The Electoral College most likely will vote Trump into office, but the damage to his administration has been done; he will still be seen, particularly by the governments of other nations, as a president who does not have the confidence of the majority of the voting citizens; getting only about 46% of the total votes, coming in at second place, and, top it off, a swirl of allegations of Russian efforts to swing the election Trump's way do not inspire confidence in his coming presidency. Yes, yes, I know: the election is really up to the Electoral College, but the College votes are more the result of a sort of political 'chess game' than an actual expression of the direct will and intent of the voting citizens of the United States; Trump's election is more the result of 'gaming' the Electoral system than it is what the actual voters decided; no matter what Trump tweets or boasts, he will never be "the People's Choice"...
Speaking of Trump's tweets and boasts, I got a good laugh a few days ago when he boasted his election gave the DEMs the worst defeat in political history. Aside from the fact he lost the popular vote and about 54% of the voters voted for someone else, his Electoral College win isn't even impressive by any standards; compare his win to the results since 2000:
2000 — Bush 271, Gore 266
2004 — Bush 286, Kerry 251
2008 — Obama 365, McCain 173
2012 — Obama 332, Romney 206
2016 — Trump 306, Clinton 232
Obama, as much as he is maligned and criticized, in his reelection in 2012 got
26 more Electoral votes than Trump in 2016; not bad for a "disasterous" Presidential candidate; since Obama, the "disaster", was so much better in his run, what does the 2016 result make Trump? As a further comparative metric, in 1972 Nixon got
520 Electoral votes, a whopping 95% of the Electoral vote, and we all know how well Nixon worked out as President. In fact, in terms of all-time US Electoral College results, Trump stands at #46 of the 58 elections in the history of the US:
http://www.epicjourney2008.com/2016/...-of-58-in.html
While the Electoral college may have the final say, there are an awful lot of US voters who can say "Trump? Not my choice."; in fact it is a clear majority...
As far as the history of the rationale for the existence of the Electoral College is concerned, the popular notion of the College being a means to protect smaller states' voices in the election process, the genesis has a much more inhumane aspect; the issue of slavery was a far more impelling factor than the simple population of the founding states. As far back as my years in high school in the late 60s, I recall having the need for an Electoral College as an issue and, in fact, it was a proposed topic for our debate tournaments. This is where I first heard of the issue of slavery in connection with the College. This past election has brought it up again; here is an essay in Time Magazine on the subject:
http://time.com/4558510/electoral-co...story-slavery/
The Electoral College was, in essence, part and parcel of the infamous "Three-Fifths Compromise" reached as a means of ensuring the Southern states would remain in the fledgling nation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Fifths_Compromise
There really is no rationale for the continued existence of the Electoral College; all the arguments for its creation are moot or pretty much so: the ability of the average citizen to be informed on the matters and issues facing the country have vastly improved obviating the fear of the 'great unwashed' having a voice; the statuses of the various small agrarian versus large industrial states has homogenized to the point of irrelevance; Civil War and basic common sense and humanity have also obviated any need to assuage the feelings of the South. There really isn't any real good reason to keep the Electoral College other than historical sentimentality or the preservation of a system that can be 'gamed' for political purpose, often at the expense and in contravention of the expressed will of the voters...
At any rate, I didn't vote for Trump, and, even if Hillary had won the Electoral College, I could still say "Not my President."...
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