I am referring, of course, to the Electoral College.
Between the way that electors are assigned and the fact that slaves were counted as 3/5ths persons for the purposes of the Census from 1790 through 1860, the Electoral College gave outsiszed representation to slave-holding states when it came time to choose presidents. The slave-holding states were concerned that if the President was elected by a majority vote, the more populous northern states would vote in a president dedicated to the abolition of slavery.
It happened anyway. But instead of a negotiated phase-out, with compensation of some sort to those owning slaves, emancipation was achieved at the point of a gun. Lots of guns. Over 600,000 people were killed (almost all young men) and the slave-holding regions were economically devastated for almost a century.
But the Electoral College survives.
Now, we are seeing an attempt by the bitter dead-ender elements of the losing party of the 2020 presidential election to use the Electoral College to, in effect, stage a coup. This won't be allowed to stand, of course. The Trumpists have no chance of prevailing in their delusional attempt to retain power, despote a thrashing at the polls.
That doesn't mean that somebody won't try this stupid shit again. Having identified a weakness in the system, a weakness that is prone to the machinations of electoral thieves, we should fix the weakness by jettisoning the Electoral College.
The beneifits are obvious. It would be impossible, in a close election, to then steal the outcome of a single state and flip the election.
The cost would be to a certain political party that has come to believe that it cannot prevail in a contest of ideas, that its only hope of achieving and retaining power in the Executive Branch is by chicanery, by denying those people the right to vote. And now, we're seeing that their chicanery extends, not only to denying people the right to vote, but by trimming the results so that the winner is excluded.
I say: Fuck them.
Let's fix the system before the Party of Treason wrecks this country for good.
A blog by a "sucker" and a "loser" who served her country in the Navy.
If you're one of the Covidiots who believe that COVID-19 is "just the flu",
that the 2020 election was stolen, or
especially if you supported the 1/6/21 insurrection,
leave now.
Slava Ukraini!
Saturday, January 2, 2021
7 comments:
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So a Fergus appointed judge has thrown out the "lawsuit" filed by Republican brain wizard Louie Gohmert, which is really far too dumb to try and explain, but seems to have been an effort to get the courts to make the vice president violate the constitution and disenfranchise several million legitimate votes in several states.
ReplyDeleteOr some such horse shit.
Anyway, the Fergus appointed judge wasn't having any of it, just like all of the other judges who hold their courtrooms in higher regard than to allow such blatant bullshit to be aired there for such nakedly false and partisan reasons.
Standing isn't a "technicality", standing is fucking everything.
But you are correct that they should never have to deal with such buffoonery as if it were a serious issue and not a ridiculous effort to rile up the morons in their party and collect their money, and without the Electoral College, this particular flavor of grift would never see the inside of a courtroom.
As for their calls to violence, I would advise caution on their part, as the events they imagine may not play to the script they have written in their heads, and the propaganda they are basing those scripts on is riddled with false assumptions and factual errors.
The EC itself has no sane supporting reasoning. Either we have an election or we don't, and the entire point of an election is to hand the office in question to the candidate who receives to most votes.
Votes are cast by people, not acres, and who owns the acres is irrelevant.
-Doug in Sugar Pine
Gohmert should be expelled from the House of Representatives. Barring that, he should be stripped of all committee assignments.
ReplyDeleteLike Driftglass says, he doesn't freak me out nearly as much as the voters who keep reelecting him. I hit the damn lottery when my family moved away from that area before I was born.
ReplyDelete-Doug in Sugar Pine
Gomer and all the rest of them need to be tried for sedition.
ReplyDeleteNice fair trail followed by a nice fair hangin' ... [John Wayne]
Time to start enforcing the laws that exist... start with sedition.
ReplyDeleteI'll go for a trial and since Drumpf is executing people, do that.
I men not a sham but actually expose the louts and make it clear
they are at risk.
My patience with fools is wearing mighty thin.
Eck!
Ten Bears, the line from “A Funny Thing Happened at the Forum” of “ we’ll have some quick trials and slow executions” comes to mind.
ReplyDeleteThey're pretty much straight up with it at this point ( which is pretty much consistent with their"what quiet parts?" ethos at this point. Tom Cotton*spits* has gone on record advising his fellow republicans*spits twice* not to mess with the EC as it's the only mechanism giving the R's access to power for the last 32 years. They are deathly afraid that, should the D's gain power, their "one weird trick" will go away.
ReplyDelete