Trump lost the popular vote ‘bigly’
The confederates who’ve set fire to the splinters of our shattered nation conscript us now — without hint of irony — to douse the flames.
They insist Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama pacify protesters who fill urban streets with burning resentment, neglecting to require the same from their grand master, who lit the torch.
The left smolders while arsonists of the right demand “unity” behind a malevolent neo-autocrat, installed via minority popular vote after an 18-month orgy of vulgarity, racism and hatred.
I was wrong about us. I thought we’d finally end the right’s decadeslong war against social and economic progress. The right’s sustained assault on all but the rich is largely responsible for our current national dyspepsia.
The right will never own up to its treacheries — leaving a nation so desperate for relief that half its citizens who bothered to vote turned to a wolf who brazenly promised to eat them like sheep if only they’d willingly line up for the slaughter. And they did.
Meanwhile, more Americans voted against Donald Trump than for him — 2 million more — giving Clinton two-thirds of California’s votes and a conspicuous margin in San Luis Obispo County.
Yet we’re commanded by numerically inferior “winners” to toe the line. Patriots, insist the victors, obey their masters — so stop protesting.
“Is that a request or a threat?” the left asks.
“You tell me,” the right sneers.
Do “patriots” bow unquestioningly to illegitimate, unchecked, misanthropic power? Or do their principles require resistance, a civic obligation to collectively say “make me.”
Before the left accedes to anyone’s admonition to “unify,” the right must first be held to account.
Will those demanding fealty to Trump acknowledge he lost the popular vote “bigly”?
What of Russia’s complicity in this election, the disturbingly targeted email hacking of Clinton and Democrats, the FBI’s alarmingly blind eye to potential political espionage? Will the FBI’s electoral malfeasance be officially scrutinized and publicized?
How can we expect honesty and fairness from our opaque federal criminal justice apparatus, soon controlled by a revenge-minded cabal of white nationalists, xenophobes and aggressive police-state militarists?
How can Republicans possibly justify their larceny of a Supreme Court seat from a twice-elected Democratic president?
Will Trump apologize for stoking racism and doubt about the Americanism of our first black president?
Will Fox News, Breitbart and right-wing radio continue their ideological assault on facts? Might they acknowledge the implications of the popular vote?
When will Republicans own their conspiracy to destroy Obama from Day 1, routinely threatening extortions over every argument, paralyzing national government? Why do Republicans put partisanship above country?
Why did Republicans refuse “unity” during Obama’s entire eight-year term — and now demand it of us?
Until these and other scores are settled with the right’s obstructionist gangsterism, don’t expect “unity” anytime soon.
The only “mandate” Trump received is his negative one in California. Preferring Clinton 2-to-1, a united chorus of California voters scolded Trump to get lost. Even in red San Luis Obispo County, bobbing in a sea of blue, Clinton’s 50 percent beat Trump’s 42 percent.
Trump’s drumbeat of hate and division was tried locally — and, to the voters’ credit, it didn’t play.
Despite unrelenting, vicious personal attacks against county Supervisor Adam Hill, he was re-elected for a third term resoundingly, with 57 percent over Dan Carpenter’s 43 percent.
Will Hill’s drubbing of Carpenter be reason now for local “unity”?
Not likely, given the rhetorical track records of online CalCoastNews and its hangers-on, radio abettor Dave Congalton, developer-mouthpiece COLAB and various online trolls.
Division and animus are their stock in trade: un-sourced accusations, breathless innuendo, fever-dream conspiracies and angry, spittle-spraying gasbaggery against Hill and others.
Like Trump’s “alt-right” legion of loosely knit hooligans who traffic in online harassment and hate memes, CCN’s and Congalton’s followers lap up their bile — wittingly or not.
This sludge was slopped onto an anonymous Facebook page called “Fire Adam Hill.” Then, in the waning days of campaigning, desperate robocalls accusing Hill of assorted effronteries (thoroughly debunked by The Tribune) were funded by a CCN “contributor” conducting a bizarre vendetta against Hill, his family and friends.
For a candidate who claimed “character matters,” Carpenter waged an ugly campaign assisted by dark allies. He still hasn’t called Hill to concede or congratulate.
“Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion,” Aristotle mused.
Clearly, character mattered to the overwhelming majority of voters who returned Hill to office.
If the right wants the left’s help extinguishing Trump’s arsons — for “unity” — character, indeed, matters.
Liberal columnist Tom Fulks is a former reporter and opinion writer. He has been a political campaign consultant for many local races. His column runs in The Tribune every other Sunday, in rotation with conservative columnist Matthew Hoy.
This story was originally published November 19, 2016 at 8:02 PM with the headline "Trump lost the popular vote ‘bigly’."