There is no way for America to persist for very much longer if the Electoral College remains unchanged. This is, perhaps, the most pressing issue facing our Nation. The left wants to eliminate it, the right wants to leave it untouched, and, both sides would destroy the country if they get their way. The problem of the Electoral College has been discussed and debated, in earnest, since Bush v. Gore. In America’s 232 years, the Nation has now seen 59 Presidential Elections. Of those, only five resulted in a President winning the election without winning the popular vote. In 1824 we see the first occurrence, and then again in 1876 and 1888. These first three instances come from an America quite different from the one in which we presently reside. We then managed to make it 112 years without issue. We have now had two out of the last five elections wherein the “winner,” lost the popular vote. The most recent incident was by a margin of nearly 3 MILLION votes. A margin of less than 200,000 votes cast for Biden in the states of PA, GA, NM, and, AZ, was all that separated America from a sixth occurrence. Subtract those votes and Donald Trump would have won a second term, this time losing the popular vote by over 4,500,000 votes. The 1876 election nearly threw the nation back into a civil war that it had only crawled out of twelve years earlier. Coincidentally, 77% of Americans currently believe the Nation is on the verge of civil war, again.
The obvious problem is that two approaches – the two most spoken about, would both ultimately lead to a civil war. The first is to leave things alone. Stick with the devil you know. However, when millions of Americans feel that their voice isn’t being heard, because of the outsized voice of the less populous states, they won’t be silent forever. Meanwhile, if the Electoral College is abolished, all of those states in the middle of the Country are going to grab their guns and Bibles, and, it’s not going to be pretty. Not only are the optics of each bad, but, each side would have the right to be mad, if the other side prevailed. Maintaining the Electoral College unfairly ignores the majority. Abolish it and the middle of the country would be utterly ignored in national elections. Who is going to waste their time traversing the wide open spaces of fly over country, when they need only to win the votes of the coastal states? Answer: no one. That’s the problem.
Still, there is another group that also has a right to be mad, for as long as the status quo is maintained. Certain states all but guarantee that nearly half of their citizens’ voices will never be heard, and, it’s not even on purpose. A NJ Republican has about as much chance of having their voice heard in a Presidential Election as the North Dakota Democrat (yes, I meant to say “the,” and not “a.” ND only has one Democrat in the entire state. jkjk… there are 2.45 Democrats in ND).
So, what’s the solution? It’s pretty straightforward, really. Apportion the electoral votes of each state with the popular vote of that state. For example, if 40% of NJ voted for the Republican, then 40% of NJ’s Electoral College votes would go to the Republican Candidate. This would eliminate the fear that the right has about having their voices drown out by the liberal coastal states, and, ensure the equal treatment of each voice which the left seeks. It also has the propensity to create a more engaged electorate, as both the NJ Republicans and the ND Democrats will have the chance to be heard (after all, 2.45 people is roughly 6% of the total population of ND). As Americans, we need to start looking for ways to come together, because, if we continue down the path of treating the ideas of others as if they are enemy propaganda, we will be the Americans that stood idly by and apathetically watched the death of The Great American Experiment.
An old friend wrote me a private message on Facebook to ask me what my thoughts were on Biden-Harris. The message came only a few hours ago, just before the election was called for Biden. I am sharing my responses with anyone who is interested in reading them, and, who is feeling anxious. For background purposes, I voted for the GOP, downline, since I turned 18 in 2000, then again in 2004, 2008, and, 2012. I also voted GOP in every midterm election. In 2016, I voted Libertarian. In 2020, I voted for Joe Biden. I am an attorney, who, during my law school career, took time out of my insanely busy schedule to be a McCain Poll watcher in Philadelphia. Admittedly, the Trump Presidency has turned me into an independent, who no longer accepts the position of any party, unless I have examined the issue, thoroughly, and personally concluded that the position has substantial merit. It is my opinion that the parties stand only for the perpetuation of their own existence. These are my friend’s questions, and, my (sometimes ranging) answers. I hope that it offers you a modicum of comfort, if you are concerned.
Best,
Jeff
1) your thoughts on Kamala Harris’ far left voting … she’s the reason I didn’t vote for Joe. I don’t trust her.
So, I hear this one a lot from my conservative friends. To me, it is a reflection of how insular most of our society’s social circles have become. I can tell you that the only thing that my liberal friends were more unhappy about than Joe Biden, was the fact that his VP pick was Kamala Harris. She’s a former prosecutor, with a track record of having been pro-cop. The Supreme Court leans hard to the right now, but, with respect to abortion, even if the Supreme Court of The United States of America banned it, the states would still be able to make the call. Also, this is a particularly divisive issue, which both sides will use to fuel the quests to regain, or maintain, power. At the end of the day, I am of the opinion that we need to prevent women from feeling the need to have an abortion. Lost in the abortion argument is the emotional damage that the mother and father of that child experience. We have too many ways to avoid the need for unwanted pregnancies to be fixated on abortions. The solution is to reduce the number of desired abortions to as close to zero, as possible. Outlawing them won’t lead to fewer abortions. It will just lead to unregulated, illegal abortions. Those most likely to pay the price for that are teenage girls, who, like teenage boys, lack the capacity to understand the full scope and potential consequences of such a decision. The end result is more likely to be adult parents losing their teenage daughters to unsafe abortions, as opposed to fewer abortions being performed. Of course, that is just speculation. Anyone who tells you that they know for sure what will happen is either a liar, or, a fool who lacks the capacity to see the many, many, potential outcomes of any action (or inaction). We are all doing little more than offering our guesses; some people just put a lot more thought and research into their guesses.
With respect to Socialism, there are really very few Democrats that want Socialism. The Socialism thing is literally a fear mongering tactic of the right. Each side has their fear mongering tactics. This just happens to be the right’s favorite. It is not supported by any facts. It is why AOC is an extremist even within her own party.
2) your thoughts on term limits for senate and house … I’m
On the fence about this idea, because, some of these new politicians, like AOC, are a little cray cray, but, you have these lifetime politicians causing nothing but decisiveness and sitting in a seat.
I don’t oppose term limits, but, I certainly don’t commit too much of my time to thinking about them, and, for two reasons: First, passing them would require those who are elected to act against their own interests. These people have literally sacrificed in every other area of life, whenever they saw an opportunity to gain a little more power, because, that is their highest priority. No one gets to that point without great effort and sacrifice, coupled with an over-inflated sense of self. They are completely convinced that the nation needs them; that no one else can do the job better. I can barely imagine someone drafting the legislation, let alone foreseeing a majority of those very same people voting to limit the duration of their own power trip. The only exception would be if some wild grassroots effort was made to vote out the majority of congress, and, the newly elected folks all having the integrity to see why they were voted in, and to act on behalf of the people… but, I think you see how far fetched that sounds, as a U.S. President currently threatens to upend hundreds of years of peaceful transfers of power.
The second reason that I don’t put too much thought into that is because it’s already in our hands. There are a few reasons that they don’t get ever seem to get voted out. First, is that they actually are good at their jobs, sometimes. This is reflected by the fact that most people want term limits and think that Congress is doing a terrible job, but, at the same time, say that their Congress person is doing a great job. What that means is that either their Congressperson is a good con-man… I mean, politician, or, that the system is actually working the way that it should work in The House Of Representatives, as the Congressperson is not tasked with merely acting in the interest of the Nation, they are literally tasked with acting in the interests of their own little slice of the country – their district, and it’s constituents. This may sound selfish, but, the reality is, we have very different needs in different parts of the country, and, those of us who have beach front property in California don’t know or care much about the price of a bushel of soy beans, just like the farmer whose crop of soy beans is set to be harvested doesn’t know or care much about beach erosion in California. Each of those two voters has legitimate concerns that only someone from their region is likely to be familiar with. At the end of the day, though, if we buy into the party BS, from either party, our elected officials will stay exactly the same, until such time as they step out of line with the party bosses, and, then the party will tell us how dangerous the Congressperson suddenly has become, and, will primary them, and, undermine them in every way that they can. It isn’t the political party which is to blame, though. The party is an entity; almost an organism. Like every organism, it will fight for its own survival, above nearly everything else. So, who is to blame? We the people. How so? It is the act of collectively buying into the fear-mongering of the parties that keeps us in line. There are some differences between the parties, but, not enough to justify our dedication to a party, particularly in light of the many checks and balances built into our system. Major change requires either bi-partisanship, or else possessing a super majority in the Senate, a majority in the House, and the White House, and, even then, you might need SCOTUS to be on your side, and, even with all of that, the possibility exists that you are ultimately still facing a state’s rights issue to be decided by the individual states. So, voting out someone who you dislike isn’t going to be the end of the struggle, yet we still treat it as the “end-all-be-all,” in an almost primal way that belies our natural tribalism. As the old Arabic saying goes: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The parties so badly want us to perceive the other party as the enemy, but, they happily conspire to eliminate any possibility of a third party becoming a viable threat to the two party system.
A slight rabbit trail: Ultimately, the two party system is a lot like the civil unrest that our country has seen. Think about when you saw police shooting rubber bullets and pepper balls at crowds, and, using their night sticks. How often do you ever remember seeing the police do this during rioting or looting? Almost never. They use those tactics on PEACEFUL protestors who are protesting in an area that law enforcement doesn’t want them to be, for one reason or another (some legitimate, some very illegitimate). Once the rioting starts, the police drop back behind shields… no more clubs with which to beat people. Why? Because, the reality is, the people outnumber the police. The entire system is setup to create the illusion of stability and government control. If you refuse to pay your mortgage, the bank forecloses, and crushes you. If everyone refuses to pay their mortgage the banks get crushed and the entire system collapses. This is not a desired result; it is just reality. That’s why you don’t see any law enforcement rushing in to stop looters. There are simply too many looters for law enforcement to handle, in the heat of the moment.* However, while we don’t want the financial system to collapse, the end of the two party system would be a positive thing, in my opinion.
*This is not to say they won’t use video evidence and track people down later, once order is restored.
3) Nancy Pelosi, I feel, has been the most divisive person ever, and, she really showed that clearly when she tore the state of the union. She needs to not be speaker of the house — just my opinion. what do you think?
I think that she was petulant in tearing up the state of the union address. With that said, I think that Donald Trump was the most divisive President since maybe Andrew Jackson… and, possibly more divisive than Jackson. He purposefully provoked his opponents. I mean, if provocation was a pro-sport, Donald J. Trump would have been inducted into the hall of fame in his rookie year. He poked, prodded, pressed, and needled, until people on the other side exploded. It doesn’t excuse her behavior, but, it does explain it, a little bit. In terms of whether she should be Speaker, that is ultimately a political question. On one hand, I think she should, because she has shown the ability to marshal her members, who have a range from blue-Republicans to communists. That is a tough task and must be done if anything is ever going to get accomplished. On the other hand, I think she should have gotten the stimulus for America that she could get, because, if her party won big in the elections, they could finish the bill properly, after the election. If they lost, there wasn’t likely to be any meaningful stimulus; just an all business handout by the Republicans. Her failure to see that, to me, is a reflection of pure, and poorly thought through, partisanship. I don’t know whether I agree with much of what Pelosi agrees with, because I don’t know where she stands on a range of issues, but, the worst part about Pelosi is that she says and does things that make her the perfect boogeyman for the right. Outside of that, she’s just one of 438 Representatives. Every Representative has 1/438th of the voice of the House, the same as every Senator has 1/100th of the voice of the Senate. None of them should be fully credited, for better or worse, with what happens when they are there, because, none of them really have that much singular importance or power.
4) what are your thoughts on those saying Democrats are using Joe as puppet to advance the left’s progressive ideas… ie: 25th amendment to move Joe out and put Kamala in… who couldn’t even reach her party when she ran for president but now is a viable choice.
So, I’ve heard a lot about this one, too. The fact is, with respect to advancing the left’s agenda, there is little that the President can do, outside of signing into law, or vetoing, something that Congress passed. Presidents can issue executive orders, as long as the order lacks the need for funding, except in certain emergency situations. The biggest functions of the President are to execute and enforce the laws passed by Congress, to act as the commander in chief of the U.S. Armed Forces, and, in a diplomatic capacity on the world stage. However, it is worth noting that everyone is always trying to use whomever they can in DC to advance their own interests. Nothing that I saw in the debates suggests that Biden is the senile old man that I thought he was, prior to the debates, although, he is still clearly a VERY old man, lol. As I said above, Kamala isn’t actually a liberal/progressive, in my opinion. She is center left, with a strong emphasis on the “center” part. Of course, you will never hear that from the likes of Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Ben Shapiro, or, anyone else who trades on convincing conservatives that the sky is falling and if you don’t tune in daily, you won’t know when the Socialism is coming. All of the talking heads are just shills for someone, providing out of context statements, and half-baked ideas that look good on the surface. This is a left and right problem, but, I didn’t list any of the big ones on the left, because, I honestly don’t know who they are, and, I’ve never listened to them. I know they exist, though, because uniformity of thought doesn’t happen by itself, and the left is no less uniform in their tribalistic groups than the GOP.
5) I’ve taken the stance of watching how this all pans out. If anything this election taught us it’s deeply flawed BUT the sad thing is that the politicians are using minorities as their narrative to get their way.
So, again, I think that it has been emphasized even more during this election than in the past, because, Trump is sort of like a caricature of an actual human being, more so than an actual human being. I think that is partially by design, and, that he isn’t exactly who he tries to appear to be; as if some part of this is just sheer character acting. However, with that being said, since the late 1960’s there has always been a play for minority groups, as if they were some monolithic voting bloc. They are not. However, leaders among certain minority groups still try to force that monolithic reality on the group. Though not an ethnic minority, the evangelical church pushed Trump like pharmaceuticals pushed opioids. Of course, Biden had his “you ain’t Black,” moment. You expect politicians to pander to groups, but, I find the push from within the groups to be more disturbing, personally. It is a reflection of a doubling down on tribalism. We need to be focusing on ideas, as individuals, not as micro-tribes, because, when we act as a micro-tribe, we have surrendered our individual brains to the tribe, and, that is not a good idea. That is how individual voters become “useful idiots,” who do the bidding of the parties.
thereluctantcommentator 