NOTE: Due to the length of this blog, in the interest of saving time for our esteemed electoral college delegates I have bold typed supportive information. Some of you are probably on your way to wherever it is that you do your electoral college stuff. I would appreciate it if you would give sober consideration to everything highlighted. For the rest of you, it might be smart if you stopped tweeting and read the entire article word for word. It won’t kill you to learn something for a change.
I think it is time to reevaluate our system of presidential elections in our country. Personally I’m all for keeping it simple. The popular vote should be the one that counts. Even Donald Trump says the electoral college is rigged. If you are in the mood for a nice migraine headache just try hacking your way through the Wikipedia narrative about that thing. And if you’re like me you wonder what in the hell were our founding fathers thinking? It couldn’t be any more confusing. I do know a couple of things about the institution though. There were two reasons for it’s implementation. First, it was an accommodation for the slave states. They were afraid they would be unfairly represented in the voting process because their states were generally less populated. By white folks anyway. There were plenty of black folks walking around down there, but of course they didn’t count. Well, one counted as three fifths of a white person for census purposes, but they weren’t allowed to vote. And who can blame the constitutional delegation for that. Would you want to do all that fractional math without a calculator?
The guys that brainstormed over all this were for the most part really smart fellows. At least they thought so, because the second reason they decided the electoral college was a good idea was they were afraid that people for the most part were a bunch of rubes who might have misconceptions of what was actually required to hold the highest office in the land, and they wanted to establish a method for overriding the general election results. The whole idea was to make sure we avoided a country ruled by kings or dictators. Or crazy people. To me these criteria are as outdated as capri pants and powdered wigs, and we should do some housecleaning- except for now. I do not think there could possibly be a more relevant time to put this concept to the ultimate test. The electoral college is set to meet on December 19th, the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. Or is it the other way around? I really don’t want to walk over to my desk and peek at my calendar. I’m no constitutionalist, but if it were me I would just make it the first Thursday of the month. After all that work who’s going to blame you for not showing up at your job the next day. You take a long weekend. Forget all that first after the second business. Personally I think our forefathers got a bit carried away with that notion.
Electoral College Regular College
So on the 19th of December members of the electoral college could actually do something historical– change a presidential election. The one and only time a similar situation occurred was after the 1836 election of Martin Van Buren. Strangely it was Richard M Johnson, Van Buren’s running mate, that caused the stir. He must have been a real dick. But the senate, who’s job it is to declare the winner in a VP controversy, ended up choosing Johnson anyway.
I’m not saying those who voted for Mr. Trump are a load of hayseeds. Believe me I am as disgusted as anyone with political elitism and indifference. We do need to shake things up, to the point of amending the constitution here and there if you ask me. But it has became abundantly clear our president-elect is not any kind of instrument for constructive change. When your record of attending intelligence briefings is one out of six, I think it’s a pretty good indication you really aren’t that interested in the job in the first place. It seems standing in front of an adoring crowd is much more important to Mr. Trump.
To me one of the curious benefits of the electoral college is during the interceding time between the general election and the time the college convenes, we can get a glimpse of how our president-elect will fashion his administration. It is pretty clear from Donald Trump’s choices for his cabinet and advisors he couldn’t give a shit about the future of this country or planet. He is in this thing for his own self promotion. Then there is all the legal difficulty the man has. The law suits he has to deal with currently are bad enough. But our already productivity challenged congress will have to spend an inordinate amount of time on congressional investigations and possible litigation of Trump’s conflict of interests if he does not divest himself of his business holdings. That emollients clause has been waiting to get dusted off for about 240 years.
Sure Mr. Trump is entitled to select his own advisers, but how comfortable are you with his picks when he has shown complete disregard for information from a professional intelligence staff, particularly their conclusions about Russian involvement in the election, and is manipulated by the likes of Steve Bannon. Trump’s EPA director and Secretary of Education both embrace policies that essentially will encourage dissolution of the very departments they are in charge of. His Secretary of Commerce and Treasury Secretary are the same old Wall Street types Trump vowed to purge from government involvement. In fact Steven Mnuchin profited millions off of the Bernie Madoff scheme, ran OneWest bank where he made money off the backs of suffering California homeowners, then sold the failing enterprise for a profit of 1.5 billion. The alt-right even hates this guy. His National Security Advisor is a fake news promoter and avowed Islamophobe. His Labor Secretary choice is anti-labor. HUD should have someone really smart in charge, but I’m not sure a brain surgeon is the way to go. His Secretary of State is another wealthy elitist with close business ties to Vladimir Putin. And how in the hell can you justify having an insurrectional racist like Steve Bannon as your right-hand man?
But even worse, Mr. Trump showed his true colors by attacking a private citizen with a relentless procession of cyber bullying. Geezuz kreist you get kicked out of high school for doing that shit. Chuck Jones, the unfortunate Carrier Company union boss who dared point out one of Mr. Trump’s lies, now has to put up with unwarranted social media harassment thanks to Trump’s bazaar habit of retaliatory tweeting. It is a despicable reaction for someone with presidential authority. I am sorry but Donald Trump is not only too thin skinned for the job, but there is something wrong with his head.
The members of the electoral college have a chance to save us. The odds of that happening are about the same as Frosty the Snow Man being elected president, but let’s face it Donald Trump started out with similar odds. With that in mind one more unexpected development might be in order. Come on man! Vote your conscience and country, not your party.
Whether the electoral college comes to our rescue or not, it is clear we need to install popular vote for our presidential elections. How do we assure nut jobs won’t get elected if we abandon the electoral college? Simple. Science. Besides a complete physical, we make every presidential candidate take a full psychiatric exam including a thorough battery of psychological tests. We should send them off for an EEG and do some poking around inside the old hat rack too. We need to know what in the heck we are getting for ou
r money. When I was in college I participated in a psychophysiological study involving an experimental drug that one of my professors was developing. And for the effort It also involved me getting a better grade in his pharmacy class that I wasn’t exactly acing. Here is a picture of me during the lab participation. It looks scary but believe it or not it’s a piece of cake. For the record you should know those many electrodes discovered nothing out of place. That was 1969. I am sure by now modifications have been implemented that make the science a lot less cumbersome. I think you have to agree It’s a small inconvenience to insure the competency of our leaders.
Please SHARE. Who knows. Maybe if some of our electors at least pay attention to the highlighted parts of this or read similar blogs, it will jolt them to accept reality and we can show the world constitutional democracy makes sense after all.
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