Space, like the US presidential election, has a lot of nothing going on.
Space, like the US presidential election, has a lot of nothing going on. NASA

The thing is nothing won this election. Indeed, nothing is always the big winner in US elections. What one must keep in mind is when a citizen does not vote, they actually do vote for something—that something is nothing. This is just like the physics described by Frank Wilczek in his book The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces. Nothing is not really nothing. It is a vibrant void. It is an ether. It is there.

90 million Americans did not vote in this election. That is 30 million more than those who voted for Hillary Clinton, a something something; and 30 million more than Trump, a deplorable something. But here is the good news for the left (and lord knows you need good news right now): It is easier to transform that nothing into something on the left than something on the right. History provides the substance for this assertion. In 2008, Obama activated a vast amount of nothing into 10 million votes above his opponent, John McCain, whose performance at the polls was about the same as Donald Trump.

There was no Trump excitement of the vibrant nothingness. No Trump surge. The rural vote is a problem, yes, but is also stagnant. The GOP vote has been flat for four consecutive presidential elections, and there is little to indicate that it is going to grow. What the left needs to focus on is how to get more out of this nothing. It is there for them in a way it is not there for the right. 10 million votes have reverted to the ether between 2008 and now. The next election should have a program and philosophy of this absence.