Analysis by Kyle A. Lohmeier
It’s now been nearly a week (I know, it seems longer) since Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. In the last six-and-some-change days, a substantial portion of the electorate has completely lost their minds. First came the hysterical crying and the doom-is-neigh predictions that the world was going to essentially end for women, minorities, gays and people with more “trigger warnings” than years lived.
As cliché as what follows is about to sound, the Left is actually following closely the famous “Five Stages of Grief,” as first described by Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. The first step is, of course, denial. Those watching MSNBC on Election Night got to witness Rachel Maddow go through all of step one during the broadcast and end the show firmly ensconced in step two: anger. The rest of the Left followed. By Wednesday morning pundits and bloggers and other assorted crybabies on the Left had already filled the Interwebs with lengthy screeds against whom was to blame for Hillary’s loss – blame-fixing is often a part of step two – third party candidates and their voters, the media, Russia, WikiLeaks, the FBI, etc.
While much of the Left is still mired in step two, and will be at least in part for the foreseeable future, some have reached stage three, bargaining. As Yahoo News’ Michael Walsh wrote in a piece today, millions of people have signed a change-dot-org petition urging the Electoral College to ignore the will of the voters and just go ahead and elect Hillary Clinton as President Elect of the United States anyway. Many of the signatories are likely those who believe the media hype in the first place and are actually fearful of being attacked by a “Trump supporter,” which makes the idea of having some sort obscure government machination steal away Trump’s election all the more ironic. To riff on Sterling Archer’s character in his eponymous TV show: “Do you want the full-blown armed revolution against the government you’ve always been afraid would happen because people own ‘assault weapons?’ Because that’s how you get the full-blown armed revolution against the government you’ve always been afraid would happen because people own ‘assault weapons.’”
Yet, many, many people actually clicked over to change-dot-org and signed the petition, as if that accomplishes anything. I’ve filled out two such petitions myself – if you walk into a bar and order a “Lemmy,” you’ll now get a Jack Daniels and Coke. Some new, unstable heavy metal element, element 117 however, will not be named Lemmium; win some, lose some. So, if change-dot-org isn’t sufficiently powerful to sway a team of international physicists to name their new metal after Motörhead’s late, great frontman, said platform probably isn’t going to sway the Electoral College of the United States, either – and that’s a good thing.
While the rest of the country waits for the Left to hurry up and get on to stage four, depression, and then stage five, acceptance, now seems like a good time to reiterate a few things about government in general.
Among the many ironies of this election is that many on the Left are now terrified of the prospect of Donald Trump wielding the vast power of the office of president. These are the exact same people who cheered on every single one of Obama’s usurpations of power, who applauded as Obama made himself the most powerful executive in the nation’s history and along the way, vastly bloated the power of the executive and of the federal government generally. And now, as if the possibility of such a thing happening only ever occurred to them a week ago tonight, they’re terrified that such awesome power has fallen into the hands of someone they disagree with. To them, the Left was “entitled” to hold the presidency for all time; that such isn’t the case is coming as a real shock to the snowflakes, hence the adorable Change-dot-org petition.
The takeaway for the Left out of this election really ought to be that the federal government of the United States is entirely too powerful; it has far more power than it should and the office of President gives one human far too much authority. Both need to be dramatically pared back in their size, scope, cost and influence on the nation and its laws.
Of course, government rarely, if ever, votes to limit its own power. Already, House Speaker Paul Ryan has cautioned Trump that his call for congressional term limits is a “non-starter.” If they can’t agree that they need to go and find a real job after so many terms, I don’t see much hope in legislators not called Rand Paul voting to limit government’s power. It is, at least, a more realistic hope than that of a change-dot-org petition influencing the outcome of the 2016 General Election one whit is, anyway, if only slightly.
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