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The Different Drummer
…And The Use Of Protest Votes
Third-party voters were blamed for indirectly helping Trump win his election in 2016. This year, some took a more active role.
– electoral-vote.com, 11/18/24
When the Democratic party rigged the primaries against Bernie Sanders during the 2016 election cycle, they fatally damaged their relationship with many of his supporters. While Donald Trump pretends to be a populist (ask any of the people he has cheated by refusing to pay his bills how pro-worker he is), Bernie gave an actual voice to the victims of the corporatists who control the Democratic and Republican parties. By silencing this voice, the Democratic Party confirmed the belief by many that neither major political party cared about the issues that were important to them. The results were catastrophic.
In the 2016 Presidential Election, 6,464,094 people voted for someone other than the two major party candidates, encompassing approximately 5% of the total vote. This was more than Hilary Clinton’s 2,868,691 vote margin of victory over Donald Trump. It was also significantly higher than the previous three elections:
Clinton may have decisively won the popular vote, but the undemocratic Electoral College system gave the presidency to Trump. This is where “other” is credited by some for changing the political landscape.
Trump won the Electoral College vote 306 to 232 in 2016. However, if Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s votes in three states were added to Clinton’s, Trump would have lost the lead. Clinton would have then won the Electoral College 278 to 260.
Of course, this projection severely oversimplifies a very complicated electorate. First, it…
