Staggering Numbers
This past Presidential election is best explanation of why the Founders had unbelievable wisdom in designing the Electoral College. From listening to the discourse it seems that most people think the US is a democracy. However, cupcake, it is in fact a Republic, i.e. the “United States of America.” In a Democracy the popular vote would be the way you would elect the leadership of the country. In a Republic of states, the states elect the leadership of the county. Us older folks were taught this stuff in schools, but I am not sure that kids today get the same education that we got! The founding Fathers recognized that if straight popular vote elected the President the vote would be completely influenced by a few large cities on east coast. (nothing much has changed there!)
It also illustrates that the Democratic Party does not represent the country, just the heavily populated east and west coast mega cities which are out of touch with the vast majority of the country.
Here are the numbers:
There are 3,141 counties in the United States.
Trump won 3,084 of them.
Clinton won 57.
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There are 62 counties in New York State.
Trump won 46 of them.
Clinton won 16.
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Clinton won the popular vote by approx. 2. million + votes.
In the 5 counties that encompass NYC, (Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Richmond & Queens) Clinton received well over 2 million more votes than Trump. (Clinton only won 4 of these counties, Trump won Richmond) Therefore, these 5 counties alone more than accounted for Clinton winning the popular vote of the entire country. These 5 counties comprise 319 square miles. The United States is comprised of 3, 797,000 square miles.
When you have a country that encompasses almost 4 million square miles of territory, it would be ludicrous to even suggest that the vote of those that encompass a mere 319 square miles should dictate the outcome of a national election.
When you look at the number of counties won by each of the candidates you can see that Trump’s win was in fact a landslide victory.