Before looking at Florida, let’s check to see what a correct vote would be:
Our ruling elite picked Kamala Harris more than 92 percent of the time.
How about down here in the Swamp? Thanks to the Lockdown Governors of the Northeast and California, who exported their conservative freedom-oriented residents to our peninsula, Florida is no longer a swing state. So it wasn’t surprising that Donald Trump prevailed over Kamala Harris by 56:43 (NYT):
Bigger government tends to favor city-dwellers and, therefore, it was surprising that Miami rejected the Democrat religion 55:44. Maybe it was a mistake for Kamala Harris to tell the residents “If you don’t vote for me then you ain’t Latinx”?
Who in Florida does love bigger government? The folks who work for the state government! The two counties up around Tallahassee voted Democrat 65:34 and 60:39. Orlando and Fort Lauderdale weren’t too far behind. Palm Beach County was evenly balanced with 49.9:49.2 in favor of the correct candidate.
Our fossilized senator Rick Scott, for whose retirement I pray daily (maybe somehow he can retire and Ron DeSantis can appoint himself to the job? Or DeSantis can quit his job and get Jeanette Nuñez to appoint him to fill the vacant Senate seat?), beat his Democrat opponent 56:43. Our Israel-loving Hamas-hating Congressman, Brian Mast, beat his teenage opponent, Thomas Witkop, 62:38. I’m not sure how political parties get these sacrificial lambs to agree to run in hopeless races.
The majority of Floridians (57-ish percent) wanted to turn Florida into a Massachusetts-style paradise in which abortion care and marijuana were available on every street corner. However, the state constitution amendments (3 and 4) that were on the ballot required a 60 percent vote to pass. (Abortion care in Florida would have been available through fetal “viability”, which is about 21 weeks from a medical point of view but somehow there is a legal fiction that viability occurs at 24 weeks. I don’t think that Florida would have permitted abortion care at 37 weeks if one doctor thought it would improve the pregnant person’s mental health, as is legal in Maskachusetts.) Being a redneck had 67 percent support so a “Right to Fish and Hunt” amendment passed. An amendment to change school board elections to partisan failed, garnering an insufficient majority of “yes” votes at 55 percent. (I’m pretty sure that all school board members in Palm Beach County are Democrats, but it is impossible to tell for sure due to the lack of this kind of amendment.)
I haven’t seen any race in Florida that was decided by one vote and, therefore, it is literally false for anyone to say “Your vote counts” or similar. Any given individual could have stayed home to enjoy Xbox games and the outcome would have been the same.
Unlike in our former suburb of Boston, the public school system here doesn’t seem to be offering grief counseling to students.
As I type this (Wednesday at 3:47 pm), California, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, D.C., and Alaska, at least, still hadn’t counted even 90 percent of their presidential votes, something Florida (population 23 million) managed to do within two hours after the polls closed. There are 52 “not yet called” House races, none of them in Florida.
Unlikely a wealthy expert witness, coddled by the regulation industry & lawfare will ever live in a red county.
lion: From your lips to God’s ear! I will note, however, that plenty of rich people live in Miami-Dade and that turned out to be a “red county” this year (see above). Naples and Sarasota are home to plenty of absurdly rich people and they fall into red counties as of 2024. Here’s a $48 million house in Martin County, which is definitively red, just to our north: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/310-S-Beach-Rd-Hobe-Sound-FL-33455/2080963760_zpid/
Thanks, but no thanks. Now that Trump will be president, I’m passing on this house — it’s built at sea level. In four years, it will be underwater.
George: You raise a good point. We were informed that a Trump victory meant the end of American democracy and also the end of Planet Earth as a habitable location for humans. What should we do in response to the impending consequences of the Trump victory?
@phil g: “What should we do in response to the impending consequences of the Trump victory?”
Move to Israel and get a good software consulting gig with the US Army, soon to be occupying much of the land. Will also likely be in need of Arabic speakers to conduct waterboarding interrogations of captured Hamas, Iranian, and Lebanese soldiers. (But this will be done at Guantanamo.)
“Any given individual could have stayed home to enjoy Xbox games and the outcome would have been the same.”
Philip, I fear that you have been spending too much time with lawyers, and that’s sad.
Legally, you are correct that a 1-vote margin is enough to install the victor. The first hole in that “spherical cow” is that we have seen election officials and others that desire to cheat (which is not new: many believe that the 1960 election involved a nontrivial amount of fraud): it is easy to “find” 3 votes per precinct (Bush v Gore) but not so easy to “find” 30,000 votes per precinct.
Secondly, there is the free rider problem, in that one person staying home doesn’t affect the election, but if several people get the same idea, then it will ultimately affect the election (or, if the Amish ALL show up to vote against the party that tries to destroy them for selling unpasteurized milk, then it makes a difference).
But lastly, and most importantly, in our system of checks & balances, margin of victory has meaningful value in terms of securing cooperation and exerting power. Getting bills through Congress and, in this case, avoiding going to prison in New York is more likely with 312 electoral votes, a large majority of states, and a significant margin of the popular vote than squeaking by with 270 electoral votes only, which leaves open the possibility for “faithless electors”).
FB: You raise some good points. I guess I shouldn’t feel bad for spending 15 minutes on the early voting process because my vote made at least a very small difference.
A person whose vote would not make any difference at all to the outcome (such as voting for Trump in Washington DC in your example above) can still affect popular vote.
There are several elections where a candidate wins the election but loses popular vote, and that is a huge political point later. Maybe they had more supporters but they didn’t bother to vote because their vote wouldn’t have mattered for electoral vote purposes in their state.
Looking forward to mass deportations starting Jan 20th. This will definitely increase real-estate prices which I have lot. My plan is to sell of of them and retire. GO TRUMP ….
Anon: How are we going to be able to deport anyone? What other country would agree to run an open border system for the migrants that we don’t want? If a migrant is undocumented then he/she/ze/they may not have a passport, right? Why is Venezuela obligated to take back a welfare-dependent or criminal migrant who has lost his/her/zir/their passport (or maybe never had one)? https://nypost.com/2024/02/23/world-news/venezuela-stops-taking-flights-of-migrants-deported-from-us/ (Maduro was smart enough to reject our attempt to return a few thousand of the millions of former Venezuelans who recently became Americans)
Anon: I have no idea how it is going to work. I am just going with what Trump said. May be it is just talk from Trump with no action(which is the case with most politicians’) . But again @Phil always projects Trump as not a typical politician. So who knows..
My recent message to an Irish friend who said “Exciting & interesting times ahead”: Just don’t expect too much change. The US isn’t a parliamentary system like you have. So the Democrats can block any change via a filibuster in the Senate (60 votes needed to end and the Republicans might end up with 55 senators). Then you have the fact that most day-to-day laws are, in theory, the prerogative of the states to set.
@Phil: When it comes to deportation, US President has lot of power without congress support.
Which is why we increasingly see presidents signing Executive Orders, only for them to be challenged in the Supreme Court.
And now, you see, why it is important having the “right” people on the Supreme Court.
Sadly, the one type of Executive Order that doesn’t reach the Supreme Court is the order for our military to invade another country.
Obama always said if you like Donald Trump you can keep Donald Trump.
He in fact never said that, but you get my +1 vote anyway!
Not exactly on topic, but since Mr. Greenspun coined the term:
The Trumpenführer cometh!
Obama always said if you like comparing Trump to Hitler you can keep comparing Trump to Hitler.
We have been unBidened by what has been! thank you Kamala!