The two years since Trump’s election have done little to abate the bleating about the Electoral College, the Senate, the over-representation of smaller states in Congress, and other such folderol. Indeed, the newly-drunk-with-power House Democrats have introduced a bill to abolish the Electoral College. Given that the EC system is written into the Constitution, this bill has zero chance of success, and is thus simply a big ole virtue signal, meant to show a rabid but civically ignorant base that they’re “trying.”
We can laugh this off, we can offer rebuttals couched in history and culture… or we can take a page from the Left’s play book.
Saul Alinsky’s fourth Rule For Radicals reads:
Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.
“The enemy” in this case is the progressive movement that would undo the basic fabric of our Constitutional Republic in favor of some re-branded form of socialism, with them running the show and controlling all our lives down to the types of deodorant we buy. Their rule book is an ode to diversity, and we should make the diversity argument in response to their dislike of the EC and the power of individual states.
The Electoral College promotes diversity: of geography, of lifestyle, of needs, wants and priorities, of heritage, of history, of race and ethnicity, and of countless other identity markers. Certainly, diversity exists in every state, but each state has different proportions of the various identity groups the Left sorts us into, and it also has different proportions of the various political beliefs and inclinations that exist. Denying the “minority” states representation is no different than telling minority groups that the majority knows what’s good for them and will run their lives for them.
Of course, I’m spitting into the wind here. The EC haters only hate it because it didn’t put them in power. They don’t give a rat’s patootie about anything other than holding the keys to the kingdom. But, it might be fun to challenge the next person you see running down the EC with a “why are you opposed to diversity?” challenge, and see if it makes them squirm a bit.
Loading ...
The Democratic Party says they are for Democracy. The act that showed that this was a lie to me was the voice vote to put God back into the platform
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8BwqzzqcDs
clearly not two thirds.
You know the reality. Democracy, as long as it gives them power and enshrines their preordained policies and positions. Democracy that runs contrary is to be kiboshed.
“But, it might be fun to challenge the next person you see running down the EC with a ‘why are you opposed to diversity?’ challenge, and see if it makes them squirm a bit.”
I played it that way at a small college in Virginia. The professor of sociology, a double minority (except in the Beltway area), was going on about something. I had written in my notebook, “Keep my mouth shut.” So anyway I heard, “Why do some people want to carry guns concealed?”
So I blurted out, “Equality! Criminals already carry guns concealed, how about we let some suitably trained and responsible persons do likewise? Maybe that 120 pound woman is now equal to a 300 pound man because of it.”
I assumed that she would be in favor of equality (women’s rights and racial minority rights), and it was probably so; but rival with instinctive fear about guns (not the people wielding them; but the bit of metal itself) which tends to take precedence.
The result was astonishing and somewhat entertaining. Most of the students in the classroom, some of whom were on active military service, started shouting me down and those farther away stood on chairs and desks. Virtue signaling rampant; lions and tigers and bears oh my!
I can’t read Michael2’s comment because of a giant picture of Peter and a sheep that overlies first 2 paragraphs.
It is not the Electoral College, per se, that brings this diversity you talk about or, what is really important, allows a president with fewer votes to be elected. Not the college itself, but the winner-take-all method of allocating the electoral votes. Divide the votes proportionally to the vote in that particular state, and that would never happen. And, this winner take all is not enshrined in the constitution.
Thank you for reporting the bug, we will look at it.
No, the winner-take-all is not enshrined in the Constitution, but the apportionment of Electors is up to each individual state. Two states, I believe, do proportional EC vote distribution.
The thing of that, though, is that if everyone else does winner-take-all, going proportional makes your state less relevant, especially if it’s a bigger state. A state with 20 votes that goes proportional might see a 13-7 split at the extreme, which means that only 6 net votes are in play, and that would reduce its importance on the national stage.
So, it doesn’t really behoove states to go proportional.