If we didn't have the Electoral College system, we would not be having this stress over the
Last edited Fri Oct 25, 2024, 12:43 PM - Edit history (1)
future of this republic.
Next time the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact shows up on your ballot, vote for it. Essentially it calls for states to choose AS IS THEIR RIGHT UNDER THE CONSTITUTION how to have their Electors vote for the candidate who has won the national popular vote. We need just a few more states to pass it and we can say goodbye to this anti-democratic process.
And please don't tell me it is 'unconstitutional' because states cannot make compacts (like the Confederacy). We all know this. But states do in fact have the right to dictate how their Electors have to vote.
Think about all the fucking stress we've had to live with in this presidential campaign. Oh, razor thin margins! Oh, this election will be decided by 'a few hundred voters' in a few 'swing' states!
WHY? Why should a few hundred voters in a few swing states be able to say whether this republic lives or dies? Would it not be more logical to have a one-person-one vote system where every vote counts?
Just asking.
ON EDIT: Good discussion. I have a dear friend who was instrumental in getting the NPV passed in Colorado. I guess my point is that these few hundred people in a handful of states driving the whole election gives those few hundred people in those so-called swing states too much power.
I also have issue with the way our Senate is set up with a US Senator from WY representing ~300,000 people while one from CA represents nearly 20 million people. Yeah, I know - that is the way it is, and this was designed to give the states with smaller populations (slave states, remember slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person in terms of calculating how many Representatives in the US House). So these slave states, who had less representation in the lower house would then have equal representation in the upper house to ensure those slave states would get to keep their slaves.
Same issue with the Electoral College - just based on the fear of the wealthy landowners who founded this republic of that true democracy would allow the unwashed masses too much power. Because they wanted to keep their wealth and make sure the laws created and the courts would help them do just that.
As to my penchant for looking at how things are, seeing how they could be, and asking why not? Well, that is idealism. Vision springs from idealism, and to govern a nation properly both idealism and pragmatism are required.
Notice also I used the word 'idealism' rather than 'ideology.' These are nuanced. Republicans seem to be operating from a sheer lust for power and we have various ideologies in their tent - Nazism, white nationalism, racism, homophobia, isolationism, xenophobia and so on. In short, their ideology is based on fear and that is how they gin up their base.
Idealism, however, is to look at a problem, acknowledge it is a problem, and work collaboratively (bringing pragmatism into the equation) to fix the problem. This is what we had until the days of Nixon, who was deeply flawed through lust for power that grew from his own fear of inferiority. He was supported by the likes of Atwater, Rove, Cheney and Rumsfeld. This group believed, like the wealthy landowners who founded the republic, that the presidency should be more imperial, have more power, and be less accountable under the law. This cancer is why we have what we have today.
My work as an economist who works to wage peace against economic violence (poverty, not having enough) at the policy level is to seek the root cause for people not having enough, and find policy fulcrums that can move things along into the realm of the 'bestest for the mostest.'
However you all have brought forth some very cogent arguments against the NPV. I did not, however, appreciate the sarcasm - oh, I wish for world peace too, and that will never happen either! I hear that. Kissinger called it 'realpolitik.' Trump has recently called our republic 'the world's garbage can' because he represents the forces of chaos while Vance, Thiel and Musk, as well as the other billionaires who have thrown their weight behind Trump. They represent tyranny. In the meantime we have the constant stress of the 'horserace' and seek distractions which can become addictive. Sports, gambling, gaming, drugs, alcohol, sex addiction and so on. And of course the ultimate addictive force - consumerism. If we are worried about our body image so much we listen to social media 'influencers' we certainly will make little effort to understand social and economic policies that affect us on the ground.
This is why I am an idealist. I do not and will not apologize for being an idealist, nor will I make excuses for idealism. This vision of what the future could be is what drives the arc of justice.
Warm regards to all!
= new reply since forum marked as read
