The 2016 presidential election was distinctively different from all previous ones. It continues to reverberate throughout the land. It was the subject of two posts here. First on the historical role of New York State governors in presidential elections from Martin Van Buren who became president to the Cuomos who have not so far. The previous New Yorker presidential election in 1944 featured two people, Roosevelt and Dewey, with state governor backgrounds. The most recent election offered two people with no political executive experience. The second post focused on the 22nd amendment. Without it the husband incumbent would have kept running for additional terms beyond the two-term limit and the wife never would have been considered as a candidate…except in the way dictators for life might seek to circumvent the rules by relinquishing their position in favor of their wife.

Since the election, the new and unique haven’t ceased. This transition period is the first time when a president-elect began conducting himself as if he already was the president. While he had no legal power, the electoral-college winner acted as if he was the president. His tweets and pronouncements may have been devoid of statutory power at the time, but they previewed what was going to happen once he took the oath of office. It was as if we had two presidents simultaneously, not a president and a co-president of vote for one you get two, but more like Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis having overlapping jurisdictions.

A second change during the transition period was the identification of an opposition candidate for the next election in 2020. Andy Cuomo, the New York State Governor, has all but officially announced his intention to run in 2020 even before his own re-re-election campaign for 2018. He will not be a Hamlet-of-the-Hudson” as his father was: “To be a candidate or not to be a candidate that is question.” There is no doubt in his mind. He is positioning himself upfront as the leader around whom Democrats should rally. As a governor he has ability to actually do things that talk-talk Senators can only talk about. On the other hand, Senators more easily have a national platform than governors…but not necessarily as much as media celebrities! Will George Clooney run in real life as he did in reel life? In any event, the race has started. The battle is engaged.

A third change manifested itself the day after the inauguration. It was the day when the Nasty Women said they were as mad as hell and were not going to take it anymore. The Nasty Women with their pussy hats sought to negate the insult of Donald Trump by embracing it as their own label. This action reminds me of when a group of Protestants in England back in the 1720s developed a new way of worship and reading the Bible. They were mocked by fellow classmates at Oxford for their unusual “methods.” The targets of this derogatory slur then adopted the term for their own name and became Methodists. The Nasty Woman may join the Tea Party as new names in the political arena that render the staid party names obsolete or less meaningful. The battle is engaged.

A fourth development may be a repeat of something we have not experienced since 1956. That presidential election was a replay of the 1952 election with the same Republican and Democratic candidates. In both instances, Dwight D. Eisenhower handily defeated Adlai E. Stevenson in both the popular vote and the Electoral College. While it seems likely the Republican candidate will run again in 2020, will the Democratic candidate run again again? The answer is conditional. It depends on whether or not she is alive. It’s not rocket science. As to what she will do in the interim, that is another question. Will the Democratic Party hand her the nomination as it worked to do this time? Probably not. Since she is not a fighter except to claim that to which she is entitled, how will she handle her first political contest when she is not the heir apparent and/or presumptive favorite? Is she still entitled? Is it still her turn? This battle is not yet engaged while she remains on hiatus.

The election itself produced a number of surprising results with implications for 2020. According to our new president, Mitt Romney ran the worst presidential campaign ever. As a longtime student of American history who is well-versed in the previous elections, our new president is the most qualified person in the country to render such a judgement. After all Romney only received 47.2% of the popular vote while Donald Trump received 46.1%. Clearly 47.2% is worse in alternative math and a horrendous total befitting a loser which our current president is not.

But elections are not won based on the popular vote but through the Electoral College. Here our new president with 306 votes minus 2 electors who declined to vote for him claims a landslide even with 46.1% of the popular vote. So let’s look at the presidential elections of the last century without compensating for Hawaii and Alaska becoming states.

Republicans with over 400 Electoral Votes

1984 Ronald Reagan 525
1972 Richard Nixon 520
1980 Ronald Reagan 489
1956 Dwight Eisenhower 457
1928 Herbert Hoover 444
1952 Dwight Eisenhower 432
1988 George Bush 426
1920 Warren Harding 404

Democrats with over 400 Electoral Votes

1936 Franklin Roosevelt 523
1964 Lyndon Johnson 486
1932 Franklin Roosevelt 472
1940 Franklin Roosevelt 449
1944 Franklin Roosevelt 432

Under the old math, the above elections were landslide; thanks to alternative math, 304 = 404. Pity the teachers who have students who embrace alternative math. Pity the people who buy products designed by people who embrace alternative math. Pity the passengers on a plane where the pilots embrace alternative math.

But there are other presidents who also won in landslides based on the Trump landslide.

1996 William Clinton 379
1992 William Clinton 370
2008 Barack Obama 365
2012 Barack Obama 332

Who knew that Donald Trump considered these Democrats to be landslide winners as well, even bigger winners than he was?

There are some results more comparable to the Electoral Votes totals for 2016.

1948 Harry Truman 303
1960 John Kennedy 303
1968 Richard Nixon 301
1976 Jimmy Carter 297
2004 George Bush 286
2000 George Bush 271

Perhaps when our new president referred to his election as a landslide he was only referring to these other winners who all were losers compared to his 304 votes. We will never know because he will never explain what he meant. Pity the English teachers who have students who embrace alternative vocabulary. On the other hand, George Orwell’s 1984 now will make perfect sense:

War is Peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.
304 is 404.

Finally there is the issue of the 3-5 million illegal voters. The number goes far beyond the graveyard votes in Chicago or the walking-around-money to generate votes in Philadelphia. Does he mean that roughly half the adults here illegally who tend to operate under the radar all were instructed to venture forth into the public into government facilities to pose as American citizens who could vote? Were they all in California which has about 13.7 million voters meaning 1 in 4 was illegal? Perhaps he is not aware that zombies are permitted to vote in California where voting rights have been extended to the living dead since they are human beings. Vampires can vote there too. Have you seen some of the actors in Hollywood? Don’t they look like death warmed over? Vulcans and Klingons, however, are not human and do not qualify. And since California routinely votes Democratic anyway, why perpetrate a massive fraud where none is necessary to claim the electoral votes in the first place?

A fraud of this magnitude dwarfs by fivefold the effort to launch the D=Day invasion. That effort took at least a year of planning and was commanded by someone who later became president in two landslide elections. Clearly the mastermind of this electoral fraud deserves accolades for the scope of the achievement. Just think of the number of election precincts involved. And these people didn’t just vote for the president at the top of the ticket. What about all the Congressional and state contests effected? When all is said and done, the conspiracy to deny Donald Trump his rightful popular election vote will go down as the single greatest fraud in the history of humanity save for the faked lunar landings. All Americans owe Donald Trump a debt of thanks for exposing the millions of aliens who are hidden in Area 51 who only come out on Election Day.

Undoubtedly we will learn more about the fraudulent votes when the federal investigation is completed. My understanding is the White House plans to hire the same detectives OJ used to track down the real killer and that Trump himself used to uncover the truth in Hawaii about Obama’s birth. According to our president the results of that investigation were so startlingly, you “can not believe what they are finding.” So far he has not released the findings of those detectives pending the completion of the audit on his taxes but perhaps he can be encouraged to do so.

In the meantime, let the tweet go forward to friend and foe alike. If you were registered in two states, we will hunt you down. We fill find you wherever you hide. You will be caught. You will be waterboarded. You will tell the truth about the conspiracy no matter how high it reaches. You will be hanged. You will be drawn and quartered. You will be boiled in oil. Sad.

Does his existence in Trumpietown, his counterpart to Hillaryland, mean that Democrats should be complacent about regaining the White House in 2020? Should the Democrats exult because the foe in 2020 is an immature child? No way, no how. But explaining the Democratic tunnel-vision silliness requires another post. None-the-less, the battle is engaged.