Tag Archives: 2016 Election

The Electoral College Can and Must Deliver Us From Evil

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It’s reported that our Mussolini in waiting wants top secret security clearance for three of his children and his son-in-law, none of whom will be government employees as federal law requires. Instead, they will conduct the family business while their father conducts our business. How long will it be before T—p creates a palace guard so he can more easily ignore the rulings of judges trying to rein him in? 

Here’s a modest proposal:

Whatever you’re doing that isn’t required by the necessities of life, stop doing it and start publicizing the idea that the Electoral College can and must stop T—p from becoming President. The Electoral College got us into this mess (Hillary is winning by almost 700,000 votes at last count) and the Electoral College can get us out! That’s what the U.S. Constitution says.

If 40 or so Republican electors vote for a different Republican, the election goes to the House of Representatives and they can dump this monster. Will they? I hope so, because it’s the only realistic chance we have avoid imminent disaster.

The more we publicize the Electoral College option, the more people talk about it, post about it, contact Republican politicians about it, convince everyone they know about it, the more likely it will be that the Electoral College will deliver us from evil on December 19th.

The Republicans have released a monster on the world. Now they have to shut him down. 

The Electoral College Needs To Save Us From T—p

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More than 4 million people have signed a petition at Change.org urging members of the Electoral College to elect Hillary Clinton as President on December 19th. I signed it myself. 

If roughly 40 Republican electors join with the 230 or so Democratic electors in voting for Clinton, she will become our next President.

Unfortunately, since most of the electors who vote next month are Republicans, it is highly doubtful that even 40 of them would agree to give the Presidency to a Democrat, especially a Democrat they hate as much as they (foolishly) hate Hillary Clinton.

Yet most of America understands that T—p is dangerously unqualified to be President. Amazingly, that includes millions of Republicans who voted for him last week.

On December 19th, the members of the Electoral College that we chose last week (when many of us believed we were directly voting for the candidates) will cast their ballots in their respective state capitals and in the District of Columbia.

If the electors vote the way their respective states voted, Mr. Trump will become President on January 21st. However, the electors can vote for someone else if they choose. Even in states where that is not allowed, their vote would still be counted – they would pay a small fine – which concerned Americans and citizens of the world would be glad to pay for them!

There are two realistic options. The first is that enough Republican electors will vote for someone other than T—p to throw the election into the House of Representatives. The House has decided three Presidential elections before (in 1801, 1825 and 1877). Since the Republicans control the House, they would undoubtedly select a Republican as President. Would they choose someone other than T—p? I sure hope so.

Of course, there is at least one petition at Change.org demanding that the electors choose a Republican other than T—p. (I’ve signed that one too.) So far, at least two electors are endorsing this idea, as described here.

Another possibility (although certainly less likely) is that at least 40 or so Republican electors will join with the 230 or so Democratic electors to elect a compromise or unity ticket. For example, another petition urges the Electoral College to elect the Republican Governor of Ohio, John Kasich, as President and the Democratic Senator from Virginia, Tim Kaine, as Vice President.

Governor Kasich sought the Republican nomination for President and Senator Kaine was chosen as the Democratic candidate for Vice President. Both have a long record of public service and are qualified to lead the Executive Branch of our government. Neither of them are extreme ideologues (although Kasich is sufficiently “conservative” to make Democrats frequently unhappy). 

Electing Kasich as President would acknowledge the fact that T—p won more states. Electing Kaine as Vice President would acknowledge the fact that Clinton got many more votes. As a Democrat, I’d prefer President Clinton or President Kaine, but any qualified Republican would be better than T—p.

If the Electoral College rejected T—p, millions of Americans would protest that the election was being stolen. But you can’t steal an election by obeying the Constitution. The men who wrote the Constitution feared the election of a dangerous or unqualified candidate. They trusted the electors from the various states to save the day if America faced an electoral crisis. That’s exactly what we face today.

Understanding T—p’s “Mind”

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Brian Leiter is a professor of philosophy and law at the University of Chicago. He has a blog that’s mainly for philosophers but often gets into politics. I think his take on T—p’s “mind” is worth reading. 

Leiter first suggests that T—p should be understood as a narcissist, not a sociopath (although I bet there’s an applicable diagnosis of narcissism with sociopathic tendencies). But the best part of Leiter’s post is when he describes T—p’s “Mafia mentality” that’s “familiar to any New Yorker who has paid attention”.  

By the way, Hillary Clinton is now leading T—p by roughly 600,000 votes or 1% of the votes cast. As someone remarked today: “Only in America does the political party that just got the most votes wonder what they have to do to win elections”.

And one more thing: Given that T—p is known for plastering his name everywhere, I wonder how he’d feel if we all used “T—p” instead? In every news article, in every TV graphic, on every computer screen, in every email. It would be a childish thing to do, of course. Or maybe not. Perhaps it would simply be disrespectful. That would be fitting. I began doing it yesterday and it’s definitely more pleasant than the alternative. Plus, assuming we make it that far, it could end up erasing his name from the history books. That’s a nice thought in itself.

Professor Leiter’s interesting post is here.

PS — And we could say “TP” in conversation. Using those two letters would be wonderfully evocative of what T—P and his supporters have done to America and the rest of the world.

This Week of All Weeks, Jane Addams Is Worth Thinking About

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Jane Addams (1860-1931) isn’t famous these days. At one time, however, she was the most-admired woman in America and well-known throughout the world.

Wikipedia lists her occupation as “social and political activist, author and lecturer, community organizer, public intellectual”. Her tombstone in Cedarville, Illinois, describes her as a “humanitarian, feminist, social worker, reformer, educator, author, publicist, founder of Hull House, President [of the] Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom”. It also notes that she won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.

Addams fought for women’s suffrage and is considered the founder of the social work profession in the United States. Sociologists view her as a social theorist. Philosophers place her in the school of philosophy known as Pragmatism.  At her death, some compared Jane Addams, who never sought political office, to her hero, Abraham Lincoln.

As this horrible week comes to a close, it may help us to consider Jane Addams as an example of, in Lincoln’s words, “the better angels of our nature”.

Today, Addams is best known as the principal founder of Hull House, the first “settlement house” in the United States. It opened its doors in Chicago in 1889 and continued to operate until 2012. Its initial goal was to help recent immigrants find their place in American society, because Addams’s purpose in life was to convert her progressive ideas into action.

Here is a passage from Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy by Jane Bethke Elshtain:

The statement of purpose in Hull-House’s charter read: “To provide a center for a higher civic and social life; to institute and maintain educational and philanthropic enterprises, and to investigate and improve the conditions in the industrial districts of Chicago”; but this fails to capture the spirit and the manifold activities of Hull-House. Addams refined this statement over the years. It was a “place for enthusiasms”; it helped “give form to social life”; it offered “the warm welcome of an inn”; it was a place for mutual interpretation of the the social classes one to another; it responded to ethical demands and shared fellowship; it was a place for the life of the mind….

At the conclusion of her second autobiographical volume, The Second Twenty Years at Hull-House, Addams takes another stab at it: “It was the function of settlements to bring into the circle of knowledge and fuller life, men and women who might otherwise be left outside” [ p. 92].

The work of Hull House “gained expression in day nurseries, kindergarten classes, playgrounds, boys’ and girls’ clubs, a cooperative boardinghouse, theater workshops, music schools, language classes, reading groups, handicraft centers and eventually a Labor Museum” [p. 93].

In the early days, after Addams and a Hull House resident named Julia Lathrop came to the aid of a young woman, all alone, giving birth in a nearby tenement, Addams exclaimed:

“This doing things that we don’t know how to do is going too far. Why did we let ourselves be rushed into midwifery?” To which [Lathrop] replied: “If we have to begin to hew down to the line of our ignorance, for goodness’ sake don’t let us begin at the humanitarian end. To refuse to respond to a poor girl in the throes of childbirth would be a disgrace to us forevermore. If Hull-House does not have its roots in human kindness, it is no good at all” [p. 93].

We might say the same thing about the United States of America during the months and years ahead.

Taking Advantage of the Electoral College: Two Possibilities

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I don’t know about you, but I’m still avoiding the news. 

I do know, however, as votes are still being counted, Hillary Clinton is leading her opponent. She has 60.5 million; he has 60.1 million. (And roughly 6.2 million fools voted for candidates who had no chance to win.) In fact, her margin will continue to grow, since California is still counting votes and California voters strongly support Clinton. 

In a better world, these results would mean Clinton won the election. But in this world, we didn’t hold just one election. We held 51 separate elections, one for each state and one for the District of Columbia. The winner of each of those 51 elections thereby received a certain number of “electoral votes”. 

For example, Clinton beat her opponent by more than 2.5 million votes in California. That means she will get all of California’s 55 electoral votes. But if she’d won the state by 1,000 votes instead, she’d still get all 55. With some very minor exceptions, it’s winner-take-all. This is the system our founding fathers came up with more than 200 years ago. 

Furthermore, the number of electoral votes each state receives isn’t based purely on population. California, for example, has about 38.5 million residents. Montana has 1 million. One might think that California would get 38 times as many electoral votes as Montana, but that’s not how it works. Each state (and D.C.) gets at least 3 electoral votes. So empty Montana gets 3, while not-empty California gets 55, or 18 times what Montana gets, not 38 times.

Another way of saying this is that because we elect a President in this strangely indirect way, individual votes cast in Montana are worth more than ones cast in California. 

Our founding fathers weren’t idiots, of course. The complicated system they devised was partly a way to give smaller states more representation than bigger states, because small states like Rhode Island were afraid they’d be bullied by big states like Virginia. That’s why the small states were given extra weight in choosing a President. (Why the big states weren’t equally concerned about being cheated is an interesting question.)

So, officially speaking, we won’t know who the next President will be until December 19th. That is when the various “electors” submit their ballots. 

But wait! The founding fathers didn’t completely trust the wisdom of the voters. They had more trust in the electors, who were presumed to be pillars of the community. The voters might prefer an orange-haired demagogue or TV personality as President. The electors would presumably know better. They might have the good sense to choose a former Senator and Secretary of State. They might even choose whichever candidate won the nationwide vote. The point is that there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that requires an elector to vote for the candidate who won that elector’s state.

Now, it’s true that some states would levy a small fine on an elector who applied his or her judgment and voted for someone who didn’t win the state’s presidential election. But other states don’t even levy a fine. Electors from those states can vote for anyone with no penalty at all (except a lot of criticism from disgruntled voters back in their home state).

The ability of the presidential electors to vote for whomever they want has given rise to a petition at Change.org. It calls for the Electoral College to choose Hillary Clinton on December 19th. If she ends up with, say, 230 electors pledged to her after all the statewide ballots are counted, she would only need 40 electors to switch to her. Whoever receives 270 electoral votes become President. That’s how the system was designed to work.

I don’t expect 40 or so Republican electors to do what’s best for their country and the world, so I’m not expecting much from the petition. But I signed it anyway, as have more than a million other people. As they say, any port in a storm, especially a  world-class (pardon my French) shit storm! 

Fortunately, there is another way to eventually use the Electoral College to make America a better place. Several states have already adopted legislation that would award their electoral votes to whoever wins the nationwide “popular” vote. The legislation will take effect in those states as soon as states with a combined total of 270 electoral votes pass the legislation. After that, whichever candidate got the most votes nationwide in the next Presidential election would automatically receive at least 270 electoral votes and become President. It wouldn’t matter how states that haven’t adopted the legislation allocated their electoral votes.

The great thing about this plan, which is called the National Interstate Popular Vote Compact, is that it wouldn’t require changing the U.S. Constitution. The anti-democratic effect of the Electoral College would be eliminated without eliminating the Electoral College itself.  It’s very difficult to amend our Constitution. It’s only been done fifteen times in the last 200 years. So a plan that uses the Electoral College instead of trying to get rid of it has much to recommend it. (Of course, as long as the Electoral College exists, some electors might still go their own way.)

As of 2016, ten states and the District of Columbia have joined the Compact. Their 165 electoral votes are 61% of the 270 votes needed for it to have legal force. In addition, the necessary  legislation is pending in Michigan and Pennsylvania. If those states adopt it, we’ll have 74% of the necessary 270 votes.

As you might expect, states controlled by Republicans are less likely to join the Compact. Republicans love the fact that they’ve won two of the last five Presidential elections while losing the popular vote (The man who became President lost to his Democratic opponent, Al Gore, by 550,000 votes in 2000).  That doesn’t mean, however, that the Compact will never come into play. It just means Democrats need to take control of more state governments.

It might even be possible to get the necessary legislation passed in Republican-controlled states using public referendums or ballot questions. Most people, if asked, would probably agree that the candidate who gets the most votes should win the election. Well-financed campaigns to get the issue on the ballot in several more states might hasten the day when the person who gets the most votes will always win the election.

Of course, many Americans already believe that’s how our system of government works. Whoever gets the most votes wins. Knowledge of the Constitution isn’t our strong point. After the election we just had, I don’t know what is.Â