So what does politicizing an eclipse look like? It’s crazy to consider because who would do that? The Boston Globe either gets the credit or blame because they show us how the unthinkable can become reality.
The path of viewing spots for this month’s solar eclipse cuts overwhelmingly through places that voted for Trump. https://t.co/uymDqqKAsO pic.twitter.com/1yoUuN0Wp5
— The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) August 1, 2017
Matt Rocheleau writes:
There are about 240 counties roughly along the central path of the eclipse, a 70-mile-wide trail extending across the country where people will be able to see a total eclipse, meaning the sun will appear completely obscured by the moon.
And about 92 percent of those counties swung in Trump’s favor, while fewer than two dozen counties voted for his opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Trump won many of those counties by a wide margin, securing an average of 71 percent of the vote in counties he won along the path. Clinton, by comparison, got only about 56 percent of the vote in counties she won along the eclipse path.
And of the more than 6.2 million votes cast in those counties for one of those two candidates, 59 percent were for Trump, while 41 percent were for Clinton.
That stands in stark contrast to the overall results of the 2016 election, in which about 51 percent of votes cast for either candidate went to Clinton, while about 49 percent went to Trump.
Who cares? Seriously, who cares? If you are a Democrat you may, gasp, have to go to a county that is mostly Republican to view the solar eclipse. More than likely if you are a Democrat in one of these peak solar eclipse states it is likely you are already the minority.
What editor thought hey this is a great story, let’s run with it. This is something that I would expect to find at The Onion instead of the Boston Globe. It must have been a slow news day. More than likely it was another opportunity to point out, yet again, that Trump lost the popular vote.
He continues with this absurdity:
Clinton won more voters overall because she captured densely populated urban areas, including New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston. Trump, by contrast, won many rural areas with small populations.
Perhaps it’s not a surprise that the solar eclipse is passing over Trump strongholds given that the president himself was born during a lunar eclipse.
Why stop at solar eclipses? I mean tornados are more likely to touch down in Republican counties than Democrat ones. Hurricanes hit Republican-leaning states more than Democrat-leaning states.
What else can we politicize? Methane levels caused by cow flatulence? Earthquakes? Forest Fires?
Look if you think you need to inject politics into things like solar eclipses may I suggest to you that it is time to get a life.
Shane Vander Hart
