The Old College Try
by Noemie Emery - (truncated and emended by FT)
Washington Examiner
March 26, 2019
No, the Electoral College is not a Right Wing plot. Yes, it is needed.
Without it, the recount in the 2000 election could have gone on forever.
Without it, we could never have founded the union, since the small states would never have accepted the loss of their power.
Without it, candidates could win by running up numbers among their backers, whereas now it takes a diverse coalition of disparate elements.
This isn’t to say that we haven’t seen oddities, such as the 2016 election where never before had the gap between the electoral vote and the popular vote been so notably wide, –– or caused entirely by just ONE state.
The claim of the Left, from Nov. 9, 2018 onward, has been that the Electoral College defied the will of the nation by giving the White House to Donald Trump.
THIS, however is NOT TRUE.
The will of the people in 30 of the 50 states combined elected Donald Trump by a POPULAR VOTE margin of
approximately ONE-and-a-HALF-MILLION.
President Trump won 2,626 counties,
Hillary Clinton won only 487.
Hillary Clinton won only 487.
California, the biggest and most populous state in the union –– and a very queer political and cultural outlier by any standard, –– voted for Hillary TWO-to-ONE—, thus effetively giving her the national popular vote.
It was as if there were two different elections in 2016. Clinton became the first woman president of Tinseltown by the popular landslide she had always desired. … The REST of the country REJECTED her handily.
Thank God for the Electoral College! It calms the fears our Founding Fathers had that a bizarre outlier state like California today could distort the entire electoral process.
That isn’t the college’s only purpose, either. … Think what might happen, for instance, if a crisis came in small increments, so that factory after factory closed, and a large area became so impoverished a whole way of life disappeared?
Damage exactly like that has been concentrated in the manufacturing towns of the Midwest, –– places where people had traditionally voted Democrat since FDR created the New Deal in the 1930s.
oday, however, that long-neglected group now wisely pins its hopes on Donald Trump.
Donsld Trump was the first one in decades who understood, then voiced their concerns, promising much needed help. …
Trump won with the help of the Electoral College, which functioned exactly as the Founding Fathers intended. It very properly rewarded the party that spread its votes over a wide range of precincts, instead of the party that dominated in just one area.
The Rich and snobbish Eastern Cultural Elites weren’t permitted to ignore the less fortunate in 2016, precisely because the wisdom and foresight of the Founders gave us the Electoral College.
:)
ReplyDeleteYou certainly do have a penchant,–– if not an out-and-out PASSION –– for taking a simple, clean, direct, logical time-tested proverbial assertion such as "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" and over analyzing it with hurricane-like floods of dense, suffocating verbiage that obscure the meaning, spawns anxiety amid confusion, all thr while giving rise to levels of frustration bound to lead inexorably toward eventual hostility.
DeleteThe question is "WHY are you driven to make good things appear unattainable behind a smokescreen of excessive verbiage?"
And what does this have to do with the ELECT'RAL COLLEGE anyway?
[By the way, I hope you do know –– as so very few seem to today –– that the O in Electoral is SILENT?
The word SHOULD be pronounced as hough it were spelt ELECTRAL. There nothing ORAL about it.
"What fools these mortals be!"
Why? To understand the monsters hiding in plain view and grant others a new vision with which to see it for themselves.
DeleteWelcome to the eerie domains of social and linguistic constructivism. ;p
DeleteBut - That would disenfranchise the illegal alien vote !
ReplyDeleteYeah, Kid1 Wouldn't it just?
Delete§;^D=
Good article, but to be honest we have to acknowledge a few things: Counties don't vote, people do, and the 30 out of 50 states statement is meaningless.
ReplyDeleteThe salient point, which you edited out, is that California votes 66% for Hillary and 33% for Donald Trump. That state alone provided ALL of Hillary's vote margin. In the other 49 states, Donald Trump won the popular vote.
Good GOD! You in your apparent eagerness always to spark debate have merely repeated EXACTLY what the article –– and I –– were trying to convey.
DeleteI take it you READ the article as written? If so, you should have seen two things: It was CLUMSILY put together, VERY poorly phrased, and it contained at least one MAJOR Inaccuracy.
IT said that Trump won Forty-Nine of Fifty states, which is NOT true.
He won THIRTY out of FIFTY states, which is good enough for me, and it IS accurate.
I spent a ggod deal of virtally REWRITING the article, which vastly improved it in both content and style.
I took pains to insert ACCURATE STATISTICS, because I had hoped to ANTICIATE being "corrected" by any LEFTIST who might deign to drop in here to spread poisonous propaganda.
In strving to be both FAIR and TRUTHFUL I get lambasted ANYWAY.
I see more and more, –– because of an inordinate fondness for indulging in a passion for academic hairsplitting in the fervent desire to be perceived as "fair" to those who would NEVER for an INSTANT be "fair" to any of "US," –– bcause of that I see there is NO HOPE that the RIGHT will ever reach CONSENSUS and proceed in a UNIFIED, fiercely determined manner to defend this nation against the LEFT'S incessant, TOTALLY UNIFIED encroachment on OUR institutions and founding principles.
I abhor this "straining out gnats while swallowing camels," approach to discourse.
I am an unbashed PARTISAN who does not WANT to "give the Devil his due" –– EVER.
I have lived too long and seen too much to be otherwise.
But I do not LIE. I just despise moral squishiness, as I embrace a POSITIVE uncompromising approach to asdvancing and defending what I KNOW to be right, true and good..
I realize your eyesight is poor, so I'll just drop it.
DeleteGood Lord! Have you been DRINKING?
DeleteYou've not made a sensible reply to the points I tried so hard to emphasize. That's unlike you. Normallly you take an honest analytical approach to dialogue. Instead you've chosen to insult me. Why I can't imagine. We're BOTH supposed to be on the sdeof the angels, aren't we?
I hope I've not been mistken in cherishing that belief?
What you've said is merely CONFRONTATIONAL, and frankly PREPOSTEROUS.
The main purpose of the ELECT'RAL COLEGE is to ensure that ALL the different REGIONS, which wou;d incude states, counties villages, towns, cities and individuals therein get EQUAL REPRESENTATION in determin/ng the outcome of a PRESIENTIAL ELECTION.
So Of COURSE the way the vote goes in each of the states, counties, cities, etc. in each region MATTER a GREAT DEAL.
Donald Trump won 30 of 50 states in the Electoral College.
DeleteIn the popular vote--which we agree does not matter, but Trump-haters keep bringing it up--Donald Trump won in 49 states, excluding California.
That second point is crucial. California's extreme, unhinged leftism entirely drove Hillary's irrelevant popular vote margin.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteYou rpoints about the Jussie Smolett case are well taken, but they are IRRELEVANT to the article presented here, which is about the urgent necessity for maintaining the ELECTORAL COLLEGE.
DeleteEASE refrain from making IRRELEVANT remarks in future. We want to have forum for intelligent discussin of SPECIFIC points raised, and NOT just a "Community Bulletin Board.
Franco, You should have simply pulled this paragraph from the cited article (which you failed to link to so we could go read for ourselves):
ReplyDeleteThe will of 49 of the 50 states of the union combined was to elect Trump by a popular vote margin of about 1.5 million. California, the biggest and most populous state in the union and a political and cultural outlier by anyone’s standards, voted for Democrats by a massive two-to-one-margin, giving Clinton her popular vote win.
Et tu, Silver?
DeleteJust clearing up the confusion between us.
DeleteI'm reminded ince again of the following poem by W. H. Auden –– and the reverent near-parody I made of it some time ago. See if you can understand the the strong association I feel between the ramifications of today's hideous current events, the habitully negative, incessantly cimbative ton in tbebogosphere, and Auden's poem.
ReplyDelete_________ O What Is That Sound _________
O what is that sound which so thrills the ear
Down in the valley drumming, drumming?
Only the scarlet soldiers, dear,
The soldiers coming.
O what is that light I see flashing so clear
Over the distance brightly, brightly?
Only the sun on their weapons, dear,
As they step lightly.
O what are they doing with all that gear,
What are they doing this morning, morning?
Only their usual manoeuvres, dear,
Or perhaps a warning.
O why have they left the road down there,
Why are they suddenly wheeling, wheeling?
Perhaps a change in their orders, dear,
Why are you kneeling?
O haven't they stopped for the doctor's care,
Haven't they reined their horses, horses?
Why, they are none of them wounded, dear,
None of these forces.
O is it the parson they want, with white hair,
Is it the parson, is it, is it?
No, they are passing his gateway, dear,
Without a visit.
O it must be the farmer that lives so near.
It must be the farmer so cunning, so cunning?
They have passed the farmyard already, dear,
And now they are running.
O where are you going? Stay with me here!
Were the vows you swore deceiving, deceiving?
No, I promised to love you, dear,
But I must be leaving.
O it's broken the lock and splintered the door,
O it's the gate where they're turning, turning;
Their boots are heavy on the floor
And their eyes are burning.
W.H. Auden (1907-1973)
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
O yes, dear friends, it is coming, coming.
But whatever will be the source?
Will it be the Muslims, Muslims?
Or day traders at the Bourse?
We know it might be the Marxists,
The Marxists on a Pale Horse.
Perhaps it will be the false Christians
Who'd nail sinners they hate to a Cross?
Perhaps it will be the Perverts, Perverts?
The Gays who've been gathering force?
Perhaps it will be our elders, elders
Whose minds have been gathering moss?
Perhaps it will be the young lovers, lovers
Who cavort in the bracken and gorse?
O we know it is coming, coming,
But we cannot acknowledge the source.
Perhaps it might be YOU and ME
Yes! Who ELSE could it be, of course?
~ FreeThinke (5/2/08)
ALONG THE SAME LINES ILLUSTRATI{N:G THE WAY CONSERVATIVE FORCES CONSTANTLY TRY TO DEFEAT EACH OTHER WHEN THEY SHOULD PRESENT A UNIIFIED FRONT AGAINST THE ENCROACHING TYRANNY OF THE FIERCE DE FACTO MARXIST-ISLAMIST-GLOBALIST COALITION
ReplyDeleteDevin Nunes Prepares Criminal Referrals for Next Week Delivery to AG Barr…
Conservative Treehouse
by Sundance
Things in DC are about to get ugly. Big ugly. Two MAGA freight trains are heading full-speed toward each other and there ain’t no spur between em’. The conductor of one engine is HPSCI ranking member Devin Nunes who will be sending criminal referrals to AG Barr next week based on existing evidence and testimony. The conductor of the opposing engine is Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, who wants AG Barr to ignore the criminal referrals and instead launch another Special Counsel which will be guaranteed to carry into the 2020 election year. Both are not backing down. ...