The U.S. presidential election

Join the McKelvy House Scholars online on Sunday at 4 p.m. for a discussion led by Natalie Schmit ’22 about the U.S. presidential election. Email the group for the Zoom link. Here’s background from Natalie:

At the point I’m writing this, there is no clear winner with the situation changing every minute. Hopefully, this will no longer be the situation on Sunday. This discussion is intended to give everyone a chance to air their frustrations or joys with the group.

Here are some questions to consider:

After terrible handling of a mass death event, high unemployment, low approval ratings, and race riots this summer, there should have been a Blue wave. What happened? Do you think “settle for Biden” was effective? Do you think the results of 2020 should lead the Democrats to take more of a progressive route in the future, or continue appealing to centrist voters with moderate candidates?

Historically, affluent and college-educated voters, mostly white, have been the base of the Republican Party. However under Trump, Republicans have lost support from white voters with college degrees. Additionally, Wall Street donated heavily to the Biden campaign. Meanwhile, many working class voters and the highest percentage of minority voters since 1956 voted Trump. Does this surprise you? What does this say about the two parties and our perception of them?

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/25/us/politics/trump-biden-campaign-donations.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/04/opinion/election-2020-exit-polls.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

https://www.npr.org/2020/08/17/902626429/wall-streets-big-money-is-betting-on-biden-and-democrats-in-2020

The U.S. achieved 67% voter turnout this election, the highest in over 100 years. However, Republicans have lost the popular vote but won the presidency four times since 1824. Is our democracy fair? How can we improve/fix it (if it’s possible at all)?

https://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2020/06/the-popular-vote-loser-has-won-the-u-s-presidency-five-times/

How much should we trust predictive polls in the future considering how poorly they predicted 2016 and 2020? Is there a better alternative?

We can point to when the Roman and British empires fell. Has the American empire fallen? If so, when? Can America still claim to be the “leader of the free world”?

https://theintercept.com/2017/07/22/donald-trump-and-the-coming-fall-of-american-empire/