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You're not wrong. But I live in an area that voted 70% Trump. We don't have law enforcement on weekends or after 5 pm weekdays. Our state government is worried that this area -- patrolled by armed bands of vigilantes -- will break into "balkanized forms of self-government."

If a bunch of nameless elites (as people around here will see it) take Trump away from them, whom they feel is their savior, I am genuinely worried that there will be a cost in blood. They are in a different circle of information -- almost a different reality, if you will. They didn't read your cases in the NYT and elsewhere. They believe Obama was not born in this country and that Hillary molests children. Pulling out the Constitution and Federalist papers is not going to get you far because they know what they know and nothing will change that.

I agree that Donald Trump is an existential threat to American democracy. However, now that he's already "won", I think, to some extent, the threat is already here. Having him in office is just as much an unknown threat to democracy as denying him office -- and my point is that denying him office would directly undermine faith in democracy itself, which is already tenuous this election cycle.

And on a final note, putting another career politician like Kasich (not that I personally think a career in public service is a bad thing) in office is going to incense his supporters that view the entire system as broken. There are lessons to be learned here from history -- Andrew Jackson comes to mind.

I think you're doing the right thing. That's not really clear in everything else I've said here. It's a hard choice, and I'm glad it's not mine...I just want to be sure you're thinking about all angles here. If you managed to get enough on board to deny him the presidency, that would be historic. Huge. You owe it to your country, all of your country -- even backwater places like this -- to think about every part of what you are deciding to do.

I'm not a Trump supporter, but I have to ask -- given the president-elect's rhetoric and undermining of democratic institutions, do you think he and his core supporters will accept a change thrust upon them by the electors?

To clarify -- aren't some things more important than a single election? Like when SCOTUS stopped the 2000 recount. The civil unrest/questioning of election legitimacy will damage our democracy. Do you think the potential damage Trump presents to be greater than that?

I don't think Americans were smoking Dutch weed five years ago...maybe when in Amsterdam. Otherwise, crappy weed came up from Mexico (esp on the east coast) and good weed came from California, Oregon, etc. Medical has been legal for over 20 years, and the law allowed a number of plants that, when harvested, would produce far more product than legally allowed. Rather than destroy it, large quantities made their way to the black market. That, plus black market grows, has ensured that the US had a good supply of homegrown shit long before it was legal for everyone in certain states.

that's part of my concern haha I should have said it like that! That's what the andrew jackson reference was saying (sort of).

Right? They're like "oh no, small states would have no voice!" right now 39 states that aren't swing states have no voice. The only states that matter are swing states.