Daily Times

On 9th of November, the American elections resulted in the exact opposite of what the media and the “gurus” predicted. For a huge amount of Americans, and people around the world, the sky had fallen. Even during the polling as Trump was ahead, the Canadian immigration site crashed, for very obvious reasons.  In the aftermath of the election, where Clinton’s camp was stunned and probably in tears, people around the world started questioning the perceived progressive or liberal outlook of the Great American nation, claiming to lead the free world.

But the real question is whether Trump was the actual decision of the majority of the American public? And the simple answer, looking at the popular vote versus the electoral college, would be a clear No!

This phenomenon is not unprecedented in American politics, this is actually the fifth time a candidate has won the popular vote but lost the election.

Simply put the American election hinges on the majority in the electoral college, each state has electors equal to the number of its representation in congress, proportional to its population, except a given few, such as District Colombia which has only three electoral votes. The Presidential election is finally decided by the majority in this electoral college. though these electors usually do follow their respective majority popular votes, but they are not always bound to. In any case where no candidate attains a majority, the house of representatives gets to decide the President and Vice President.

This is not merely the case of Trump’s recent victory. In 1824, John Quincy Adams was elected as President through the house of representatives, even though Andrew Jackson won the popular vote. The speaker of the house of representatives was Henry Clay, who himself was the Presidential candidate who ended up fourth. Clay helped make Adams the President, where Adam’s appointed him as his Secretary of State. This deal was popularized as the “Corrupt Bargain” by Andrew Jackson right after it.

Similarly, in 1876, Democrat Samuel J. Tilden won the popular vote with 4,284,020 votes over Republican Rutherford B. Hayes who got 4,036,572. Tilden has 184 electoral votes, where Hayes got 165, with 20 electoral votes still left. The controversy went on for months, a commission consisting of judges and representatives from both parties was constructed. The democrats conceded to Hayes’ claim over the Presidency after getting him to agree to certain demands.

In 1888, Grover Cleveland lost to Benjamin Harrison who got lesser popular votes but received 233 electoral votes, where Cleveland got 168. In more recent history, the case was repeated when Al Gore got the popular vote over George Bush, but Bush received 271 electoral votes compared to Gore’s 255.

In the recent election upset, where Trump received 59,695,020 popular votes and 279 electoral votes. Hilary got 59,926,587 popular votes and 228 electoral votes, meaning even though she had 231,567 votes more than Trump. Trump gets to be the next President of the United States not because he got more people to vote, but because he got the right vote in the right place.

All in all, though there is only a quarter of a percent of popular vote more with Hilary than Trump, it still means that the majority of the American people, did in fact vote for progressiveness, acceptance and being stronger together, and if not any of that, it does mean a rejection to building walls, a rejection to hate for immigrants and opposition of the leadership of business men “leaders”. Yes, Hilary may have conceded to the principals of what she calls “constitutional democracy”, and she did indeed, in that view, clearly lose the election. But for the American public, there is still hope, all is not lost.