Look at the final 2016 election map. Consider the fact that you could drive from Key West, Florida, to Bonners Ferry, Idaho, a distance of 3193 miles, and never pass through a state carried by Hillary Clinton.

Nevertheless, we now are treated to pronouncements by leftist politicians, academics, and show-business personalities ‒ up to His Eminence Martin Sheen ‒ urging the presidential electors to disregard their pledges and refuse to vote for Donald Trump, even though the voters of their states chose him to be their next president.

Electors who fail to vote for the candidate they were pledged to are referred to as “faithless.” That word has two meanings: (1) Lacking in faith, especially religious faith; a nonbeliever; and (2) Disloyal, dishonest, untrustworthy. Why would these leftist pundits want the electors to qualify for either of these unsavory descriptions?

Why? Because they cannot believe that their side lost the election. Because they believe that their side deserved to win the election. Because they, like all leftists, believe that they are on the side of “history.”

But what do they mean by “history”? To me, history is the study of past events. But to leftists, “history” is their substitute for God, in Whom they believe feebly or not at all. To them, “history” is some sort of universal force that eventually will usher in the socialist paradise ‒ which the Soviet Union promised for all of its 74 years, but never quite achieved.

Narcissistically, leftists believe themselves to be more intelligent than all those who tried and failed to build a socialist paradise ‒ smarter than the Russians, the Poles, the Yugoslavs, the Czechoslovaks, the Hungarians, the Bulgarians, the Romanians, not to mention the Cubans, the Venezuelans, the Chinese, the Cambodians, the North Vietnamese, the North Koreans, and all the rest. All these varied peoples, over most of a century, tried and failed to build the socialist paradise their grandiose theories predicted ‒ but current leftists can build it? Really?

That, I believe, explains the colossal hubris, the unbounded egotism, that enables current leftists to try to thwart the will of Americans and undo the election. This is most unlikely to happen. But what if it did? What if the arrogant, braying asses succeeded? What then?

If enough Trump electors changed their votes so that no one got a majority of the electoral votes, the election would be thrown into the House of Representatives ‒ the current one, not the new one. They would have to choose between the top three candidates. With a Republican majority, Trump would surely win ‒ again. The result would be unchanged, but the leftist dissidents would have succeeded in weakening the Democratic Party, perhaps fatally.

But what there were enough faithless electors to throw the election to Hillary? What do the geniuses from Martin Sheen down (or up, depending on your point of view) expect would result? Do they imagine that Hillary Clinton would take the oath of office at noon on January 20, 2017, and all would be well? Are they that far removed from reality? Is their leftist cocoon so thick that no logical thought can penetrate?

Perhaps they listened too attentively to Hillary’s speech about the “deplorables”:

You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic – you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people – now 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks, they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America. [Emphasis added.]
– Hillary Clinton, 2016

Perhaps they believed what Hillary said about the “deplorables.” The term connotes people who are disgraceful, but also pathetic and wretched ‒ that is, not worth taking into account, much less people to be feared. Perhaps the leftists should have listened instead to their idol, Barack Obama, who described his political opponents a bit differently:

And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations. [Emphasis added.]
‒ Barack Obama, 2008

Perhaps the leftists should have understood that when you are dealing with the “bitter clingers,” with their guns and religion, you should be careful not to go too far. Insulting them to their faces played a major role in losing Hillary the election. But stealing the election from under their noses? Can leftists be so far removed from reality, so insulated in their leftist cocoons, that they do not realize the dire consequences of reversing the outcome of a hard-fought election? Can they not foresee the violence that would almost surely follow? Can they not envision the damage, perhaps irreparable, to our republic?

Or is it that they just don’t care? Like naughty children, they throw a massive tantrum when they don’t get what they want ‒ and are utterly unconcerned with the consequences. But this isn’t a law-school seminar, where the worst injury is hurt feelings. This isn’t a focus group, where the greatest risk is harsh criticism. This isn’t a position paper, where the worst result is a do-over. This isn’t a movie, where the foremost danger is a bad review.

This is reality.

My advice is to be careful of the “bitter clingers.” Watch closely what they are clinging to. You can only push them so far.

Mandan Sporting Goods
Mandan, North Dakota

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