From libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara:
The Electoral College is part of the checks and balances designed to prevent concentrations of government power. For example, the United States Constitution supersedes the state constitutions, allowing the federal government to act as a check on states’ power. Likewise, since the elected legislatures of the states has the responsibility of choosing the electors “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct,” the states can act as a check on federal power.
Also, the Electoral College acts as somewhat of a power balance between large and small states.
Likewise, the electoral college acts as a check on populism, which can be quite tyrannical. Instead of one huge national majority acting as a single overbearing power, candidates must win enough smaller majorities in individual states, each of whom may have differing interests, to accumulate the necessary electoral vote majority. The point is to check populist power as a means of limiting concentrations of government power;
I am OK with some “balancing of power” for these purposes, but conservatives never want to talk about how much balancing is appropriate. It seems obvious to me that we went too far with it. Furthermore, a minority is not necessarily a plurality and our present electoral system is not what our founders had in mind. Conservatives who use any of these terrible arguments to defend the electoral college wouldn’t think so highly of them if the tables were turned, so I think it’s fair to say that, as with their endless excuses for Trump, they don’t care about principles when power is on the line.
But, like LaFerrara, I’m just repeating myself.
Well, here we go again. Same old historical distortions: the legacy of a wayward scholar.
Here is the comment I left for Mr. Michael A. LaFerrara:
Your quote from Madison is accurate, but he was referring to the Bill of Rights. He did not consider the choosing of the President by electors to be at all fair, but endorsed it so as to bring slave states into agreement. You can find his logic here: http://constitution.org/dfc/dfc_0719.htm
He believed direct election by “The people at large” to be “the fittest in itself.”
The myth of small states vs. large in the formation of the electoral system can be traced to Professor William Dunning of Columbia University and his little band of students in the late 1800s. Their enthusiasm for healing the divisions among white folks after the Civil War provided a great scholastic incentive to paper over actual history. Their work went into textbooks and lasted through my elementary school education over 50 years ago.
Original documents, including contemporary accounts of the constitutional debate, tell a different story. The electoral college was not an attempt to rein in government or to protect the minority from a “tyranny of the majority.” That consideration was part of the debate for the first ten amendments.
The purpose of the electoral college was solely to protect slavery by giving additional weight to voters in slave states. The logic was that since only non-slaves could vote but slaves were partially counted for representation, including in the selection of President, it would help ensure the survival of slavery.
You can look it up, Mr. LaFerrara.
There is a way to get around the Electorial College without having to amend th constitution. It is the National Popular Vote ( https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/written-explanation )
The States agree to cast all their Electoral College votes for the candidate who wins the popular vote. So far 11 states and DC for a total of 172 Electorial votes have agreed to do this. Once enough states have agreed so that they have a majority of the Electoral College votes, the agreement will go into effect. The result will be that the president will be elected by popular vote.
Our founding Übermenschen are to be invoked when they support the conservative agenda and ignored when they challenge it.
Furthermore, if a conservative incorrectly invokes a founding Übermensch in the defense of some idea, we are obligated to ignore it and focus on the merits of the idea itself. If a conservative correctly invokes a founding Übermensch in the defense of some idea, we are obligated to nod and obey.
Of course, the same holds true for the Bible, which fortunately does not ever conflict with the ideas of our founding Übermenschen, who are also never in conflict with each other.