Why I Need You to Move to Fargo as Soon as Possible, Preferably by the Weekend
MEMORANDUM
TO: Blue-team members living in New York and California
FROM: A guy with a great idea for something you should do
DATE: Today
RE: Winning the White House
Okay, everyone, here’s the deal: I need 200,000 of you to move to North Dakota ASAP. Preferably by the weekend. See the details below, but don’t dwell on this too long — you’ve got some packing to do!
I don’t get it. How will that help?
Because, with your support, the blue team can win North Dakota. It’s time we stop obsessing over the “battleground” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin and, instead, start contesting regions we usually concede. Like the Great Plains and the Interior West. The red team will never see us coming.
That’ll never work. You’re an idiot.
Am I? Or am I brilliant? Or am I both?
Only an idiot would posit that he might be both brilliant and an idiot.
Trust me, this can work. Our side has more voters; we just need to use them better. In 2016, Hillary got almost three million more votes than You Know Who did. But we still lost. Why? Because we’re too consolidated in certain parts of the country and thus overrepresented in a handful of states. Our bluest states aren’t just blue, they’re indigo. Which is like blue on crack.
“Blue on crack”?
The point is, we’re squandering our advantage, wasting surplus blue.
Explain. Actually, never mind. Don’t.
Too late. Remember, to win a state’s electors, a candidate needs only a plurality of the vote. Receiving even one vote more than the bare minimum necessary to win that state means wasting votes that could be better deployed in other states. Based on 2016 results, I estimate we could steer three million votes away from California and one million votes away from New York and still win those states in 2020.
Wait, I don’t understand. If Hillary got more votes, and we have more voters overall, why does anyone need to move? If she got more votes, shouldn’t she have won?
No, don’t be ridiculous. That’s not how the system works. The problem is the Electoral College, as it often is.
The what?
It’s in the Constitution. That’s a thing no one reads, including You Know Who. Suffice to say, the bigger the state, the more electors it has, with its total number equal to its Congressional representation in both houses. To win, a candidate needs 270 electoral votes.
Sounds boring.
It is. Maybe we’ll come up with a better approach later, but for now we have to play by the rules in place.
But why North Dakota? Only nine people live there.
That’s the point! Their population is so low that an influx of blue voters would seal the deal. Hillary lost there to You Know Who by about 123,000 votes. If Joe can turn out about the same number of native blue-teamers, and if the third-party candidates siphon off their usual number of votes, our 200,000-person democracy-saving army should be enough to deliver the Peace Garden State’s three electoral votes.
Three electoral votes? We’re doing all this for three votes?
No, of course not. We’ll also be attacking on eight other fronts. The plan is to distribute the balance of our 3.8 million surplus voters across South Dakota (3 votes), Nebraska (5), Iowa (6), Kansas (6), Oklahoma (7), Idaho (4), Wyoming (3), and Montana (3). If we win all eight of those states, too, we’ll steal a total of forty electoral votes from the red team.
Won’t the red team do the same thing, moving some of their people into blue states?
No, they’re too busy making America great again.
Okay, well, what do people do for fun in North Dakota? After I move there, then what?
I’m not sure. Talk to the natives once you’ve settled in. They probably have public-radio stations, vegan cafes, and yoga studios. If not, maybe try bowling. Or a softball league. Or cow tipping. Or even fracking.
I still don’t get why we have to move. Why can’t someone else do it?
Did Martin Luther King, Jr. ever say anything like that? Stop being so selfish. Think of this as an act of public service — a “mission,” if you will. Like what the Mormon boys do when they move to a new town, knock on your door, and give you a Bible. Or consider it like a stint in the Peace Corps, where you go to another country and make people better just by being there and telling them how they should be doing things. Leaving your overpriced apartment in Brooklyn or San Francisco to resettle in Fargo, Sioux Falls, Omaha, Des Moines, Wichita, Oklahoma City, Boise, Cheyenne, or Missoula could be the most meaningful thing you ever do. Besides, aren’t you doing all your work online these days? You can live anywhere.
All right, fine. I’ll do it. But even if this works, what about 2024? How will we win then?
In 2024, we’ll take over the South. But keep that a secret for now. They’re still pretty mad about the last time we did that.
