In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. – Exodus 16:2

Today's Scripture Reading (October 3, 2021): Exodus 16

In 2016, the United States had a national election. Donald Trump won the election due to a quirk of the political system, even though more people voted for Hillary Clinton. It is not really an unusual result. The electoral system of the United States tries to give power to both the people and the regions. Democratic urban centers were able to pack in the vote for Clinton, but the rural power of the Republicans gave them a larger voice. And the reality of this rural power was part of the post-election reflection of Donald Trump and his allies in the 2020 U.S. election. The hope was that the same thing could have happened again, albeit taking a different path. Part of the Trump drive to invalidate the votes of some regions of the country was not madness, as some have argued. If Trump could put enough questions out there to cause doubt in certain areas, he hoped that he could drive Joe Biden below the 270 electoral number needed to declare a president, then Congress would settle the decision with a "one vote – one state" system. The Republicans would have control of more states and, therefore, could theoretically win the election, even though they once again lost the popular vote.

The 2016 election resulted in a "not my president" movement. The idea was that more people voted for Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump (48.2% for Clinton and 46.1% for Trump). What is often missed in the electoral post mortem is that neither candidate enjoyed the support of the majority of the people; neither Clinton nor Trump got more than 50% of the vote. In elections where there are more than two viable parties, that effect is even more significant. In the 2021 Canadian Election, Justin Trudeau won the election to become Prime Minister with only 31.8% of the popular vote. This meant that more than two out of every three Canadians could say they were not supporters of the country's current leader; Justin Trudeau was "not their Prime Minister."

During good times, probably none of this matters. If everything is going well, we can wait for the next election. It is only in a time of crisis that the "not my President" campaigns begin to take root. But the truth is that in almost every election, most of us can claim that the one in charge of the nation is not the one for whom we voted.

Things have been going reasonably well for Israel. The nation survived the potential disaster that came on them at the Red Sea and the water shortage that took place at Marah. But now, the food was beginning to run out. We should understand that no one had died of hunger, not yet. It is unlikely that the people had missed a meal, but there was no question that the food the Israelites had brought with them out of Egypt was quickly disappearing. The people needed to find a source of food. As a result of this potential shortfall, the people began to grumble. Who was this Moses anyway, the leader who had enticed them away from the relative safety of Egypt? He wasn't their leader, not their President. And maybe it was time to choose someone else before things got too bad.

But God had chosen Moses, and he made up the majority all by himself. And God had other plans.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Exodus 17