David ex Machina

Election 2020 Finale Having freshly watched the 2020 election unfold, with the build up, the stress and drama, a lengthy vote count, a sore loser, and ultimately the result, I couldn’t help but reflect how strange of an event it is to experience. It’s like you’re at a movie premiere, but someone is interrupting you every five minutes to tell you their opinion and how the movie is going to end. Can we please just watch the movie and see what happens?! That “someone” is the media covering the U.S. election. But no analysis, extended media coverage, or punditry will change the outcome. The script has been written, the scenes already filmed; all written and directed by the citizens of the United States, as their ballots have already been cast. The producers ( Biden and Trump ) are also in the theater with you, having spent hundreds of millions of dollars to help produce the movie they want. Biden watches patiently for the end result, whereas Trump is making a scene, threatening to stop t...

By Elkanah Tisdale (1771-1835) (often falsely attributed to Gilbert Stuart) [1] - Originally published in the Boston Centinel, 1812., Public Domain Tired of gerrymandering tilting the balance in favor of one political party and all the fake news propaganda focused on swing voters ( Cambridge Analytica’s “persuadables” ) to decide elections? Gerryneutering is a simple plan to neutralize the effects of both of these cheating strategies.  But before that, a quick recap of gerrymandering. Steve Nass [ CC BY-SA 4.0 ] Gerrymandering, is a funny word for partisan redistricting, in which those in power redraw the voting districts to give themselves a better chance of winning subsequent elections, and districts often end up looking like funny shapes. Districts get redrawn every 10 years with the Census, and the GOP strategy in the last two decades has been to implement Project RedMap , whereby focused efforts on winning state legislatures majorities gave them this power to ...

Warning: This is a “political post” and I consider myself to be more liberal and optimistic than most. Like many, I was stunned when Trump was elected to be the President of the United States of America*. Now that the sticker shock has worn off, I’ve rationalized my thoughts around the state of American democracy to cope, to better understand how the world works, and to get the added benefit of gleaning the silver linings. And, believe it or not, objectively good things have happened! While not an exhaustive list, here are the lessons I’ve learned so far: Lessons about the Presidency Underdogs can still win . In the age of the internet, super pacs, big data, better polling, more accurate forecasting ( cough… Nate Silver ), the improbable scenario is still possible . Yes, Trump won the general election*, but only a tiny-hands fraction of people gave Trump a chance to win the Republican nomination in the first place. Trump’s ascendance is a story of come-from-behind victories...