Still reeling or excited from the election results? Or are you like me and just can't decide what you ought to be after the election. Here are 10 common myths I've found floating around the internet that need debunking.
1. Trump was elected by the people
This is a pretty common one floating around. Conservatives claim that Trump won the popular vote. He actually lost the popular vote by about 200,000 votes to Clinton.
A lot of people don't understand this, but basically this happens through a process called gerrymandering. Local elected officials change district boundaries to be more beneficial to smaller populations. You might consider this unfair, but the idea is born out of the basis of our constitution. A lot of our founding fathers like Jefferson wanted voting to be restricted to landholders, this is of course a relic of old Rome, where only landholders were considered citizens (at least prior to the 3rd century). But this was always a struggle in our new Democratic republic. Should the learned and affluent have more say in politics?
With the advent of the internet and the quick spread of information, maybe this should be repealed, but there is also the argument that there is also widespread disinformation, so maybe the populace are still like Le Bon reasoned - moody and fickle.
What do you think? Is it time for a true democracy?
2. Clinton may have won the popular vote, but this was really just ballot stuffing.
Honestly, I don't know how anyone can really believe this. If Clinton really wanted to ballot stuff. Why wouldn't her supporters have done it in districts that mattered?
3. Trump cannot get rid of Obamacare
This is more of a hope than a myth I think for many people. While Obamacare brought necessary care to millions of poor Americans, the somewhat dubious hike in premium payments that was released before the election was sure to get rid of Obamacare in the first place, but I think it was also used, quite effectively, as a tool to get Republicans out to vote.
4. Trump is going to build a wall
Please! He says all this fine rhetoric about building a wall, and then goes to Mexico, comes back, and completely changes his plan, but then when Republicans attack him for it, he goes right back to the wall. I'm calling this as pure outsider rhetoric, playing to long-held notions of other, and the fear of immigrants taking jobs and tax money. But truth is, there's no money to build the wall, and Mexico is most certainly not going to build it.
5. Trump won't freeze federal hiring
For me, thousands of dollars in debt for a master's degree and on the waiting list for the foreign service, this is just plain bad news. And this is also one of the powers of the president. This is one of the many things Trump has promised to do his first 100 days in office, and this is one of the things that he very well can.
6. Trump will label China as a currency manipulator
Another point on his list of things he is planning to do. It is very unlikely that Trump will carry this out. China has to inflate its currency in its practice of currency easing for its domestic populace. If there were unable to do this, many economists predict, a downfall of the Chinese government, which aside from a civil war and a second great depression, would be one of the greatest calamities of history.
7. PPP's are a good idea
A PPP is a Public-Private Partnership, and Trump has promised to continue expanding the PPP program. For those who don't know what that means, it is basically the government paying private companies to do and provide services a government probably should. The idea is that the private companies are better at handling the money than the government.
PPP's, however, have been almost unequivocally labeled as a bad idea by economists. They just don't work because there is no transparency in any process, and where private contractors could compete for bids normally, in this case they are just being given money to fund the things that they should be funding themselves to then make money. The end result is that private companies are not held accountable, they have access to lots of government money, and then turn around and make money. Sounds like a pretty good deal for private contractors, right?
8. Trump's trade policies are all bad
Trump plans to withdraw from TPP, and NAFTA, and I would guess he'd want to pull the plug on TTIP as well. While this will have some bad global consequences and especially bad consequences for large companies, it will help small local producers around the world. I was just attending a meeting of economists that were all advocating government intervention to reign in international trade policies. Trump might actually be able to tell big business that they are not too big for government regulation. Of course, Trump being part of big business in the first place does make this seem a bit dubious, but who knows, we can always hope.
9. The dividing line in politics is Republican or Democrat
The recent election showed the normal lines between Republican and Democrat, but also a huge dividing line between the young and the old. This is pretty common in politics, but the increase in this years voting for non-Republican by younger voters was quite drastic. Only 3 states had a young population that voted for Trump.
10. Trump is all talk
This is perhaps the most divisive issue at the moment. Trump has said a lot of really nasty things, and made quite a few threats to a lot of very fragile minorities in America. Trump supporters continue to claim that this is all just talk and rhetoric, which I think is in part justified, but Trump's ugly climb to election day woke up a lot of ugly rhetoric in politics and in the populace of those, who have felt excluded in the political process, or that their viewpoints have been excluded. Trump may well be able create a more inclusive environment, but he has to adhere to his constituents, many of which are those angry people he was appealing to with his ugly rhetoric.
Thank you for your support. If you would like me to write about something please contact me, and if you would like to sponsor my trip somewhere to showcase your business or to work with me please send me an email as well. You can also find my works for Kindle on Amazon.
1. Trump was elected by the people
This is a pretty common one floating around. Conservatives claim that Trump won the popular vote. He actually lost the popular vote by about 200,000 votes to Clinton.
A lot of people don't understand this, but basically this happens through a process called gerrymandering. Local elected officials change district boundaries to be more beneficial to smaller populations. You might consider this unfair, but the idea is born out of the basis of our constitution. A lot of our founding fathers like Jefferson wanted voting to be restricted to landholders, this is of course a relic of old Rome, where only landholders were considered citizens (at least prior to the 3rd century). But this was always a struggle in our new Democratic republic. Should the learned and affluent have more say in politics?
With the advent of the internet and the quick spread of information, maybe this should be repealed, but there is also the argument that there is also widespread disinformation, so maybe the populace are still like Le Bon reasoned - moody and fickle.
What do you think? Is it time for a true democracy?
2. Clinton may have won the popular vote, but this was really just ballot stuffing.
Honestly, I don't know how anyone can really believe this. If Clinton really wanted to ballot stuff. Why wouldn't her supporters have done it in districts that mattered?
3. Trump cannot get rid of Obamacare
This is more of a hope than a myth I think for many people. While Obamacare brought necessary care to millions of poor Americans, the somewhat dubious hike in premium payments that was released before the election was sure to get rid of Obamacare in the first place, but I think it was also used, quite effectively, as a tool to get Republicans out to vote.
4. Trump is going to build a wall
Please! He says all this fine rhetoric about building a wall, and then goes to Mexico, comes back, and completely changes his plan, but then when Republicans attack him for it, he goes right back to the wall. I'm calling this as pure outsider rhetoric, playing to long-held notions of other, and the fear of immigrants taking jobs and tax money. But truth is, there's no money to build the wall, and Mexico is most certainly not going to build it.
5. Trump won't freeze federal hiring
For me, thousands of dollars in debt for a master's degree and on the waiting list for the foreign service, this is just plain bad news. And this is also one of the powers of the president. This is one of the many things Trump has promised to do his first 100 days in office, and this is one of the things that he very well can.
6. Trump will label China as a currency manipulator
Another point on his list of things he is planning to do. It is very unlikely that Trump will carry this out. China has to inflate its currency in its practice of currency easing for its domestic populace. If there were unable to do this, many economists predict, a downfall of the Chinese government, which aside from a civil war and a second great depression, would be one of the greatest calamities of history.
7. PPP's are a good idea
A PPP is a Public-Private Partnership, and Trump has promised to continue expanding the PPP program. For those who don't know what that means, it is basically the government paying private companies to do and provide services a government probably should. The idea is that the private companies are better at handling the money than the government.
PPP's, however, have been almost unequivocally labeled as a bad idea by economists. They just don't work because there is no transparency in any process, and where private contractors could compete for bids normally, in this case they are just being given money to fund the things that they should be funding themselves to then make money. The end result is that private companies are not held accountable, they have access to lots of government money, and then turn around and make money. Sounds like a pretty good deal for private contractors, right?
8. Trump's trade policies are all bad
Trump plans to withdraw from TPP, and NAFTA, and I would guess he'd want to pull the plug on TTIP as well. While this will have some bad global consequences and especially bad consequences for large companies, it will help small local producers around the world. I was just attending a meeting of economists that were all advocating government intervention to reign in international trade policies. Trump might actually be able to tell big business that they are not too big for government regulation. Of course, Trump being part of big business in the first place does make this seem a bit dubious, but who knows, we can always hope.
9. The dividing line in politics is Republican or Democrat
The recent election showed the normal lines between Republican and Democrat, but also a huge dividing line between the young and the old. This is pretty common in politics, but the increase in this years voting for non-Republican by younger voters was quite drastic. Only 3 states had a young population that voted for Trump.
10. Trump is all talk
This is perhaps the most divisive issue at the moment. Trump has said a lot of really nasty things, and made quite a few threats to a lot of very fragile minorities in America. Trump supporters continue to claim that this is all just talk and rhetoric, which I think is in part justified, but Trump's ugly climb to election day woke up a lot of ugly rhetoric in politics and in the populace of those, who have felt excluded in the political process, or that their viewpoints have been excluded. Trump may well be able create a more inclusive environment, but he has to adhere to his constituents, many of which are those angry people he was appealing to with his ugly rhetoric.
Thank you for your support. If you would like me to write about something please contact me, and if you would like to sponsor my trip somewhere to showcase your business or to work with me please send me an email as well. You can also find my works for Kindle on Amazon.
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