Psst....wanna know a dirty little secret about the Electoral College?
As I noted in a previous post back in 2016, one of the reasons the Founders, especially Alexander Hamilton, designed the Electoral College was as a supposed fail-safe to prevent a dangerous and unqualified demagogue (especially one with foreign entanglements) from becoming President of the United States. (The 2016 election most ironically proved otherwise) Hamilton basically laid out the Federalist case for the Electoral College thusly, albeit combined with the sort of sneering elitism that even the most rabid Trump supporters would ironically claim to dislike today.
But there was also a much darker reason behind the creation of the Electoral College. To put it bluntly, it was explicitly designed to protect--wait for it--SLAVERY. In fact, that was the only way to get the Anti-Federalists in the southern slave states to sign on to the Constitution at all. That is why less-populous states get a disproportionately large amount of electoral votes (since slave states often had as many slaves as free citizens and each slave only counted as 3/5 of a person in the census and was not allowed to vote). And to this day, the Electoral College remains a bastion of white (sorry, "rural") privilege for the same reason. Not all that surprising, really.
Thus, the Electoral College is obsolete and currently serves no useful purpose anymore. In fact, the winner-take-all aspect, over and above the small state bias, was the primary reason Trump won the 2016 election despite getting nearly 3 million fewer votes than Hillary, so it actually does more harm than good to this country. Allocating electoral votes proportionally in each state instead of winner-take-all would go a long way to fixing it, and indeed Hillary would have won the electoral vote by changing just this aspect of the system. It would also make it harder to effectively cheat as well. But it would not solve all problems, and would in fact create a new problem--third-party candidates throwing the election into the House of Representatives when no one gets 270 majority--unless candidates with a de minimis amount of the popular vote (say, 5%) are then denied any electoral votes and/or only the top two or three candidates actually counting.
Therefore, all things considered, the very best and simplest solution is to abolish the Electoral College altogether, and elect the president by straight national popular vote going forward. And yesterday is not soon enough, since it clearly gives Trump an unfair advantage this time as well.
Of course, abolishing it entirely would require a constitutional amendment, and would thus be quite a long shot indeed, but there is a way to make it irrelevant by 2020. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) is the way to do it, making it so that that only the winner of the national popular vote would win 270 electoral votes and become President, while still technically keeping the Electoral College in place. Sign and share!
Showing posts with label electoral college. Show all posts
Showing posts with label electoral college. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 9, 2020
Tuesday, December 20, 2016
The Electoral College Is Completely Useless (Part Deux)
Psst....wanna know a secret about the Electoral College?
As I noted in the previous post, one of the reasons the Founders, especially Alexander Hamilton, designed the Electoral College was as a supposed fail-safe to prevent a dangerous and unqualified demagogue (especially one with foreign entanglements) from becoming President of the United States. (The 2016 election most ironically proved otherwise) Hamilton basically laid out the Federalist case for the Electoral College thusly, albeit combined with the sort of sneering elitism that even the most rabid Trump supporters would ironically claim to dislike today.
But there was also a much darker reason behind the creation of the Electoral College. To put it bluntly, it was explicitly designed to protect--wait for it--SLAVERY. In fact, that was the only way to get the Anti-Federalists in the southern slave states to sign on to the Constitution at all. That is why less-populous states get a disproportionately large amount of electoral votes (since slave states often had as many slaves as free citizens and each slave only counted as 3/5 of a person in the census and was not allowed to vote). And to this day, the Electoral College remains a bastion of white (sorry, "rural") privilege for the same reason.
Thus, the Electoral College is obsolete and currently serves no useful purpose anymore. In fact, the winner-take-all aspect, over and above the small state bias, was the primary reason Trump won the election despite getting nearly 3 million fewer votes than Hillary, so it actually does more harm than good to this country. Allocating electoral votes proportionally in each state instead of winner-take-all would go a long way to fixing it, and indeed Hillary would have won the electoral vote by changing just this aspect of the system. It would also make it harder to effectively cheat as well. But it would not solve all problems, and would in fact create a new problem--third-party candidates throwing the election into the House of Representatives when no one gets 270 majority--unless candidates with a de minimis amount of the popular vote (say, 5%) are then denied any electoral votes and/or only the top two or three candidates actually counting. Therefore, all things considered, the very best and simplest solution is to abolish the Electoral College altogether, and elect the president by straight national popular vote going forward.
Of course, abolishing it entirely would require a constitutional amendment, and would thus be quite a long shot indeed, but there is a way to make it irrelevant by 2020. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) is the way to do it, making it so that that only the winner of the national popular vote would win 270 electoral votes and become President, while still technically keeping the Electoral College in place. Sign and share!
As I noted in the previous post, one of the reasons the Founders, especially Alexander Hamilton, designed the Electoral College was as a supposed fail-safe to prevent a dangerous and unqualified demagogue (especially one with foreign entanglements) from becoming President of the United States. (The 2016 election most ironically proved otherwise) Hamilton basically laid out the Federalist case for the Electoral College thusly, albeit combined with the sort of sneering elitism that even the most rabid Trump supporters would ironically claim to dislike today.
But there was also a much darker reason behind the creation of the Electoral College. To put it bluntly, it was explicitly designed to protect--wait for it--SLAVERY. In fact, that was the only way to get the Anti-Federalists in the southern slave states to sign on to the Constitution at all. That is why less-populous states get a disproportionately large amount of electoral votes (since slave states often had as many slaves as free citizens and each slave only counted as 3/5 of a person in the census and was not allowed to vote). And to this day, the Electoral College remains a bastion of white (sorry, "rural") privilege for the same reason.
Thus, the Electoral College is obsolete and currently serves no useful purpose anymore. In fact, the winner-take-all aspect, over and above the small state bias, was the primary reason Trump won the election despite getting nearly 3 million fewer votes than Hillary, so it actually does more harm than good to this country. Allocating electoral votes proportionally in each state instead of winner-take-all would go a long way to fixing it, and indeed Hillary would have won the electoral vote by changing just this aspect of the system. It would also make it harder to effectively cheat as well. But it would not solve all problems, and would in fact create a new problem--third-party candidates throwing the election into the House of Representatives when no one gets 270 majority--unless candidates with a de minimis amount of the popular vote (say, 5%) are then denied any electoral votes and/or only the top two or three candidates actually counting. Therefore, all things considered, the very best and simplest solution is to abolish the Electoral College altogether, and elect the president by straight national popular vote going forward.
Of course, abolishing it entirely would require a constitutional amendment, and would thus be quite a long shot indeed, but there is a way to make it irrelevant by 2020. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) is the way to do it, making it so that that only the winner of the national popular vote would win 270 electoral votes and become President, while still technically keeping the Electoral College in place. Sign and share!
The Electoral College Is Completely Useless
On December 19, 2016, that 18th century relic known as the Electoral College effectively rubber-stamped Donald Trump as the 45th POTUS, proving that it is utterly useless in what Alexander Hamilton designed it for, i.e. preventing dangerous demagogues (especially with foreign entanglements) from ascending to the highest office in the land. Only six Electors defected (four from Hillary, two from the Donald), which was nowhere near the 38 required to flip the election or 37 required to throw it to the House of Representatives. Thus, no overall change.
Hillary won the popular vote by nearly 3 million, but still lost the electoral vote due to the winner-take-all aspect of the way electoral votes are allocated to the states. As a result, barring a miracle of miracles involving Congress and/or the courts, we will end up exactly the type of president that the Founders warned about. Thus, going forward we at the TSAP have this to say to the Electoral College: YOU'RE FIRED! (As your buddy would say)
Here is the letter I wrote to the Electors that were pledged to Trump, in an attempt to sway them:
Hillary won the popular vote by nearly 3 million, but still lost the electoral vote due to the winner-take-all aspect of the way electoral votes are allocated to the states. As a result, barring a miracle of miracles involving Congress and/or the courts, we will end up exactly the type of president that the Founders warned about. Thus, going forward we at the TSAP have this to say to the Electoral College: YOU'RE FIRED! (As your buddy would say)
Here is the letter I wrote to the Electors that were pledged to Trump, in an attempt to sway them:
Dear Electors,
My name is [Redacted] from [Redacted], NY.
I am gravely concerned about the clear and
present danger that Donald Trump poses to the United States of America
as well as globally. He has shown reckless disregard for even the most
rudimentary responsibilities that come with the awesome power of the
office of the presidency. He has behaved in a blatantly racist,
misogynistic, xenophobic, narcissistic, and dictatorial manner. He has
ignored intelligence briefings, recklessly pokes every proverbial angry
bear he can find globally with his tweets, nominated the worst possible
candidates to his cabinet, avoids the media, reneged (or plans on
reneging) on most of his campaign promises, and has apparently received
help via hacking, propaganda, and election sabotage from his buddy
Vladimir Putin, an authoritarian dictator who is clearly no friend of
the United States as of late. FBI director James Comey also played his
own role in sabotage his opponent with a phony scandal while
simultaneously ignoring Russian hacking. In spite of such sabotage and
skulduggery, Hillary Clinton still managed to win the national popular
vote nonetheless by nearly three million votes--just not where those
votes really mattered due to the winner-takes-all aspect of the
Electoral College system. And while the (curiously aborted) recount
efforts have not proven anything, they have not actually disproven
anything either, and several "irregularites" benefiting Trump in crucial
swing states have been found to one degree or another. In other words, a
dangerous demagogue who is woefully unqualified and unfit for
command--the kind that the Founders warned about and in fact created the
Electoral College in order to prevent--ironically has managed to ascend
to the presidency thus far.
In light of the above facts, please do the right thing and vote for Hillary. Doing so would be good for America and good for democracy overall. And if you somehow can't bring yourself to do that, at least vote for someone other than Trump. Our nation and world literally depend on it. Whether you vote for Trump or not, your decision is certain to anger roughly half of the population either way, so you might as well do it for good and vote your conscience.
In light of the above facts, please do the right thing and vote for Hillary. Doing so would be good for America and good for democracy overall. And if you somehow can't bring yourself to do that, at least vote for someone other than Trump. Our nation and world literally depend on it. Whether you vote for Trump or not, your decision is certain to anger roughly half of the population either way, so you might as well do it for good and vote your conscience.
Thank you for your time and consideration, I appreciate and respect the role you serve in our electoral process.
Sincerely,
[Redacted]
[Redacted]
(Ajax the Great)
Clearly, if that couldn't sway them, nothing would. They clearly had their minds made up. But truly hindsight is 2020--pun intended, of course. That is the year we must RE-DEFEAT TRUMP. Bigly. If he is still even in office at that point, that is. At the rate he is going, if he is not disqualified before taking office, he is very likely to get himself impeached, resign in disgrace, or even die in office due to either poking the wrong angry bear one too many times (which he apparently luuurrrves to do) or simply having a massive heart attack from his fiery temper, stress, junk food diet, obesity, and sedentary lifestyle. Believe me.
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