Happiness is hope

Well, the election is over, finally! This old guy is happy with the results. Hard to believe that 638 voted for Hillary but they were mightily overruled by the 4212 votes for Trump in Red Willow County. Now we will have to wait and see if our beloved country improves as President-Elect Trump promised during the contentious campaign.

Reading fellow columnist Mike Hendricks' last column he was definitely not happy with the election results. Hard to feel sorry for the hard-core Democrat and his 637 fellow traveler voters. I still chafe at "Mike at Night" labeling me a racist, in print, when I objected to how President Obama (Democrat) was conducting business. Sorry, it is a tough world out there friend Mike.

Now it is time for a bit of a civics lesson. Much is being made of the election results where Trump received enough votes in the Electoral College to win and yet his opponent Hillary came out on top in the popular vote. Electoral College voters are apportioned to the states one for each senator and one for each elected member of the house. For Nebraska we get five. Most states are winner take all, if one of the candidates for president wins the popular vote he/she gets all the states votes. Nebraska chose to divide its Electoral College votes based on the portion of the popular vote that each candidate garnered but this year all five went to Trump anyhow.

When the founding fathers set up our democratic republic it was decided to form two houses in congress with the Senate made up of only two senators from each state; large or small each state could only send two senators. Representatives to the House are apportioned based on population, one man (or woman) one vote. So it is that each member of the House of Representatives represents roughly equal the same number of citizens across the nation.

Now look back to the voters elected to the Electoral College we find that each voter for Nebraska represents 360,000 citizens. California with a population of some 38,800,000 citizens is allocated 55 Electoral College voters each representing 705,455 citizens. It is the number of senators, two each state, that causes the difference. No matter the total national popular vote it is the Electoral College voter that elects the President and his Vice President. The small states in fact hold more sway and I like it that way.

Not fair you say. Well there is a reason our Federal Government was set up that way a thing called tyranny of the majority. Oppressive power exerted by government--when one segment of the population gains a majority that majority can subject the minority to whatever its will may be. Tyranny. An example: In Rwanda, starting 1994, members of the Hutu majority government committed a genocidal mass slaughter of the Tutsi people. The Hutu killed about a million Tutsi and over two million fled for their lives to neighboring countries. All because the Hutu had a majority in their true democracy and well they just didn't like the Tutsi. Understand you nor I could not tell the difference were they standing side by side. Ethnic cleansing in action. Think then of Gorge Soros mobs in action on our streets and one is scheduled for Lincoln on the 20th of this month.

In this columnist's view of history from the time of FDR right up through the reign of President Obama the democrat party has played a role of ever increasing the power of the federal government. Candidate Hillary Clinton promised to remain in lockstep with that goal of ever increasing power. The Republican Party over the years paid lip service to limiting the power of the federal government but took little action to do anything about it. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. President Elect Trump campaigned on reversing the trend toward ever increasing the power of our federal government. That is why our prescient founding fathers created a democratic republic rather than a true democracy and may it forever remain so. Time will tell and I remain ever optimistic that it will happen.

That is the way I saw it.

Dick Trail