My niece writes:

Do you think the electoral college should be somehow reformed or changed? It just seems crazy to me that we have a president for the second time in 16 years who did not win the popular vote (or so it seems for this election).

I am really sad, Tio. I am sad that such a hateful campaign was rewarded with this victory. I am scared for my children. I am scared that this is the world they are growing up in and that the leader of their country is someone whom I cannot respect as a human being.

Call me dramatic but I am truly heartbroken and devastated. I feel like we’ve failed. 

***

Dear Meg,

I wholly understand your feelings. And I know the women in my life feel this loss much more keenly than I ever could. This is hard.

But don’t think of this as a triumph for hatefulness, misogyny, racism, bigotry, nativism or anything else of that nature you associate with the next president. More people voted against this guy than for him, and Hillary will win the popular vote. So yes, absolutely the Electoral College needs to be scrapped, if for no other reason than it has just delivered what the founders who instituted it were trying to guard against; but also because it is delivering manifestly undemocratic results, which threatens trust and faith in our political processes.

Moreover, don’t think for a second that 60,000,000 people voted for all of these negative beliefs, sentiments  and forms of discrimination. The vast majority of Trump supporters are not hateful, racist, misogynist, sexist, bigoted, nativist, vulgar, or in favor of greater authoritarianism. They’re regular Americans, doing their best to get by, who overlooked these detestable qualities in him for very good reasons (just as many Hillary supporters, like me for instance, overlooked many of her negative aspects) in deciding to cast their votes as they did.

This result, if anything, was a triumph of the disempowered and dispossessed over a neglectful and inattentive center of power and the economy it rigged against them. It’s incumbent on us to examine ourselves (not them) and our party (not the Republicans) and our government and how we have structured our economy to fully understand what drove so many to make the choice they did yesterday. And we need to work to reform all of those things in a way that relieves the stresses, harm and slights that created this particular constituency.

That requires that we ourselves act and live in a manner that embodies the qualities that Hillary envisioned for the type of country we want and work for in her concession speech today: hopeful, inclusive and big-hearted; and to understand that the collective voice speaking yesterday was one of long-felt pain and justifiable anger, simmering for years.

I’ve been recommending a book lately that perfectly dissects the current ills of the Democratic Party, tracing their origins back to the 1970s. It’s absolutely essential reading for understanding the mess we’re currently in: Thomas Frank’s Listen, Liberal. Give it a look if you feel like it. Pretty quick and good read.

In the meantime, get involved in reforming our political system (see: nationalpopularvote.com, e.g.) or work to make the party a more progressive one that more fully embraces the economic interests of the poor and working poor (and, needless to say, those of all of the other groups the Democratic coalition currently embraces).

And just love your kids all you can–but frankly, they’re going to be fine because they’ve got two great, compassionate and intelligent parents who will have infinitely more impact on their world than some short-fingered vulgarian from Queens.

Love you, sobrina.  Chin up!

x,

Tio