Donald Trump And The 2016 Election: Protests, The Electoral College, And A Deeply Divided Nation

Donald Trump won the 2016 election for President of the United States four days ago, and what a four days it’s been. Protests across the country include people chanting things like “Not our president” and “We reject the president-elect.” Social media is full of people calling for an end to the Electoral College so that we can elect the leader of our land based on popular vote instead.

It’s been a week of high emotion. Let’s step back and try to look at the protests and calls for an end to the Electoral College without the emotion, based on just facts.

Let’s start with the protests. The participants in the protests have largely been students – millennials. They chant their rejection of Donald Trump as the president elect from the 2016 election. They chant that he is not their president. Of course, he will be their president, whether they approve of him or not. But their message goes beyond that. When they repeat the phrase, “Not my president,” they are saying that he doesn’t represent them. They object to Donald Trump’s behavior and statements throughout the campaign that were widely viewed as sexist, racist, and xenophobic. He did attack and/or mock women, Mexicans, the disabled, and more, so it’s hard to argue with this. And they do have a constitutional right to peaceful protest. The protests that have not been peaceful cross the line and hurt the cause more than help it.

There also is a bit of hypocrisy in some of the statements being made about the protests. When Trump’s campaign for the 2016 election was still going on, he said that he may not concede if he lost. He said he would, in effect, reject the president elect. He had supporters who supported this because they believed the voting process was rigged and so that, if he lost, the result would not be valid. You can’t have it both ways. Those who said they wouldn’t accept Hillary as the victor, but are attacking those who won’t accept Trump as the victor are trying to have it both ways. That doesn’t work.

Because Donald Trump won the 2016 election in spite of losing the popular vote, there have been many calls for an end to the Electoral College. There are those who say Clinton should win. This is also one of the things that some of the protesters support. There are even petitions to ask some of the Electoral College members to vote for Hillary on December 19 so she will win. While on the surface this makes sense, when you consider the reason for the Electoral College, it’s a very bad idea.

If you get rid of the Electoral College, if you go purely by popular vote, then Trump and Clinton, and any other presidential candidate present or future, would campaign only in the states with the largest populations. The latest available data indicates that the four states with the highest population are New York, Texas, Florida, and California. The lowest four are Wyoming, Vermont, D.C., and North Dakota. If the winner were chosen strictly on popular vote, candidates would spend most of their time in the top four and very little, if any time, in places like Wyoming. That gives specific states an awful lot of power and others very little power. In a sense, the Electoral College equalizes things.

Bottom line – Donald Trump won the 2016 election for President of the United States. Love it or hate it, it’s a fact. There isn’t a thing wrong with expressing your opinion, but you can’t say that a refusal to accept Trump as the winner is wrong when you previously supported refusing to accept Hillary as the winner if that had been the outcome. And self-control must be practiced if you do choose to protest. Violence will hurt your cause, not help it.

At some point, we have to get down to the work of doing what’s best for our country under President Trump. There is an awful lot of name calling going on from both sides. There is a lot of anger and frustration. Because of the high emotion, many are not showing any desire to discuss differences. They are convinced they’re right and they refuse to listen to anything that goes against what they feel and believe. Conviction is fine, it’s good. A closed mind is not good. The 2016 election has shown us just how deeply this country is divided. Healing the division will take conversation and a willingness to truly try to understand the other side. Understanding does not equal accepting. They are two different things. We must seek to understand, not necessarily to agree.

[Featured Image by Mark Wilson/Getty Images]