Jill Stein and the goddamned Green Party are collecting money to perform recounts in three states. She already has the money to trigger a re-County Wisconsin [ed.: in the 24-hours since I wrote that, Stein collected ~$3 million more to support this work] cover recount-request paperwork filing fees in all three states, but she still need another ~$3mil to cover the costs of an actual hand recount.
This almost certainly isn’t going to change the election, but anything worth knowing is worth knowing True and Sure—and facts are always worth repeating: If you backed him or not, it’s important to reiterate that the President-Elect is the Second-Place Winner. He doesn’t have a “mandate,” he doesn’t represent a beleaguered “silent majority.” He isn’t the voice of the “Real America.” He won on a technicality—which is very much like him—and anyone continuing to put a thorn in his side (and the sides of those who need to strut around spouting his bullshit) is most definitely doing God’s Work.
Just to give you a sense of how truly, absurdly close this election was, and how imprecise election-night numbers are: Michigan has been counted as a Trump win since Election Night, but we didn’t actually officially declare a winner here until the night before Thanksgiving. In the day-after-the-election estimate, Trump had won by ~13,000 votes out of ~4.5 million cast—absurdly close. By the time the true, official tabulation was released two nights ago, that lead had been reduced by about one-quarter, to 10,704 votes; for context roughly 10,000 people buy a dog at any given time Tigers game—and the tigers are sucky unpopular team. This is the closest election in Michigan history, and the first time the state has gone red for PotUS since 1988. Also, this is a state where Trump handily lost the Republican primary, and where he sank in the polls immediately after visiting (although, again, I’m not saying there was a fix in Michigan: This is also a state where black turnout was significantly depressed without apparent outside jiggery-pokery, and which had no new obstructions to voting put in place since 2012).
I kicked Stein a few bucks, even though I’m moderately furious with her and the Green Party and how they ran their campaign here in Michigan (short version: They ran against HRC—not against War, or the the Establishment, or Trump, just against HRC. Like, their goddamned lawn signs said “NO HRC” on them. Clinton lost Michigan by ~10k votes; Stein got ~50k votes. i.e., it isn’t hard to imagine that if Stein had maybe–I dunno, run against the Status Quo instead of the Other Woman–maybe Clinton would have scraped out a win here, to the tune of 16 EC votes—still a Clinton loss nationally, but you’d have 4 million fewer broken hearts here in the Mitten. So, yeah: Fuck Jill Stein and the Green party. Having lived through this shit twice now, to the tune of two wars and countless tens of thousands of dead in Iraq and Afghanistan, I feel pretty confident when I say that I would sooner vote to have both my hands burned off with molten lead than I’d vote for a Green Party candidate.) Every last penny you donate via this form goes to recount efforts; none to Jill, none to the Greens, just toward making a colossal fuck-up a touch less wrong. Excess funds go toward their work on election integrity and voting system reform. I may think the Greens are a sack of dicks, but I 100% agree with them about election integrity and voting reform, and trust them to do the Good Work on those issues. ’cause, at the very least, the Greens are ass-hats, but they aren’t crooks.
This election has, quite literally, been a Tragedy: It was won on suppression and lost on discouragement. On that alone it is an abomination and complete failure of our Democratic System, callously used in a fashion opportunistic and anti-democratic ON ALL SIDES AND BY ALL PARTIES. This is a small step toward restoring it. Let’s hold hands, hold our noses, and take that step together. 