Election Results

OK, one last election post in a row, I swear.

So, on Tuesday the US had what could charitably be called a surprise result for--I would guess--80% of the population. Even those like me who were feeling like the election could be close were still largely certain that Clinton would win.

It did not happen that way...at least, not yet.

We currently stand with Trump having 290 electoral college votes to Clinton's 232 source, but with Clinton leading Trump by about 2 million popular votes and counting source. But it's done, right? Trump won?

Not so fast.

So, while the currently election keeps getting more interesting, I thought I'd do a little research to put all of these things in perspective. So, let's go exploring!

1) Other Split Votes
There have been three other times in US history where the electoral college outcome was different from the popular vote: 1876, 1888, and 2000 (sorry, 1824, but no one won enough electoral votes that year [T_T]) source. One thing that I find rather interesting is that the first two happened during what's called the Gilded Age, while the second two can be pretty well compared to the rise of Talk Show Radio in the US. In other words, both sets (and I really think that they can be thought of as sets) marked the end of one political order, and the rise of another.
A) 1876 and 1888 (anything un-sourced is from my own noggin)
1876 is one of the most contentious elections in US history. At the very least, the 2016 election (so far) ended on election day. The 1876 election, on the other hand, went on for quite a bit longer. At fault were a set of unclaimed electoral votes, and the memory of reconstruction. See, the outgoing president was one Ulysses Simpson Grant--a civil war general on the union side--who had maintained a troop presence in the Southern States during his term. A Democrat was almost certain to throw them out--in a rather unceremonious fashion, in all likelihood--resulting in Southern Democrats taking back control of the states. So, what eventually solved the problem? The Compromise of 1877, where Rutherford B Hayes won the election by a single electoral vote, but the troops in the south were removed. Basically, the Republicans both sent them there, and were allowed to take them back--while maintaining control of the federal government--but the southern democrats were allowed to assume control of the former confederacy.
Meanwhile, in 1888, Grover Cleveland was attempting to keep his seat away from Benjamin Harrison. Though Cleveland won the popular vote by a narrow margin, Harrison won the electoral college. Why is there not more here? Well, for one, neither president was exactly a shining exemplar in office. Aside from the fact that Cleveland beat Harrison in a rematch four years later, I'm having a hard time thinking of anything to really write about these two.
So, how was this time period the end of an era? From the birth of the nation to the civil war, slavery had always been a major issue in US politics. After the civil war, two strains--the offshoot of reconstruction, and the continued problem of tariffs--continued to have an effect. The 1876 election could be seen as the last gasp of Reconstruction, with the final troops being pulled and the last reconstruction era governments crumbling, while the 1888 election could be seen as the last great war over tariffs source (a discussion for anther time after a lot more research.)

B) The 2000 and 2016 elections. There's really not much to say here, because we're still seeing how things pan out. The 2000 election was at the tail end of the first part of what I like to call the Technological Revolution (the rise of technology starting in the 1990's, of which the first bubble burst in 2001). In fact, I would say that the Bush-Gore election was the first one since the internet really took off. It was certainly the first after Google became ubiquitous, and news had started to become less the property of newspapers and gossip, and more the realm of the masses and their opinions. Together, this mass of information led to the election of Bush, with Gore winning the popular vote.
And then we come to the 2016 election. If the last elections were powered by the social media of Facebook and Twitter, this one was fueled by Reddit. And, if the newest news is anything to go by, it ent over yet.
So, where does that leave us? What's the new epoch going to look like in American history? I don't really know. A lot of news sites were calling Donald Trump the zenith of a movement, but I don't think we'll be able to really say that for another ten years. We need to see how he fits into the wider history from a little bit of a further perspective before we can really make a judgement. Is he a sign of things to come? A last gasp of an older order? A wrench in the system? Only time will tell.

One last thing: this isn't the first time a recount has occurred. The only one that I could find was the year 2000 (source), although I would assume that the closeness of the 1876 election necessitated a few recounts as well. The US has a long history of close elections where the loser bows down and accepts the results. We don't have to be happy with who was elected--and, if that's the case, then make sure to vote in the mid-terms--but we do need to accept that they were voted in. And for those voted into power while losing the popular vote, just remember that a majority of people do not agree with you. It is not an invitation to follow your promises to the bitter end, but to try to find a better path. Regardless, running a country is never going to be easy, and I can only hope that the Republic will go on.