Reason One: Principle. If you respect the Constitution and the balance that it struck, then sticking with the Electoral College is important. The Electoral College is ensconced in the Constitution to protect the country from the dangers of democracy and because the Founders wanted to balance the interests of large and small states and rural and urban voters. I’ll deal with democracy in a moment. What is relevant here is that switching to the popular vote will make most of rural America and small states entirely irrelevant.
Right now, politicians visit North Dakota and Wyoming because they can sway the election. Even though they only have a handful of voters compared to Los Angeles or New York, they still control enough electoral votes that the candidates spend time trying to win over those voters. If we switched to the popular vote, a candidate could win the election simply by winning over a handful of large cities.
Imagine Candidates X and Y spending all their time in New York City, Los Angeles, Washington, and Boston. You would see no attempt made to address land issues, farming, manufacturing, etc. The issues of those cities would be the issue of American presidential elections. By keeping the Electoral College, the candidate who ignores the small states does so at his peril. Switch to the popular vote and they will ignore small states because it makes sense.
Reason Two: Philosophical. The point above feeds into the second. Democracy is inherently more dangerous than a republican form of government. In a popular vote system, the tendency of the candidates will be to pander to the single largest group at the exclusion of all the minority groups. That not only promotes group hate/exclusion, as well as feelings of not being represented, but it also leads to the dominant group robbing the minority groups -- a common form of “government” in Africa.
Imagine Candidate X pandering to white trash America and promising to squeeze every other class and race to their benefit, or Candidate Y promising black/Hispanic America that they will rob white America blind if elected.
The Electoral College prevents this because it forces people into different groups. In other words, the election is no longer about black or white or male or female or whatever differences we find ourselves, instead it becomes an “us v. them” fight between small states and large states, rural and urban voters, etc. Switch to the popular vote and those distinctions become meaningless and will be replaced by more obvious differences like race, gender and class. (Right now, race, gender and class are only some factors that the parties use. The key difference is "rural culture" versus "urban culture.")
Reason Three: Practical. Finally, let’s look at this realistically. Right now, liberal America has neutered its voting power by moving to a handful of states en mass. Keep this in mind, in an Electoral System, every single vote beyond 50% + 1 vote is wasted because it’s not needed to carry the state for the candidate. Thus, when California votes 60-40% for the liberal, those extra 20% of voters are essentially throwing away their votes. If they could spread out, they could swing other states. Indeed, in 2012, California had 2.3 million extra Democratic voters. That’s more excess voters than the number of voters in 35 different states.
Switching to a popular vote system would be the equivalent of spreading these liberals out perfectly. Essentially, California and New York’s excess liberals could be used to offset conservative margins in North Dakota, Colorado, Alabama, etc. The result would be ugly for conservatives.
If you exclude second terms (where popular vote always rises... except in the case of Obama), only Reagan, Bush Sr. and Ike won the popular vote, and Bush Sr. was riding Reagan’s coattails. We haven’t won the popular vote (except for Bush’s second term) since 1992. What’s more, with shifting demographics, the gap in the popular vote will continue to grow over time. It’s only because liberals cluster in a handful of cities that they don’t control the White House in perpetuity.
Strikes me as a bad idea all around to switch.
Thoughts?
31 comments:
"I learned all I needed to know about democracy by reading Thucydides."
-Thomas Jefferson (probably a slight paraphrase)
The source Jefferson refers to is Greek historian Thucydides' account of the Peloponnesian War (431 BC - 404 BC).
Basically, after defeating Xerxes and the Persians, Athens went on a rampage, building an empire in the name of creating a defensive league against potential future Persian invasion. Eventually, the Athenians went from protectors to tyrants, forcing city-states to join their empire or else. Finally, Sparta, its own power threatened, had enough and the two warred for 30 years. Sparta eventually won.
Thucydides portrays Athens as an out-of-control democracy, ruled by demagogues who stayed in power by pandering to the greediest and- dare I say- "fringiest" parts of the Athenian electorate. Thus, he explains the dangers of popular democracy. He also sings the praises of Sparta's ultra-strict governing system of checks and balances.
Even allowing for Thucydides' personal feelings (he wrote after the war and blamed Athenian greed for the result), it is quite revealing about how imperfect democracy can be and how a republic is preferable.
That's my quickie two cents for now. Gotta go to bed. Be back tomorrow.
Rustbelt, Nice addition! Republics seem much more stable than pure democracies because there's a delay in implementing the worst ideas and because there are always representatives of the people being oppressed who can fight for them. In a pure democracy, the majority can go hog wild, and that opens the doors to demagogues.
I'm a big supporter of the Electoral College. I'm always surprised by the number of people who think we used to have popular vote for the POTUS. The Founding Fathers were very wise, they foresaw so many issues, even if the particulars weren't clear a the time. I'm not sure that Senators being appointed for life was a bad thing, very often, they got to DC and stopped being a member of a political party and started being United States Senators..unbridled democracy is dangerous...the Athenians were voting whether or not to go to war with Sparta, while the Spartans were coming over their walls...thank you for posting this question, I can't wait to see some of the responses.
As they say, democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner.
Ug. I'm thinking of digging up Ben Franklin and roughing up the corpse. I hate Daylight Savings Time.
You're welcome, Critch. This is something I know the Democrats would like to change very badly. Hopefully, they don't succeed.
tryanmax, That is an apt description of what ultimately happens once the people realize they can use the government to get things from their neighbors.
In slightly-related news...
...I just hate when the parents fight. ;-D
Michelle Fields, Ben Shapiro Resign From Breitbart
And Trump was actually speaking 10 minutes from my house yesterday evening. I didn't hear anything out of the ordinary and so far, no reports of anything stupid. Then again, it's Florida so the line between Trump crazy and regular crazy is a rather thin one!
I like Ben Shapiro, but he's always struck me as a little naive. It's too bad it takes something like this for him to realize that Breitbart is no longer what it was established to be.
From my vantage, the shift didn't take long. The merger of the "Bigs" into a single site was underway before Andrew's death, but as soon as the consolidation occurred, the tone of the site shifted. It's somehow fitting that it all occurred at once, providing a bright line between then and now.
Shapiro always struck me as sheltered and out of touch with humanity.
^That. :-)
As for the electoral college, I've also read the opposite of your last sentence: liberals might cluster in cities but many leave for economic reasons and end up in red states. Statistically, maybe it changes nothing. But it'll be interesting to see where things are in 20 years.
Scott, The number of people moving to rural areas is tiny. The number of people moving to red states is growing, but so far they haven't changed most of the states too much. Virginia and Colorado have gone from red to purple and Florida has gone from red to pink, but so far that's it.
That said, as people keep flying the Northeast and California, they tend to leave behind more an even bigger liberal skew.
Switching to a popular vote would let that skew balance out the pro-red votes in dozens of other states.
Texas has had the largest influx of the shifting population. Lots of liberal Democrats from CA. However, in the last 100 years (at least), Texas has gone from conservative Democrats to conservative Republicans. So the idea that the "Turn Texas Blue" campaign that started in the 2014 election cycle would work is kind of delusional. Of course I could be wrong, but then I know Texans.
Bev, They have changed some other states, but those were tiny states compared to Texas. I doubt they can turn Texas blue. But that's the thing about the popular vote. If they get that, then they don't need to. All those excess California will offset Texas red votes.
But a funny thing happens on the way to relocation...once outside their own little liberal bubble, thinking people get to see issues from a different perspective and change.
Anyway, I whole-heartedly believe the Electoral system works. It allows all states to have a more equal stake in our Presidential elections.
Btw, there is an idea floating around now to change the SC appointment to a term limited appointment. This is nothing new, but there is a reason why the SC has lifetime appointments. The same reason that the House has only 2 yr terms and the Senate has 6 yr terms. Continuity of the system. If we renewed all of our leaders every 4 years, we would have a real mess on our hands.
I just remembered, there is a National Popular Vote Compact that has been floating around since 2006. The basic idea is that a group of states will agree to cast their Electoral Votes in alignment with the popular vote. The catch is that the Compact doesn't go into effect until the it holds a majority. That way, no one can see their state's vote stolen and demand a repeal before its backers get at least one win.
The Compact has been proposed in all 50 states and has become law in 10 states and DC. The members are all decidedly "blue" states. Still, it's probably something to keep an eye on. While a few states simply passed it, in NY, CA, and RI the bill's backers kept bringing it for a vote until it got through.
I think it's interesting to note that I haven't heard much about this while a Democrat has occupied the White House.
Tryanmax - National Popular Vote - yeah, that's when Texas takes the nuclear option and splits into 5 states. Yeah, it can do that as a privilege given to Texas as a unique condition of its annexation to the Union in 1845.
Re: National Popular Vote Compact
I'm of course not a lawyer but I like to pretend I know what I'm talking about. I can't see how this would pass the Supreme Court. Based on their kookie reading, a state wouldn't even have to hold an election and just allow their delegates to go to the person with the higher votes. A state filled with people who really can't stand a candidate would be forced to vote for that candidate if they won the popular vote? Talk about disenfranchisement. You also know if a GOP won the popular vote but lost the college, these states would not switch their votes.
This recent garbage started with the whole Bush vs. Gore, who if he would have won his home state would have won the presidency.
Bev, if only leaving their blue and dysfunctional state would fix it. What happens is they show up in the red state and start bitching about how what is being done here isn't what was being done there and we need to change it. They are like a cancer infesting throughout slowly making the state sick until they abandon it for another.
Koshcat, That they are. They do the same thing here. They come to Colorado because they soiled and ruined their own state and the first thing they do is try to remake Colorado in the image of the hell hole they come from. Liberals never learn.
Koshcat, Sadly, I think the Supreme Court would let them do this because legally the states can decide how they want to handle their votes. The disenfranchisement argument would be close though -- though the same argument could be made now against the electoral college.
tryanmax and Koshcat, It did indeed take off after Bush Gore and it seems to have died down now that their guy is in the White House. That's a reason I never give any credence to the positions of liberals because their principles only apply when they give them some advantage.
So I did a little playing around with the 270 to win site and Real Clear Politics, and I think this whole election is going to be down to Ohio alone.
ScottDS - It looks like more people are resigning from Breitbart News. Two more this afternoon.
I just got back from my colonoscopy (everythings good) and I'm happy to see so many responses. This is why I come here. A die hard conservative friend is convinced that popular vote is the way to go, and I can't seem to explain to him that the Founding Fathers had this figured out...he's nice guy, just ill informed.
In a sane universe beating this person would be easy.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/432790/hillary-clinton-coal-policy-put-coal-miners-out-business
Clinton made sure to mention “those people [who] labored in those mines for generations, losing their health, often losing their lives to turn on our lights and power our factories — now we’ve got to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels — but I don’t want to move away from the people who did the best they could to produce the energy that we relied on.” How does Hillary plan to help out former coal miners and coal-industry workers after she’s put them “out of business”? Renewable-energy projects, of course. Oh, and there will be some government pork to help out all the newly unemployed.
None, not one of those government programs designed to help workers displaced by any myriad of reasons has ever worked, none...she will replace coal with trillions of dollars of crony capitalism for her buddies..
Critch, Glad to hear it all went well!
Unfortunately, some people aren't always equipped with facts.
The hateful children at Breitbart at really disgracing themselves: Mocking Shapiro.
tryanmax, That could well be. Ohio seems to be the one truly undecided state in the past few elections.
That toto thing must be a robot because whenever you mention the national popular vote, it shows up and posts the same comment. It's done it to us a half dozen time.
Tis Soros spam.
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