plagued with the thought of what she would have given me.” – Laura Knightlinger
“The one thing women don’t want to find in their stockings on Christmas morning is their husband.” – Joan Rivers
“I stopped believing in Santa Claus when my mother took me to see him in a department store, and he asked for my autograph.” – Shirley Temple
“Let me see if I’ve got this Santa business straight. You say he wears a beard, has no discernible source of income and flies to cities all over the world under cover of darkness? You sure this guy isn’t laundering illegal drug money?” – Tom Armstrong
“Santa Claus has the right idea. Visit people once a year.” – Victor Borge
“The office Christmas party is a great opportunity to catch up with people you haven’t seen for 20 minutes.” — Julius Sharpe
“Roses are reddish, Violets are bluish, If it weren’t for Christmas, We’d all be Jewish.” – Benny Hill
“This holiday season, no matter what your religion is, please take a moment to reflect on why it’s better than all the other ones.” – Guy Endore Kaiser
“Aren’t we forgetting the true meaning of Christmas. You know, the birth of Santa?” – Matt Groening
“Christmas is a baby shower that went way overboard.” – Andy Borowitz
“There are 17 more shopping days until Christmas. So guys, that means 16 more days until we start shopping, right?” – Conan O’Brien
“My mother-in-law has come round to our house at Christmas seven years running. This year we’re having a change. We’re going to let her in.” – Leslie “Les” Dawson, Jr.
“This past Christmas, I told my girlfriend for months in advance that all I wanted was an Xbox. That’s it. Beginning and end of list, Xbox. You know what she got me? A homemade frame with a picture of us from our first date together. Which was fine. Because I got her an Xbox.” – Anthony Jeselnik
“Merry Christmas, Nearly Everybody!” – Ogden Nash
“As a show of support, groups of people across America are attaching safety pins to their lapels, shirts and dresses to signify that they are linked, willing to stand up for the vulnerable” says the New York Times. 
While I clearly stand with that group, I have not yet worn a pin.
And mostly it’s because I am not sure the “vulnerable” want me to. I mean, it seems kind of condescending to me. Am I wrong there?
Some are saying the pin is a meaningless gesture, like sending your prayers and thoughts after a tragedy. A friend of mine recently pointed out, however, that as an attorney, my pin may mean more to someone–because I really am in a position where I might be able to actually help someone who needs it.
I’d really like to hear from my friends on this, especially those who will be impacted by Trump’s policies, such as the LGBT community and the Muslims and racial minorities and women and atheists and … okay, everyone except for Christian white males, I guess.
There is a movement now to encourage the electors to choose Clinton over Trump when they meet next week. “It’s what the Founders wanted,” supporters say, with backing to support it. “The whole idea of the Electoral College was to prevent mob democracy, where the people could elect someone completely unqualified.”
While I agree that “completely unqualified” accurately describes our current President-elect, I have to reiterate what I have said here many times: I don’t care what the Founding Fathers wanted. We shouldn’t be tied to the past simply because of what a bunch of rich white men thought about a world that no longer exists.
My dislike of the Electoral College could not be stronger. My blog post about it a few years ago has generated the largest comment section of anything I’ve posted here, and it still generates lots of hits. And it’s not like the Electoral College hasn’t already changed since its original inception.
If you are in favor of democracy then sure, the electors should choose the person who actually won the popular vote.
But ironically, that’s not what the people calling for the Electoral College to choose Clinton are saying. They want the electors to choose the popular vote winner but that this is the exact opposite of the will of the Founders. The Founders set up the Electoral College to stop the democratically elected winner from becoming President if he was unqualified.
Even if you accept the argument that the electors should choose who they want no matter what the vote was, that’s not the reason the electors should choose Clinton. They should do it to send a message that we’re sick and tired of an anti-democratic provision in our Constitution and that we reject the Founding Father’s idea that the will of the people can be thwarted by an elite group of electors, following an arcane procedure that rewards states over citizens.
If you’re about to show the Star Wars movie to some kid who has never seen them, for God’s sake, start with Episode 4: A New Hope. Don’t ruin it for the poor tyke.
I can’t stand the prequels and like to pretend they never exist. Oh, sure, if it was just those three, it would be an acceptable trilogy, no better than many other space operas. But the fact is that they ruin the original trilogy’s storyline in so many ways as to make me pull my hair out.
If you watch the films in order, you’re sure to ask:
What’s the big deal about the line “Luke, I am your father”? So what, I knew that all along.
Why doesn’t C3PO tell Luke who his father is? For that matter, why doesn’t Obi-Wan recognize the droids (and vice versa)?
How could Luke be “hidden” in plain sight on Anakin’s home planet with his relatives and not been found?
And how did Obi-Wan age so much in the twenty years or so between trilogies?
Why did Leia say she knew her mother in Return of the Jedi when her mother died in childbirth?
For that matter, why did Obi-wan have to be reminded by Yoda that there was “another”? He already knew about Leia, right?
If midi-chlorians are in the bloodstream, then why don’t people just do blood transfusions so everyone can have these powers? Surely the Empire would have thought of that by now.
Look, maybe I’m pickier about these kinds of things because story is most important to me (says the guy who writes novels). I’ve never been impressed by mere special effects and cool battle scenes without some connection to the characters and the plotline.
So between the unlikable characters and the contradictory plots in the prequels, you can see why I tell everyone THEY DON’T EXIST. Because otherwise, they just ruin my enjoyment of the original series.
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