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Hijacking the electoral college: The plot to deny JFK the presidency 60 years ago
This zealotry and belief in their own Divine Right to run things has been around for a long time. Republicans simply collected them into a single party, bringing it to a critical mass. It's not "Trumpism". It's just that with him the last of the "responsible" varnish has been stripped off.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/12/13/electoral-college-jfk-trump/
(paywall warning)
Hijacking the electoral college: The plot to deny JFK the presidency 60 years ago
By Ronald G. Shafer
Dec. 13, 2020 at 7:00 a.m. EST
After Democrat John F. Kennedy barely beat Republican Richard M. Nixon in the 1960 election, a coalition of opponents plotted to deny him the presidency in the electoral college. Most were White, conservative electors from the south who opposed the young Massachusetts senator’s liberal policies, especially his support for civil rights for Black Americans. If these electors had succeeded, segregationist Democratic Sen. Harry Byrd of Virginia would have been elected president. His vice president would have been Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona. Both men had nothing to do with the idea.
***
Immediately after the 1960 election, electors from Alabama and Mississippi agreed not to cast their votes for Kennedy, who had won both states. All of Mississippi’s eight electors and six of Alabama’s 11 electors were unpledged. The electors lobbied their counterparts in the electoral college to follow their lead. Organizers of the movement came up with a three-point “Plan To Give the South a Partial Vote in the Affairs of the Nation.”
***
The goal was to have electors elect the president within the electoral college, said Lea Harris, a Democratic lawyer in Alabama. If that failed, as “a last resort” the electors would seek to switch enough votes to keep Kennedy from getting the 269 electoral votes needed for election and throw the race into the House of Representatives.
***
The rebel southern electors wrote Republican electors urging them to switch their votes from Nixon. Republican Henry Irwin of Oklahoma, a pledged Nixon elector opposed to what he called Kennedy’s “socialist-labor” views, was receptive. It soon “became apparent to a shrewd observer that a possibility existed to deny the presidency to Kennedy,” he said later.
***
After the overwhelming defeat, the Alabama electors complained that Southerners could have controlled the election, but “their sycophantic political leaders failed them miserably.”
By Ronald G. Shafer
Dec. 13, 2020 at 7:00 a.m. EST
After Democrat John F. Kennedy barely beat Republican Richard M. Nixon in the 1960 election, a coalition of opponents plotted to deny him the presidency in the electoral college. Most were White, conservative electors from the south who opposed the young Massachusetts senator’s liberal policies, especially his support for civil rights for Black Americans. If these electors had succeeded, segregationist Democratic Sen. Harry Byrd of Virginia would have been elected president. His vice president would have been Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona. Both men had nothing to do with the idea.
***
Immediately after the 1960 election, electors from Alabama and Mississippi agreed not to cast their votes for Kennedy, who had won both states. All of Mississippi’s eight electors and six of Alabama’s 11 electors were unpledged. The electors lobbied their counterparts in the electoral college to follow their lead. Organizers of the movement came up with a three-point “Plan To Give the South a Partial Vote in the Affairs of the Nation.”
***
The goal was to have electors elect the president within the electoral college, said Lea Harris, a Democratic lawyer in Alabama. If that failed, as “a last resort” the electors would seek to switch enough votes to keep Kennedy from getting the 269 electoral votes needed for election and throw the race into the House of Representatives.
***
The rebel southern electors wrote Republican electors urging them to switch their votes from Nixon. Republican Henry Irwin of Oklahoma, a pledged Nixon elector opposed to what he called Kennedy’s “socialist-labor” views, was receptive. It soon “became apparent to a shrewd observer that a possibility existed to deny the presidency to Kennedy,” he said later.
***
After the overwhelming defeat, the Alabama electors complained that Southerners could have controlled the election, but “their sycophantic political leaders failed them miserably.”
That was back when conservative southerners (Democrats at the time) would still ignore "crackpot plans."
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