The Real Importance of Popularity
What you can do while you are waiting.
Well. Okay … It’s Friday morning as I write this.
I voted.
You voted.
Probably.
And if you didn’t vote, you’ve already faced the chiding of your family and friends: “Whatever happens, you chose not to be a part of it, so don’t start ‘yer bellyaching six months from now!”
I’m not judging. There’s no need to. There’re plenty enough judges in your family, to keep you squirming in their web of guilt.
By the time you read this, Sunday Morning, more than likely it will be all over.
The super-lean and sinewy electoral college, using an algorithm that’s as inscrutable as Google’s or Medium’s, probably will have wrung out all the fat from the popular vote (i.e., think Medium’s claps), and will have announced to the waiting world the person who will stand at America’s helm for the next four years.
I hear on NBC news the refrain, again and again (isn’t that what a refrain is?), “It isn’t over until it’s over — until the last vote is counted.” Which can be weeks or months after the electoral college has held up the checkered flag.
Now isn’t that odd? I mean, how bizarre is it that Americans are working very hard to pretend they are guided by the antiquated constitutional ideal of one vote-one person, even after the very impersonal 270-pound giant has muscled his way through?
And will it be enough, really, to have every last vote counted and tabulated and finalized by Wikipedia?
Not according to Donald Trump. It’s not over until it’s over. And that final over is not over until we find the evidence of one — just one — person whose name appears on two separate ballots. Or the stash of two-hundred still-sealed ballots discovered in a Washacallit, Georgia landfill.
Will the litigation, which can be as stubborn as Covid, ultimately overthrow the electoral college?
If it does … then we’ll be back to the popular vote. We’ll be back to broad-base recognition as measured by the multiplication of individual applause.
The clap.
Are you listening, Medium?
And are you listening, geniuses? It’s not too soon to support the inevitable demise of the electoral college. You do that by exercising your sovereign right to clap. Clap! Clap loud, looooooooong, and often. Start with whatever you’re reading at this moment. Oh, wait! That would be this newsletter …. How awkward.
But don’t stop there. Continue on from the candidate list below:
This week’s candidates
Goodbye Storybook, by Valori Maresco
She Decided to Have a Last Preparation Session, by Myriam Ben Salem
The Dancing Moon, by Lucy The Eggcademic (she/her)
That Moment in the Past, by Anish Ramjee
Tatanagar Morning, by Tooth Truth Roopa Vikesh
Mirror mirror on the wall, by Elies Hadi
Take My Word, by S. J. Wynn
Rosary, by Greg Barber
The Stranger Who Followed, by AJ Krow
Wish I May Wish I Might, by Susannah MacKinnie
Cooking in Cast Iron, by Victor Sarkin
The Eye, by Randy Rather
The Art of Learning, by Jerry Roth
Big Red Had Made It, by Bogdan Tiganov
The Blood Moon, by Imad
Complex Problems, by Dr. Jackie Greenwood
If I Stayed This Story Might Have Had a Happier Ending, by Hogan Torah
The Trining, Chapter 4, by Jay Squires
Moon Cakes and Lanterns, by R. Rangan PhD
I Am the Moon, by Gayle Kurtzer-Meyers
Goodbye, by Greg Barber
Stop Talking About Workplace Culture, by Bogdan Tiganov
Aliens, Birds, and Trouble, by John Levin
Corrupt Love, by Galit Birk, PhD
The Ties That Bind, by Susannah MacKinnie
Once in a Blue Moon, by Valori Maresco
A Sky of Friendship, by Melissa Bee
The Death of Office Banter, by Bogdan Tiganov
The Howl Which Went Viral, by Mark C Watney
The Blue Moon Isn’t Blue — And Other Ways I Have Disappointed My Mother, by Kim McKinney
The Geniuses of October Awards, by Jay Squires
Sadie and Mr. Cat, by Josie Elbiry
The Unprecedented Affair Between Anguish and Atrocity, by Natali Farran
Shelved, by Bee
Oasis, by Greg Barber
From the Beginning, by Susannah MacKinnie
Being a Genius For Dummies, by Hogan Torah
The Tiny Factories, by Mark C Watney
They Are Not Disrespecting You, by Myriam Ben Salem
Lily van Horn, by Valori Maresco
Loving Families, by Susannah MacKinnie
In Full, by Amy Jasek
Mr. E Hops a Spaceship, by John Levin
Bagpipes, by Sarah J. Baker
The House of Cards, by Anish Ramjee
In Sickness, by Josie Elbiry
A Girl’s Best Friends, by Susannah MacKinnie
