One of the interesting positive byproducts of all this is the media attention...
An interesting byproduct of the cluster fuck that is Trump's presidency is the intense media focus on all the mechanisms of government that come into play from the election night right up till the president elect assumes office. This may be something that I'm more aware of as an outsider. I tend to follow US politics closer than most of my fellow Canadian friends but not ever having to take part in the act of voting in your elections the details of the mechanisms involved I tend to gloss over.
I suspect though that this is the same for the majority of Americans too, just as it is for the majority of the population of most democratic nations. People are usually only interested up till election night and the results, if that. The details that come into play after election night are of little interest to the majority of the public. I'm not saying this is a good thing, an ill informed public is an easily manipulated public, but this fact is true in most nations. The people who DO pay attention and know the details of course are the politicians themselves, and the minority of the public who are passionately political, like the demographic of this board.
Another reason that little attention is paid to the nitty gritty details is that they tend to only come into play under extreme circumstances. When the cart has gone off the tracks, or when the people in question are of unusually questionable taste. Otherwise the machinery that is put in motion post election night is often almost an automated process, with a few exceptions here and there.
Not this time. This time intense focus has been paid to all the gears and working mechanisms of the process. Because this time the outcome has been anything but expected. When did you ever think that CNN and the like would devote long articles and front page news to the details of the electoral college? Or that they would be covering the entire senate review process in nail biting, minute by minute, edge of your seat coverage?
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