Abdul El-Sayed ran on a left-wing platform, but lost his bid for the democratic nomination for Governor of Michigan by more the 20 points. There are some who will argue that El-Sayed’s loss signifies a lack of popularity for left-wing politics, but El-Sayed lost for contingent reasons.
There are lots of folks who think that the answer to America’s woes are more political parties, and the way to get more political parties is to adopt electoral reforms which move America in the direction of continental European-style proportional representation. I used to like electoral reform once upon a time, but I have increasingly become convinced that this is not only never going to happen but it is actually a bad idea. Here’s why.
This is an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg. He’ll probably never read it, but I think my readers might get something out of it all the same.
Remember “Bernie or Bust”? Some Bernie Sanders supporters were very cross when Sanders did not win the Democratic Party nomination. They believed he should have won, both because he deserved to win and because some of them believed the DNC stole it from him. They were unwilling to support Clinton in the general election, and Clinton supporters let them have it. How could these Bernie supporters stand idly by and allow Donald Trump to become president? Don’t they care about poor and working people, about the middle class, about people of color, about women, about LGBTs? How could they betray the groups they’re meant to care about like that? Sarah Silverman told them they were “being ridiculous”:
But the tables have turned. Today we see a new breed of Democrat–the “Hillary or Bust” voter.
There are some people who feel that because Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, Donald Trump’s victory in the electoral college is illegitimate. This is a very poor argument–there are many much more interesting grounds for challenging Trump’s legitimacy than the electoral college.
Benjamin Studebaker 