History and Rationale of The Electoral College

Weeks after Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in this year’s presidential election, liberal politicians, progressive groups and activists are attempting to undermine/eliminate the results along with fundamental institutions created by the Founding Fathers.

Clinton appears to have won the national popular vote in 2016, primarily fueled by massive landslides in populous Democratic cities/states like LA/California, NYC/New York, and Chicago/Illinois. This has sparked efforts to do away with the state-based Electoral College. Though a huge part of the anti-Electoral College push is sour grapes in the wake of a surprise electoral defeat, it serves the broader interest of the progressive movement’s goal to both delegitimize the incoming administration and subvert the idea of federalism as enshrined in the Constitution.

The Electoral College was carefully designed by the Founders after lengthy deliberation at the 1787 Constitutional Convention. The design is this: Americans don’t cast their vote for president, but instead for electors pledged to their preferred candidate. Each state has a set number of electors based on the total number of representatives and senators. If one is so inclined, you can read about why the Founders created this seemingly complex system via social media or historical text.

Opponents of the Electoral College claim that the institution is fundamentally flawed. This narrative couldn’t be farther from the truth, as the issues surrounding the election prove exactly why the Electoral College is such an excellent system for the United States. What is lost in the Electoral College debate is the underlying attack on America’s cherished and inherited idea of federalism. 

The Founders in their wisdom designed this republic with the intent of checking ambition with ambition, and delegating specific powers to both the national as well as state governments. They created a nation in which states could operate independently, experimenting with different policies and laws to fit their people.

The elimination of the Electoral College would be just another blow to the role of the states in the American system of government. No longer would presidential candidates have to appeal to the farmers of rural North Carolina or Minnesota alongside the bankers of urban New York or the industrialists of Chicago or the moguls of Tinsel town (Hollywood). They would be incentivized to campaign directly to the interests of the largest population centers alone.

Why not Petreaus for Secretary of State

No doubt Rudi Guiliani, a staunch loyalist and the face of our grieving Nation on 9/11, would make an excellent Secretary of State.  Mitt Romney?  Steady mollifier, a proven manager-in-chief, turn-key source for dispassionate counsel. Comes now a new name, General David Petreaus.  Here is a man heavy on leadership skills, if human, failed in the way men can be, burdened with baggage from the Obama years.  But also a man with battle scars.  There is something to be said for battle scars.   

He knows combat operations, policy making, academics, and has an intuition for diplomacy, a formidable foundation. More smooth and polished than constructively disruptive and Trump-like, Petreaus can speak the bureaucratic language, even as he unmakes a bureaucracy.  He thinks big, often outside the box, even though he came from it – understands the chain of command, box of sand, four corners of cut orders.  His biggest weakness?  Ego, audacity, unforced errors, supreme self-assurance, with a weakness for press – although these can be advantages, and have been tempered by recent events.  Biggest strength?  Ego, can-do, a never say die attitude until job is done, which helped us win in Iraq, until the Obama White House reversed the win.

Progressive Left's Politics of Detestation

Are we a deeply divided nation? Maybe. But if we are divided the cause of that division comes squarely from the left, not the right. In virtually every case, the people who are cancelling reunions and refusing to talk to their friends and family members are Hillary supporters. The Times reported not a single instance of a Trump voter shun. What’s the cause of all this? I think it is identity politics.

Remember, the two candidates ran completely different campaigns. Trump’s campaign was an issues campaign, mainly economic issues. In every speech he gave, he complained about abandoned factories, lost jobs and low wages. Even if he was completely wrong about the cause of those problems (bad trade deals), his was still campaigning on issues. 

Hillary Clinton, by contrast, ran a largely issueless campaign. Do you know what her position was on international trade? Of course not. What she said in private was the opposite of what she said in public. On the Pacific trade deal, as a candidate she contradicted everything she said while she was Secretary of State. Her confidants quietly advised worried Wall Street backers that they could safely ignore what was being said publicly on the campaign trail. But none of that matters because Hillary wasn’t asking people to vote for her because of differences with Donald Trump over trade policy anyway. Or on corporate tax reform. Or school choice. Or safe neighborhoods. Or environmental policy. Or any other policy. 

Hillary’ s entire campaign, and the Democratic Party’s approach to elections in general, is based on appeals to people as members of racial, ethnic and sociological groups. Since the days of Franklin Roosevelt, the Democratic Party has approached people as groups, pitted group against group, and promised each to protect them from outsiders. In the Roosevelt era, the appeal was almost exclusively to economic groups. 

Today the Democratic party has largely abandoned economic appeals in favor of identity politics. For example, they ask blacks to vote for them because they are black, not because of any policy differences they have with their opponents. And their appeals carry with them an assault on the opposition, either express or implied: The Republican candidate is anti-black. The same approach is used with Hispanics, women, the LGBT community, etc.  

For example, here is Michelle Obama telling a black audience they had a duty to vote Democrat, no matter who is on the ticket. (And by implication, no matter what the candidate stands for or what he or she would do once in office.) Her husband was even worse. But you can check it out for yourself. Just Google the words “Obama” and “race baiting” and see how many links pop up.  

Now if the election were covered fairly, it would be obvious that one side is talking about issues and the other is not. Even the mainstream media viewed the entire election the same way Hillary Clinton did. Even the “Fair and Balanced” Fox News spent almost the entirety of election night talking about how many blacks were voting versus whites, or women versus men – as if demography were destiny at the polls.  

Identity politics works on some voters. I have heard stories, seen on news broadcasts, and were told by readers of my blog that women were actually breaking down crying at the mere mention of the election results. Are they crying because NAFTA may be renegotiated? Or the pipeline may be built? Of course not. If elections are about identity, then elections are about you in a very personal way. If the other candidate wins, you have been personally rejected. I would probably cry too if I were naïve enough to believe all that. As I have stated in past posts, Donald Trump uttered not one word during the election that was anti-black, anti-Semitic or anti-gay. Although he may have been insensitive, he really never said anything that was anti-Hispanic. In fact, it’s just the opposite. 

Constabulary of Yesterday and Today in America

Almost four centuries ago, the Pilgrims at the Plymouth colony published the 1636 Book of Laws and authorized the local militia to enforce that criminal code creating, essentially, the first police department in America. Times were simpler then. The "laws in old Plymouth town combined church dicta and English common law to combat, mostly, crimes of moral turpitude like public intoxication, gambling and fornication." Offenses like drive-by shootings and position with intent to sell meth, crack cocaine and other sundry illegal drugs were considerably less common. Whatever the crime, the punishment was swift and certain – and exacting.

Crimes like arson, rape and even "smiting your parent were punishable by death." The settlement’s general court enacted the laws, passed judgment and carried out the punishment. More than just judge, jury and executioner, they were also the legislative body for the colony. Plymouth’s fledgling government was ardently devoted to law and order and to those who enforced it.

Candidates for the general court of Plymouth likely ran on a “tough on crime” platform. It would’ve been highly irregular for a candidate to side with a young Pilgrim who turned deadly violence against a militiaman. Certainly, the convening of a candidate’s political supporters at the town lodge wouldn’t have embraced the criminal element by featuring the mothers of would-be constable (cop) killers. You see, in pre-colonial days, those who kept the peace were held in high regard, and those who disrupted it found their way to the blocks, jail house or the hangman’s noose.

Nearly four centuries later, the criminals are better armed, greater in number and more violent than ever. More and more frequently, that violence is aimed toward the keepers of the peace, the modern-day militiamen and militiawomen who labor to keep our post-colonial communities safe.

Death by gunfire for police officers is up by record numbers this year, and death by ambush is up more than double. Still, some abnegate the existence of the war on police with the same confounding vigor as Holocaust deniers. Those soulless empty-minded instead glorify the desperate criminals who try to kill police officers when the cop is lucky enough to get the drop on his cowardly attacker. The reality is, American police officers are constantly on the receiving end of deadly violence today. Sometimes they subdue their attacker with appropriate force, sometimes – too frequently – it’s the cop who lay bleeding on the street.

During this Thanksgiving season– the tradition handed down to us by those very same early Americans who gave us our first laws and our first law enforcement officers – I am eminently thankful for the heroes that toil to keep our America safe. It is no small task in this expansive, violent nation that has evolved from that small settlement at Plymouth.

The Pilgrims who forged this nation would be appalled (as this writer is) by our propensity as a nation to devalue the lives of peace keepers and celebrate the lives of those who threaten the peace. The Pilgrims were smart enough to value those who enforced their early code of laws and they were devout enough to give thanks for their many blessings. Law Enforcement Officers are a blessing to those who uphold the law. Just maybe, we in America might want to re-visit the Pilgrims "Book of Laws."

My Thanksgiving Day Prayer

Thank You, Lord, for allowing us to live in the greatest country in the world – one where we as citizens are permitted to live in freedom, to speak our minds, to debate the great issues of the day openly and without fear and, most of all, to worship You and to tell others about You and Your Gospel of saving grace and redemption. And forgive those of us who take all this for granted too often.

Yet, from the earliest commemorations of Thanksgiving here in America, this was the common denominator that brought people of the New World together. I’m so thankful to be part of a country where worshiping You is not a crime – yet. I’m thankful we have the opportunity to tell others about You. I’m thankful You have blessed this land in so many ways.

I’m thankful for Your patience with us, who, despite our countless blessings, do not often recognize from where they come. I’m thankful we have abundant food today – that we get to celebrate this solemn occasion in the warmth of our homes, with our families and friends. I’m thankful we have such abundance that we can share it with those less fortunate, not just here in our homeland, but around the world.

Suck It Up Snowflake

Academia’s activists today are clear-cutting vast swaths of civil society to make room for "reason-free zones" where feelings outrank facts -- they call them "safe spaces", more recently “cry zones” and if they had their predilections, the entirety of the continent, if not the earth itself, would be one beach lounge chair-strewn and beer cooler realm of hugging and unapologetic whining. How do we stop such nonsense that is now permeating our universities and its staffs and student snowflakes? We begin by recognizing that there's a certain breed of guilty white liberals (academia) who actually enjoy being called racist, confessing their racial sins and denouncing less advanced white people. The hot new term for this is "virtue signaling" -- a way of communicating how enlightened you are. And the buttercups through their own ignorance become no more than lemmings running to their own ruination.

How about this proposal by our local state and national legislators: "Suck it up, Wallflower" bill to punish all state and private post-secondary schools who receive state and federal funding that responded to the election of President-elect Donald Trump by coddling their students like a bunch of overindulged brats. Are not our representatives seeing what you and I are seeing? Are these universities not using tax payer dollars to set up "cry zones" so people can talk about their feelings and how sensitive they are? So why not take action to recoup taxpayer money? Sounds legitimate to me.

Here is a suggestion on dealing with the problem of misusing taxpayers money: Find out how many taxpayers dollars are being used for these "cry zones" and for all these different "safe spaces"  about so you can talk individual hurt feelings, and take whatever that number is and arbitrarily double, triple, even quadruple it and cut it from the university tax dollar spigot (budget). Does this not sound like a terrific plan, for the notion of publicly funded universities wasting taxpayer dollars to essentially powder their students' sensitive little baby butts? Which is the most absurd, my suggestion or tax payers dollars being wasted on university "hurt feeling zones"?

The Candidates Were Choices We Gave Ourselves

Over the past many weeks, old friends – some I’ve known for years have all but “unfriended” me because I supported Trump over Hillary. Does it dampen the spirit? That would be an affirmative. Who tosses away a friendship over an election? Are these friends turning into those mind-numbingly arrogant celebrities who threaten to move to another country if their candidate doesn’t win? Are these friends now convinced that people they’ve known for years who happen to disagree with them politically are not merely misguided – but malevolent, and no longer worthy of their friendship?

For what it’s worth, I don’t think Donald Trump won by tapping into America’s racist underside and I don’t think Hillary lost because she’s a woman. In my opinion, the majority of people who voted in this election did so in spite of their many misgivings about the character of both candidates. That’s why it’s awfully perilous to argue that Clinton supporters condone lying under oath and obstructing justice. Just as it’s equally perilous to suggest a Trump supporter condones gross generalizations about foreigners and women.

These two candidates were the choices we gave ourselves, and each came with a boatload of vulgarity and impropriety. Yeah, it was a campaign filled with acrimony for sure, but the winner was not decided by a racist and cowardly nation – it was decided by millions of appalled Americans desperate for real change. The people did not want a politician. The people wanted to be seen. Donald Trump convinced those people that he could see them. Hillary Clinton did not.