THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE
from their comfy campaign buses at all hours and stuffed with starchy waffle mix at Rotary pancake breakfasts, smeared with canned tomato sauce at volunteer fire department spaghetti dinners, queried about local zoning ordinances by yokels in town halls, picketed (or endorsed) by special interests so special that no one is interested in them, and otherwise made to behave like the small and inconsequential personages that our presidential candidates are. We may – and we do – elect fools, but at least we elected them out in the open where we can see what they’re doing. We may – and we do – elect fools, but at least we elected them out in the open where we can see what they’re doing. But what is more important about the Electoral College is that it gives a vote not only to Americans but to America itself. We provide a say in our political system to place as well as to people. The population of Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming combined is less than the population of the San Francisco metropolitan area (and – bonus – doesn’t include a single San Franciscan). Under a system of “direct” election by popular vote this would leave 1,058,000 square miles of America with less influence over who becomes president than the 14.4-square-inch space of an iPhone screen, invented by Steve Jobs, who was from San Francisco.
not quite, since she got 48.2%), it’s also true that she was, as it were, trumped by another person in the Electoral College, 304 to 227. BUT... The two of them knew the rules and campaigned accordingly. If they had been running to gain a majority of the popular vote instead of a majority of the Electoral College vote, they would have conducted different campaigns. Worse campaigns. Campaigns aimed at the lowest common denominator of voters – at the masses, the mob. Political thinkers have theorized that mob- rule would create a society marked by selfishness, stupidity, instability, and a vicious tendency to scapegoat. Political thinkers can quit theorizing. Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Instagram, Snapchat, WeChat, and WhatsApp have proven the theory. The 2016 presidential campaign was ugly, but it could have been uglier if both candidates had put even more emphasis on vulgar rabble-rousing and vast gatherings of fanatical adherents. Picture, on the one hand, a gigantic Nuremburg Nerd Rally, camera-ready for a lefty Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Bill (and Hillary). And, on the other, a “Red State Square” with ballistic Trumps rolling through reviewed by a Trump Politburo atop Trump’s Tomb on Trump Day. Right there is one good reason to keep the Electrical College. It forces our presidential candidates out into the boonies to be dragged
70 June 2018
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