I am a liberal.

I am a liberal, but in this political cycle, my liberal peers and I have experienced a mutual confounding by each other. I look at people who profess to have my same views and wonder at the things they are saying.

I work in an office for a very liberal private college.  One of our student workers, a woman in her mid-20s is bemoaning the electoral college.  "It's not fair!  She won!" she cries.

Actually, no she didn't.  The rules were spelled out literally hundreds of years ago, and for what we are as a nation, they are pretty fair.  States get a minimum of votes, but then more based on population.  Whoever gets the most STATES wins the race in the United States of America.

The electoral college is fair; it was designed for elections like this where "the coasts" or other population epicenters go one direction and and the rest of the country goes the other.  There are more people in NYC than there are in many whole states in the union.  Do you think that it is fair that NYC should get to decide for the whole of the country?  For people in Birmingham and Boise and Butt-fuck-no-where, Alaska?

I don't think it is, and neither did the people who established the electoral college when they founded this country.  It's not fair for (generally progressive) high population areas to decide for (generally conservative) low population areas.  We all have to live here.

Where's your Civics understanding?  Liberals like to pat themselves on the back for being so much smarter and so much more moral and fair than people in Birmingham and Boise and Butt-fuck-no-where Alaska, right?  Why don't you understand this?  We are one nation, not so many individuals. 

The popular vote doesn't matter.  The electoral college vote matters.  People in Birmingham and Boise and Butt-fuck-no-where matter.  We have to be fair to everyone, every point of view, not just the ones we like.  We have to especially be fair to the ones we don't like.  That's inclusion and diversity.

And people in Birmingham and Boise and Butt-fuck-no-where remember.  They remember when welfare actually helped people before it was hollowed out by the Clinton administration's "welfare reforms" and pushed millions of the poor into extreme poverty.  They remember having good factory jobs that were shipped out to Mexico when the Clinton administration pushed NAFTA through.  They remember when the justice system had some humanity, before the Clinton administration passed hard drug legislation like a "3 Strikes" bill.

Why would I want a Clinton back in the White House?  Like many 'Democrats', I wanted an actual liberal. The HuffPost published an editorial (and I'm sure there were many others) discussing how Clinton was much more of a moderate republican.  I'll quote what they say:  Hillary Clinton’s stances, while fluid during this election cycle, are historically most in tune with classical Republican ideas, as advocated by Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, and others.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-brasunas/there-is-a-moderate-republican-in-this-race_b_9704194.html

But try telling that to a Democrat.  I was told by 'liberal' friends that Hillary was the best!  They just knew she would win, deep in their hearts.  When Sanders was still an option, "liberals" were bullying me to vote for Her.  They said she knew how to win -  we now know she colluded with the DNC.  They said she represents what we want - except that she does not represent what I want.  They said it would be immoral if I let Trump win - although that's not how voting actually works, especially in the electoral college.  She'll be the first woman president which means women will have finally made it - no it won't, and we can do better (Tulsi Gabbard 2020?). 

She never represented what I wanted.  She never represented what so many liberals in this country wanted.  But the party and our liberal peers never bothered to listen to us despite the rallies and the caucuses and how close Sanders came to getting the nomination even though the odds were totally against him.

And now everyone is walking around stunned.  The disbelief.  The lack of awareness.  The condescension toward the rest of our country, even the like-minded.  How did this happen?  Our own arrogance is how this happened.

I'm no political scientist.  I'm no economist.  I'm just a person who wants people to get fed and educated and to be able to see a doctor before they are half-dead.  I'm a person who wants to end the war on drugs and end corporate-based profit centers that prey on the poor.  I'm a person who believes that we should strive for civil equality for everyone, even white men.

I believe that the government is really just us people and that the government should be big enough to provide for the basics we all deserve.

I am a liberal.  Are you?