US Election, Isocracy, Work and Home

[tcpip]

In the global village, the local council election of the United States of America is certainly the most important. Like many others I was rather surprised (and quite horrified) by the election of Donald Trump this week. The psephologists were universally wrong. But at least they're doing the right thing and working out why. There has been a lot of silly opinion pieces trying to justify why the result occured, but the pre-election claims of Michael Moore turned out to be most prescient, not only for guessing that Trump would win but where he would win; namely by a failure to inspire the working-class states of the Great Lakes - that is really the only reason that Clinton lost; Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Unsurprisingly, I am currently in the midst of an article for the Isocracy Network on the election results with a few prescriptive solutions, the most obvious being don't ignore the working class. It also serves as a good focus for the Isocracy AGM (FB link) next Saturday at Trades Hall with Dr. Hans Baer speaking on the relationship between enviromentalism and socialism. This is certainly an issue which has relevance for the occasionally strained relationship here between the Australian Labor Party and the Greens. Similar lessons can be learned in this context; the importance of the environment may be paramount, but the protection of the enviroment will only occur with the support of the working class.

Speaking of work, in my fairly-well paid technocratic role it has been a very demanding week having returned from overseas. I fielded what I could what on the other side of the world, but the bulk of the effort was carried by NinjaDan who is really feeling the weight of what has been an increasingly quantity of technical requests, and certainly far beyond the capacity of 1 EFT looking after two HPC systems. In other work-related news caseopaya has received a new job offer with a good pay rise and engaged in the delightful act of handing a resignation letter to a firm which won the Golden Turd for poor work conditions.

In home life we still have the delightful Jane keeping us company at least for a few more days. There's big hole in the ceiling of our dining-room due to the effects of the water pipe issues from before we left for overseas and one in the back of the wardrobe in our attic bedroom which probably leads to Naria or somesuch. The Owners Corporation is currently having a debate on whether to keep the Courtesy Bus or not, which led me to make a post on the appropriate closed group on Facebook where I illustrated some of the unspoken costs of getting rid of it; it seems that most people who engaged in that discussion are also supportive in retaining the service. Finally, last night went to visit Brendan who has been having his usual unluck with housemates. It was good to catch up as always, and we laughed ourselves through the quite moving NZ film Hunt for the Wilderpeople, which of course reminded me that I need to visit the home country again.

Comments

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

There were modest gains for Trump in the region, mainly from what I can tell in the hinterlands. But these were dwarfed by the drop in the Democrat vote.

2012 elections

Illinois WTA 3,019,512 57.60% 20 2,135,216 40.73%
Iowa WTA 822,544 51.99% 6 730,617 46.18%
Minnesota WTA 1,546,167 52.65% 10 1,320,225 44.96%

Michigan WTA 2,564,569 54.21% 16 2,115,256 44.71%
Ohio WTA 2,827,710 50.67% 18 2,661,433 47.69%
Pennsylvania WTA 2,990,274 51.97% 20 2,680,434 46.59%
Wisconsin[124] WTA 1,620,985 52.83% 10 1,407,966 45.89%


2016 elections

Illinois WTA 2,982,415 55.41% 20 2,121,573 39.41% –
Iowa WTA 650,780 41.71% – 798,923 51.21%
Minnesota WTA 1,364,067 46.41% 10 1,321,120 44.95%

Michigan WTA 2,264,807 47.33% – 2,277,914 47.60% 16
Ohio WTA 2,320,596 43.51% – 2,776,683 52.06%
Pennsylvania WTA 2,817,409 47.60% – 2,890,633 48.84% 20
Wisconsin WTA 1,383,926 46.94% – 1,411,432 47.87% 10