IN my Nov. 7, 2024 column, which was written just as the polls were closing and the first voting results were being announced in the United States elections, I said that I was fairly confident I knew what the outcome would be. I was quite wrong about that, obviously. For the record, I felt that the result would be something similar to what happened in 2016 or 2020, with the issue being decided by our odd electoral system. Due to my grossly overestimating the collective character of the American people, I believed that would mean a narrow win for Kamala Harris. That, unfortunately, would result in another period of chaos as the neo-fascist Trump cult tried to overturn the election results.
As we know now, of course, it wasn't even close. Not only did Trump handily win the electoral vote (I called it correctly, 312 to 226, at 1:10 p.m., local time, on Wednesday, during a text conversation with my son), but he also scotched any post-election whining about how "the electoral college system is outdated and unfair" by winning the popular vote by a margin of slightly more than 5 million. The first two elections he was involved in may have been aberrations, but this was a fair win in a system that worked exactly as it was supposed to. That it resulted in an outcome that could not possibly be any more horrifying than if Satan himself had been elected president is a damning indictment of Americans, not America.
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