The Electoral College

The Electoral College has been a part of American politics since George Washington.  For many, it is a bedrock institution.  However, the time has come for the college to be dissolved.  The underlying issues that the EC attempted to address no longer exist and so its usefulness to American politics no longer exists.

In order to understand this better, let’s take a trip back to the late 1700’s and understand why Congress created the Electoral College.  Congress wanted to ensure that the President was properly vetted by well-educated individuals who knew something of the person running and would ensure that the voters didn’t elect someone who would be an embarrassment to the new nation.  There was also the need to ensure that the winner had national support.  Back then, it was difficult for voters in, say, Georgia to get reliable information on candidates who lived in, say, Massachusetts and vice versa.  News just didn’t travel that fast and small incidents that would be viral sensations today never made it out of the little town or village where they occurred.  It also made it very easy for disinformation campaigns to spread quickly without an adequate fact-checking system in place.  That’s the historically cleaned up version anyway.  It’s also accurate to say that Congress wanted to ensure that a bunch of rich white men had the final say in the election so that a bunch of poor country bumpkins couldn’t screw it up.

Congress also wanted to ensure that the electors did not simply choose the hometown hero and so they mandated that the electors had to vote for two men and one had to be from outside the elector’s home state.  It was expected the people in Massachusetts would vote for the hometown candidate.  If the electors only voted for the candidate selected by the people of their state, it would get real messy, real quick.  By forcing electors to also choose a second candidate, it ensured that the final winner had some broad national appeal.  This second vote required electors to have good judgment and well-rounded critical thinking skills so that they could best determine who should get their second vote.

After a few bad elections (1796 and 1800), they changed the Electoral College.  Instead of electors voting for two candidates, parties would run a ticket consisting of a candidate for President and a candidate for Vice-President.  Electors would then vote for one ticket.  It was still designed to ensure that rich, white men had the final say.  Over the ensuing years things have changes a little.  Electors aren’t always rich, white men these days.  State laws have bound electors to the results of the statewide vote, thus forcing electors to vote for the dupe if that’s who the people pick.  Electors are no longer allowed to use their good judgment when they vote. 

So, if electors are forced to vote for the winner of the popular vote in their state, why not just remove the electors from the process.  Frankly, it’s much more fair and representative of the nation.  If you are a Democrat living in the Dakotas, your vote doesn’t really count.  Since WWII, Lyndon Johnson is the only Democrat to win in either North or South Dakota.  A similar argument could be made for Republican voters living in New England.  The only Republicans to win Massachusetts since WWII are Eisenhower and Reagan.  If we scrapped the Electoral College then the Republican living in Boston is just as important as the Democrat living in Bismarck and they are both just as important as the voters living in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, or any of the other “swing states.”

In addition to making every vote carry the same weight, it makes the outcome much fairer and easier to understand.  Imagine how different 2000 would have been if we didn’t have the Electoral College.  Al Gore won the popular vote by roughly 500,000 votes or 0.50%.  Overall, it was a really close race.  Only two states, Florida and Wisconsin, had margins less than 1.00% and enough voters to possibly impact the final outcome.  However, it’s reasonable to expect that everyone would have agreed that the contentious number of ballots in those two states would not have been enough to change the final result.  I will allow the possibility that a massive recount effort would have been demanded by George Bush on the hopes that a recount in every state would be enough to shift the final national count.  But, it likely would not have resulted in the long, drawn-out process we witnessed with the Supreme Court being forced to play the role of final arbiter in the election.

The 2000 election isn’t the only time the popular vote didn’t match the electoral vote.  We all know about 2016, when Donald Trump won the election despite losing the popular vote by over 3 million votes.  The elections of 1876 and 1888 also featured differing results between the popular vote and the electoral vote.  In 1876, Samuel Tilden actually won a majority, not just a plurality, of the popular vote and still managed to lose the electoral vote.  The interesting side note to all four of those elections is that the Democratic candidate won the popular vote and the Republican candidate became President.  Rutherford Hayes lost the popular vote in 1876 by a full 3%.  To put that in perspective, Trump’s 3 million plus defeat was just over 2% of voters.  The Electoral College skews results and paints a picture that does not reflect the nation.  And it’s not just the four previously mentioned elections that are the issue.  When you look at the popular vote totals, Reagan’s supposed landslide victory in 1984 doesn’t really play out.  Sure, he won the popular vote by an 18.2% margin, but that’s certainly not the largest in history.  Harding, Coolidge, both Roosevelt’s, Lyndon Johnson, and Nixon all had bigger wins in the popular vote.  And yet Reagan won 97.58% of the Electoral College, second only to FDR’s 98.49% in 1936.  How can we really call that a landslide victory?

The Electoral College must be removed so that the free will of the entire American electorate can be exercised.  It is the only race that the entire country has a say in.  Senators and Representatives are selected by states and districts.  Congressional leadership is chosen by the members of Congress.  People in Texas or California or any other state don’t have a say in who gets to be Speaker of the House – that is strictly an internal vote by the 435 members of the House.  Only the presidential race is run across the entire country.  No president should get to behave like there’s some sort of national mandate to govern because they convinced the right 58.8% of the nation to vote for him (or, someday, her).  Our American Democracy places great importance upon the will of the people, as such the race for president should be solely determined by the will of the people without any intermediaries. 

Removing Monuments

There’s been a lot of news going around lately on the tearing down of various monuments to the Confederacy and statues of famous Americans.  It’s generated a tremendous amount of debate regarding our nation’s history and how we tell the story of America.  As a history major, this is something I spent a fair amount of time discussing in various classes.  One of the things we often discussed was the problem of who writes history.  So often, it is the winners that write history.  Rarely do we hear viewpoints that challenge the narrative written by the winners.

Of course, since it is the winners who are writing the history, they tend to gloss over the not so nice parts of their stories.  We also tend to make villains of the losers so that it is clear who the bad guys are in the story.  Think about what gets taught in American schools, what you learned about our story.  Think about what you were taught about these characters:
Christopher Columbus – sailed in search of a sea route to India, discovered the Americas and opened up a whole new continent for European exploration. 
The Pilgrims – good Christian believers who fled persecution in Britain for a new home in America.
George Washington – founding father, led a rag-tag bunch of farmers in a war against tyranny and freed us from British oppression.  Rejected calls to become our king and was elected our first president.
Thomas Jefferson – founding father, wrote the Declaration of Independence, instrumental in drafting the Bill of Rights, third president of the United States

Now let’s take a second and flush out those histories a little more:
Christopher Columbus – the Americas already existed and were well populated in 1492, Columbus simply became the first European to be aware of their existence.  He deliberately and intentionally brought blankets infected with smallpox in a genocidal effort to eliminate native populations.  Enslaved thousands of natives in an ultimately futile quest for gold.
The Pilgrims – also known as the Puritans.  Before leaving England they spent considerable time and effort persecuting other Christians whom they deemed not “pure” enough in their faith; hence the name “Puritans.”  Their “persecution” resulted from the simple fact that many other Christians chose not to fall in line with Puritan practices and beliefs.  Puritans weren’t the persecuted party, they were the persecutors.
George Washington – slave owner who used teeth from his own slaves to replace his own.  While he acknowledged the evil of slavery by freeing his slaves at his death, he refused to address the broader issue and do anything to free all slaves.
Thomas Jefferson – slave owner.  Sexually assaulted at least one of his slaves.  Did not free the vast majority of the slaves he owned.  As vice president, he spent the majority of his term deliberately thwarting the efforts of President John Adams and ensuring a disastrous four years of governing.

Now please do not get me wrong.  I’m not trying to say they are all bad people.  Certainly Washington and Jefferson are vital characters to the American story and one could say they same about the Puritans.  You could even go so far as to say that the United States doesn’t happen without Columbus introducing Europe to the existence of the American continent.  However, it is absolutely critical that we take the good AND the bad.  We have to take time to understand the totality of the individuals we study.  No one is 100% good or 100% bad.  So where does that leave us in deciding which monuments need to come down?

I think we have to look at the totality of their life’s work and decide if that is something we want our children emulating.  In the case of Washington and Jefferson and the other founding father’s I think it can reasonably be argued that the answer is “Yes.”  They stood up to tyranny and helped usher in the representative democracy style of governing.  Monuments to US Presidents should be left untouched, even while we take the time to acknowledge the horrible atrocities some of them committed while in office.  We cannot whitewash history under some phony guise of patriotism.  We have to talk about the darker parts of our history.

When it comes to figures like Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Nathan Bedford Forrest, and other leaders of the Confederacy it’s a firm “No” from me.  It’s important to remember that these men led others in open rebellion against the United States.  They were traitors to their nation.  These men decided loyalty to country was not as important as loyalty to a racist, immoral, and unjust system of slavery.  Most history books used in American classrooms teach some version of the Civil War that pushes slavery to the side and focuses on the war as a fight over states’ rights.  Seeing as how slavery was mentioned more than 80 times in the articles of secession, it’s rather specious to argue that it wasn’t about slavery.  Those who push the states’ rights narrative conveniently forget that the specific right they were arguing about was the right to continue the institution of slavery.  It is long past time we stopped celebrating men who are known for taking up arms against their nation in support of the horrible institution of slavery.

For me, the monument question is fairly simple.  Monuments to the Confederacy need to come down; the rest should be left alone.

On Cops and Protesters

I see comments* comparing the different reactions to bad actors within groups and its somewhat ironic how both sides can essentially say the same thing and completely ignore the other side.  On the one hand we have:

Very strange how the actions of a few “bad cops” shouldn’t reflect the entirety of the institution yet the actions of a few “bad protesters” nullifies the validity of the demonstration

And on the other hand we have

Many are saying, “Don’t judge all protesters for the actions of a few!” Yes, we all agree not to judge a whole population because of the wrongdoing of a few!  The same needs to be said of the 800,000 law enforcement officers out risking their lives to protect you!

Fundamentally, both police supporters and protest supporters agree that the actions of a few should not be the basis for judging the entire group and yet that is exactly what they each do to the other side.  Get a few bad actors sprinkled in amongst the protesters and their all just a bunch of hoodlums and vandals out to cause trouble.  A couple of cops kill someone in a clearly racist move and all cops everywhere are racist brutes out to suppress the people. 

There is, however, one key difference between the two groups.  Many of the organizers of the protests are quick to condemn the rioting and looting and violence.  Here in Fort Wayne, the organizers of the protest Friday night were also the drivers behind the efforts to clean up downtown on Saturday morning.  When word started spreading that bad actors were going to attempt to disrupt protests this weekend, organizers worked to ensure people were aware of times and places so that a few bad apples couldn’t spoil the entire bushel.  All too often we do not hear police officers condemn the behavior of their fellow officers.  Too often the bad apples are allowed to stay or suspended and then rehired months later.

How many times do we have to watch videos of one white officer clearly acting out of line while 3 or 4 other officers stand around and do nothing?  There were 3 other officers present at the murder of George Floyd and none of them did anything to get Officer Chauvin off George Floyd’s neck.  When Eric Garner was killed, how many officers watched as Daniel Pantaleo used an illegal chokehold and murdered Eric Garner?  When Laquan McDonald was shot and killed in Chicago, there were already more than a dozen cops on scene before his murderer arrived.  None of them condemned the shooting.  This is the difference and this is why all law enforcement shares the blame for the actions of a few “bad cops.”  When bad cops get caught on camera, police either remain silent or rush to defend the officer, even when the actions are indefensible.  I know there are numerous good officers out there serving in communities around America.  But when those good officers fail to root out the bad apples among them, they share the blame when innocent people die.  Derek Chauvin had multiple complaints about excessive use of force and police brutality and none of them resulted in any discipline.  It took five years for Pantaleo to simply be fired from the NYPD.  He’s never faced any criminal charges.  That’s what has to change.  If the police don’t want to be judged by the actions of a few bad apples, then they have to start aggressively policing themselves and enforcing strict discipline upon those who go too far.  If you don’t want to be judged by the actions of a few within your group, you must be quick to condemn those actions and remove the actors from the group.

This was going to be the end of the post.

And then things went down in Buffalo, NY.  Here’s a recap if you need a refresher.

This story reveals what is so completely wrong with too many polices departments across the US and what I tried to emphasize above.  This story is why so many people have such a strong negative response to everyone posting support for police right now.  Two officers forcibly shoved a protester and knocked him to the ground.  They used batons on him and caused the individual to literally crack his head open.  The local DA charged them with second-degree assault and the officers are suspended without pay.  Good on the department and good and the local DA’s office.

And then we get this statement from the president of the Police Benevolent Association, “Fifty-seven resigned in disgust because of the treatment of two of their members, who were simply executing orders.”  There is NO WAY the orders that these officers received condoned them forcibly knocking an individual to the ground and causing him to be hospitalized in serious condition.  With two officers there, it should have been a simply matter of handcuffing the individual and arresting him.  What they did clearly crosses a line and should absolutely be investigated and prosecuted.  What the officers did is bad enough, but what the other 57 members of their unit did is abhorrent and it is their actions that make it so difficult to support police.  What those other officers did is effectively state they believe the police are entitled to act with impunity.  While wearing the uniform and serving the law, anything goes.  Those officers want ZERO accountability for their actions and that cannot be tolerated.  This is the cycle we see too many times with police.  Until we see officers intervening to stop the next Martin Gugino, the next George Floyd, the next Eric Garner; until we see officers quickly condemning officers like the one that murdered Laquan McDonald or Michael Brown or Alton Sterling or Philando Castile, there will always be a problem supporting the police as a general principle.

Please don’t mistake what I am saying.  I am NOT saying that all cops are bad.  There are plenty of good cops out there who are to be commended for the work they do to protect their communities each and every day.  What I am saying is that the police in every locale must work to rid their forces of the bad officers and ensure that they are not rehired.  Until the police are willing to open themselves up to true accountability, until they are willing to admit that the badge does not give them immunity from the law, until they work to see their own are justly disciplined for their actions, until we see actual reform, until we see better responses on a consistent basis, support for the police will always come a distant second to support for the community.     

*comments come from memes seen on FB

Civil Conversation

I recently read a piece on the ways that supporters for Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders sound very similar to each other in terms of tone and rhetoric.  It’s great piece that reveals one of the fundamental problems in America right now – the 5^th grade schoolyard bullies are driving the political conversation.  As the piece points out, both Trump’s MAGA supporters and the Bernie Bros resort to name-calling and abuse anytime they detect someone who is less than 100% behind their preferred candidate.  The extremists within these two camps will aggressively attack those within their own party because minor, petty differences.

Amplifying petty differences into major reasons to attack others is no way to discuss and deal with the problems facing this country.  Instead of discussing different progressive approaches to solving the health-care crisis, we’re arguing about whether Sanders told Warren that a woman couldn’t be elected president.  Defend Warren’s comments and suffer under a deluge of abuse from the most ardent of the “Bernie Bros.”  Trump’s supporters often behave the same way.  Criticize his use of military funds for his border wall and watch out.  I’ve even experienced this first-hand.  When I’ve taken the time to respond to various posts from my Congressman, I inevitably get someone replying to my post by calling me an idiot or telling me I’ve been brainwashed by the liberal media or some other attack that does absolutely nothing to move the conversation forward.

Now I get that the various social media platforms are not the best places to have a real conversation on issues like health-care, student loan debt, immigration, etc.  But firing off insults and violent vitriol at every perceived slight isn’t going to get us anywhere either, especially when the attacks are aimed at our supposed allies.  So let’s get back to having real conversations and talk about actual issues.