A marathon election cycle as bruising and battering as the 2016 presidential campaign was never going to quietly subside as soon as the votes were in.
Donald Trump’s upset of Hillary Clinton delivered a severe jolt to the political world and the so-called “establishment,” and many people, particularly Clinton supporters who had been led to believe by polling and talk in the media their candidate had it in the bag, have been searching for ways to process it.
While the initial shockwave has lessened, the election battle is still waging on — through conspiracy-fueled recounts and a series of bizarre tweets from our president-elect.
The Green party has become a sore subject for Democrats still bitter over 2000, when Ralph Nader’s performance in Florida was enough to hand the election to George W. Bush over Al Gore.
The 2016 Green candidate, Jill Stein, likely siphoned off enough votes in Wisconsin and Michigan — two traditionally reliable Democratic footholds — to tilt those states to Trump.
His victory in those states plus Pennsylvania, another chunk of the former “blue wall,” made the difference.
But Stein is not going away, raising the funds to pay for a recount of the vote in Wisconsin and vowing to also challenge the results in Michigan and Pennsylvania.
This sudden urge is driven by the notion that the results may have been compromised through outside interference — the Russians again — with electronic voting systems. She cites data from computer scientists showing Clinton performing much more poorly in counties with electronic balloting, which has been rationalized by other data experts who contend that’s driven by the demographics of those counties.
Still, the Clinton campaign has joined in on the recount effort. Yes, this is the campaign of the same candidate who said in October that Trump’s assertion that the election was rigged was a threat to democracy.
As I wrote in this space at the time, there are examples in the past of voter irregularities and results, even outcomes, being altered through recounts. But is every result half the people aren’t satisfied with going to be challenged and called into question from now on? Is there anyone left in this country capable of accepting and learning from failures and defeat?
Trump’s margins of victory in the three aforementioned states range from roughly 10,000 votes in Michigan to upwards of 70,000 in Pennsylvania.
A recount would need to produce a change in outcome in all three of those states —representing a collective 46 electoral votes — to sway the election.
It’s not going to happen. Outside of definitive proof of a grandiose hacking operation, this is an incredible waste of time and resources, and any change in winner in the states would likely result in legal battles that would go right on up to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Eventually, Democrats are going to have to confront the reality that they lost the election because in many ways, they’ve lost the American middle and working classes — at least a significant portion of them.
Trump’s exploitative rhetoric may have aided that, but he didn’t get there alone.
Trump will take office on Jan. 20, and the Democrats sorely need a change in leadership and direction and have a long road of soul searching ahead of them.
Their current reaction is not going to help matters in the long run.
In an alternate universe, one might expect Trump to take the high ground here with a sincere pledge to move forward with the country’s business and help unite a divided populace.
Not surprisingly, he has not held up his end. Instead he has taken to Twitter, firing off another string of erratic statements, including the claim that he only lost the popular vote because 1-2 million people illegally voted — without any actual evidence to back it up.
Though Trump was at many times careless on Twitter throughout the campaign, he used social media to his direct advantage.
His ability to boil down complex issues into short slogans, sound bytes and 150-character tweets may have aided him, but it doesn’t represent a great leader.
He is who we elected, and it’s time for him to step up, put pettiness aside and put the interests of the country first. But I can’t find any reason to believe he’s capable of that.
Such is the nature of our times.
More battles like this are ahead.
The people, as always, come second.
Scott Thompson is editor of the Barrow News-Journal. He can be reached at sthompson@barrowjournal.com.