Ms. Gpclay here. I wasn't going to post. I'm exhausted. But, here I am . . .
First, those of of you who responded to my hopeful post of Monday, 4/21 - you were right and I was wrong. HRC won by 9%. Not the Obama squeaker I thought might be possible.
But that's not why I'm posting. Others may have already posted about these factors (racism, political machines, voting machines), and I apologize if I'm repeating other more timely and eloquent posts, but I was in a rural pocket of the state on Tuesday, and observed some sobering things.
Racism and the political machine are alive and thriving and came out to give Hillary a victory in the 70% range (or more) in many rural pockets of the state.
I'd had a hint of the racism cynically stoked and condoned by the Hillary camp. It was intangible, but also unmistakable.
But I didn't fully appreciate the power of the local political machines of the county governments. Locals talked openly of the local boss, his power. Given the support of the regional boss for Hillary, it was no surprise to these locals that the numbers were what they were. How is it that those charged with administering our election process at the state and local level (Governor and local county commissioners) can endorse and campaign on behalf of a candidate in the race they are overseeing?
And then there's the messy reality of our voting systems. No paper trails really for most of the machines now. Human error is always part of the process. How do we ever discern something more sinister from the normal human error?
So rather than providing the insight, (which I understand to be the objective of blog posts here, so thank you for your indulgence, since right now I have questions and no insights. . .), I'm soliciting the discussion I'm interested in listening to from the political insiders: How do we really change these politics of the past, that are fueled by bigotry and run by machines (political and electronic)?