I do not have a great answer for this, in my somewhat obsessive consumption of election coverage in the days leading up to and since the election I have discovered a number of very unsatisfactory answers including a) it's just how we do things b) there hasn't been enough push back from the American people to change the system c) it's worked out ok so far. There was some push back after the 2000 presidential election when George Bush won the election but did not win the popular vote, bear in mind that this was the first time in 112 years that this has occurred. Now for the second time in less than 20 years we are in a similar position except this time a man who is woefully unqualified, who used hatred and fear to fuel his campaign, who was endorsed by the KKK, who seems to believe that women are sex objects, and can't even be bothered to pay his taxes (along with many other egregious offenses that are in no way less important that the ones listed) has somehow managed to weasel his way into the oval office. Now if we take a moment to remember that when the Electoral College was created, it was deliberately set up to favor slave owning white men, suddenly the election results make sense.
So how have we allowed such a horrible piece of our past to endure to this day? This question could be posed to a great many things in America today, but right now we are focusing on the Electoral Collage; and now that we are no longer pretending that racism is something that does not exist in modern America, we can admit that this is another part of the systemic racism that innervates our country and we can get rid of it. I realize that it's not that easy, that there are those that believe that one race is better than another, people that think race is a thing (it's a bloody social construct, pretending it is anything else is ignorant), people that think race has any bearing on who people are as human beings. I am not saying that I am not guilty of my own biases and prejudices, but I am aware of these things and I actively work against my own biases because I refuse to remain ignorant.
Now I'm going to get off my soap box for a minute and step onto another one (I have soap boxes galore), if our country was a true democracy our election would have been decided by the popular vote. As of yesterday (11/12/2016) Hillary Clinton had 1.8 million votes more than Donald Trump, with more than 4 million votes still left to be counted in California alone. I suspect this gap will only increase as more votes are counted, the people have spoken. Hillary Clinton is our president.
** I stole this fantastical image of young Hillary Clinton that that was originally featured in a 1969 issue of Life Magazine from an excellent article on Hillary Clinton from NPR which you can read here.
** Here is a link to an excellent article from Bustle with a link to six whole petitions that you can sign to abolish the Electoral College, because slacktivism.
** Here is a bonus petition urging the Electoral College to vote for Hillary Clinton on December 19
** I stole this fantastical image of young Hillary Clinton that that was originally featured in a 1969 issue of Life Magazine from an excellent article on Hillary Clinton from NPR which you can read here.
** Here is a link to an excellent article from Bustle with a link to six whole petitions that you can sign to abolish the Electoral College, because slacktivism.
** Here is a bonus petition urging the Electoral College to vote for Hillary Clinton on December 19
