Guardian US polling expert Harry J. Enten breaks down the workings of the Electoral College – a mysterious institution that uses the people’s votes to select the US president. With 538 electors up for grabs across 50 states and the District of Columbia, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are vying for the 270 votes that will grant them the White House. It’s a curious system where things can and have gone awry – one possible outcome in 2012 is for Romney to end up in the Oval Office with Joe Biden as his vice-president. How could that happen? Let Harry explain.
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We’ve borne witness to a chaotic first few months in Trump’s presidency.
Over the last months, each executive order has delivered shock and bewilderment — a core part of a strategy to make the right-wing turn feel inevitable and overwhelming. But, as organizer Sandra Avalos implored us to remember in Truthout last November, “Together, we are more powerful than Trump.”
Indeed, the Trump administration is pushing through executive orders, but — as we’ve reported at Truthout — many are in legal limbo and face court challenges from unions and civil rights groups. Efforts to quash anti-racist teaching and DEI programs are stalled by education faculty, staff, and students refusing to comply. And communities across the country are coming together to raise the alarm on ICE raids, inform neighbors of their civil rights, and protect each other in moving shows of solidarity.
It will be a long fight ahead. And as nonprofit movement media, Truthout plans to be there documenting and uplifting resistance.
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