“We need to make sure we’re sending a message to people all throughout the world, that the House is open to doing the people’s business.” – Steven Scalise, 11 October 2023
It’s probable, dear reader, that you have been doing everything in your power to ignore the hot mess that the government We the People elected into office has become. Especially that House that is supposed to be particularly Representative of Our Will.
Perhaps you have also removed all the mirrors from your home.
Alas, like the proverbial moth to the flame, Your Friendly Neighborhood Amoeba has been drawn in, circling the blinding light while, as usual, he is supposed to be doing something else. Like trying to make a living while there is still the faint glimmer of a chance, lurking at the edges of the glare, that a living can be made in what remains of his miserably stupid choice of a life’s work.
Instead, he meditates on the matter of “the people’s business”, and is our government capable of doing that, especially the speakerless House.
Some time ago now, YFNA was guilty of imagining what would happen if the artificial intelligence, that we are so hell-bent on subjecting ourselves to, figured out how nonsensical our electoral practices are, how unrepresentative of the people they have become. In particular, because those electoral practices consistently ignore the candidate that, in any sensible mode of assessment, for any office, is Our true choice:
Nobody.
The 2020 Presidential election was the first since at least 1932 (the first year for which YFNA could find data that he could handle) in which a live person (Mr Biden) received more votes than Nobody – the choice of citizens eligible to vote who choose not to.
Do not ask why these people refuse to get with the program and vote. Ask why the system has degenerated to the point that it offers only Beeblebroxes to vote for. And why We have allowed this to become so.
Given the situation in the House of Representatives at present, YFNA chose to ask, “Are these people entitled to profess to be doing the people’s business? Do they have any business occupying their seats in the House versus those who have truly been selected by the electorate?”
It turns out that accurate figures – estimates really – for the voting-eligible population of each congressional district in these Untied States of America aren’t available online for any year after 2018. So YFNA chose that year as a proxy for 2023, and asked how many of those persons who call themselves Our Representatives truly belong there, how many of them received more votes than Nobody.
The answer, out of 435 seats in the house:
Twenty-seven.
27.
Twenty-seven persons in the lower house of the 116th Congress of the United States of America earned more votes than Nobody. Five (out of 53) from California, four (of 8) from Minnesota, three (of 9) from Massachusetts, two each from Colorado (7), Pennsylvania (18), Virginia (11), Washington (9), and Wisconsin (8), one each from Florida (27), Illinois (18), Maine (2), Maryland (8), and Oregon (5). That’s it.
Way, way short of a quorum.
In the 2018 Congressional elections, Nobody won 235 seats by an outright majority, the choice of 50% or more of the eligible voters in each district. On the strength only of those seats, Nobody is the party in power, gets to set the House rules, gets to name the Speaker, and Nobody gets the right to put up a fuss about any of it. Add to this the 173 Nobodies who won their seats by plurality, and you have a one-party state. Heil Nobody!
It doesn’t matter that Hakeem Jeffries is a nation-destroying commie with a lack of appropriate melanin deficiency, or that Jim Jordan is a nation-destroying nazi toady prepared to ensure that those cursed with melanin bend over at their master’s command, wrestlemaniacs. None of them – none of them – have a mandate, none have any business being anywhere near the Capitol, except as tourists that aren’t allowed anywhere near the building any more.
They are not Nobody.
And Nobody is the People’s Choice.
What mirrors?
Of the 27 humans who won seats in the 2018 Congressional election, 25 still hold them; one retired, one left the House to run (unsuccessfully) for the Senate. Twenty-five are registered Democrats, leaving only two Republicans (including the retiree). Fourteen of the 27 are male. Six of the 27 won majorities, including the unsuccessful Senate candidate.
The sole Republican who won election to the 116th (2018) Congress and is seated in the 118th, John Rutherford of Florida’s 4th District, has not featured in the current Speaker / leadership squabble. Of the dramatis personae of that event, Byron Donalds and Pete Sessions were not seated in the 116th Congress. The others:
Kevin McCarthy, currently representing California’s 20th district, was seated from California’s 23rd district in 2018. Nobody won a majority, 58% of eligible voters.
Matt Gaetz was seated from Florida’s 1st district. Nobody won a plurality, 46.4% of eligible voters.
Steve Scalise was seated from Louisiana’s 1st district. Nobody won a majority, with 54.7% of eligible voters.
Jim Jordan was seated from Ohio’s 4th district. Nobody won a majority, with 52.6% of eligible voters.
Jack Bergman was seated from Michigan’s 1st district. Nobody won a plurality, with 41.1% of eligible voters.
Tom Emmer was seated from Minnesota’s 6th district. Nobody won a plurality, with 39.9% of eligible voters.
Kevin Hern was seated from Oklahoma’s 2nd district. Nobody won a majority, with 61.7% of eligible voters.
Mike Johnson was seated from Louisiana’s 4th district. Nobody won a majority, with 61.2% of eligible voters.
Dan Meuser was seated from Pennsylvania’s 9th district. Nobody won a majority, with 55.2% of eligible voters.
Gary Palmer was seated from Alabama’s 6th district. Nobody won a plurality, with 48% of eligible voters.
Austin Scott was seated from Georgia’s 8th district. Nobody won a majority, with 62.3% of eligible voters.
Hakeem Jeffries was seated from New York’s 8th district. Nobody won a majority, with 62.1% of eligible voters.
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