Recently, I went against my better judgement and engaged in a political debate with someone over Facebook.
No, he was not a Trump supporter. I did not stoop to that, as I find it usually pointless to try and discuss anything rationally with most Trump supporters.
This guy is actually someone who I usually can sympathize with, a guy who supports Bernie Sanders and is very critical of Trump.
Yet, for some reason, he champions the college electoral system, and put up a post that suggested that any argument against this system are "stupid."
So, I responded to this post and said that while I usually agreed with what he said, I just could not agree with him on this.
He had received numerous criticisms in the comments, so I cannot say that we were directly debating. But he did later state that the Founding Fathers "had this" argument, and that there were pretty smart. So, despite some recently seen flaws in that system, he feels that we should stand pat and maintain it. He seemed to fell ended the debate. This is what I said in response:
They were very smart, no arguments. But like everyone else, they were also human, and made mistakes. How could they predict semi-assault weapons and mass shootings? How could they predict elections where the "winner" receives nearly 3 million less votes than the "loser?" They were flawed, and we should have the guts and the intelligence to correct flaws once they become apparent.
It did not end there. Again he responded (and again, not necessarily directly to me) by saying the following (and I am paraphrasing, as I do not want to use his words directly without permission):
Actually, there are no nations electing Chief Executives by popular vote, with the exception of Botswana. He suggested that Congress elects these leaders in England, France, Germany and Russia (I believe he was describing the British parliamentary system). He went on to suggest that another way of thinking by the Founders was a fear that the Executive branch with popular support could create a corrupt Executive wing of government (nor were they wrong about this). He added that this was before political parties, because no political parties existed in 1787, when this Constitution was being written. He goes on to mention that the "un-informed masses" were the third aspect of all of this, and suggested that people both to the left and to the right got their opinions from unreliable sources, which again, is something that can hardly be argued, although I am not a fan of the term "un-informed masses," since that sounds too reminiscent of the days of kings and absolute rulers dismissing any notion of empowering the people at large. Finally, he concluded by suggested that the Electoral College (EC) has worked for nearly two and a half centuries, with only two hiccups, as he put it, and cited 2000 and 2016, before blasting the 2016 results as the product of Russian meddling, and then further blasted the President for claiming that he cannot be investigated.
So again, I responded:
Actually, I am French and have voted in French elections and I can say, unequivocally and without a doubt, that the President is elected by popular vote, directly from the people. There are two rounds of voting. In the first round, you might have something like 10 to 20 candidates from a whole bunch of different parties, all with different platforms. Of course, there usually are two, maybe three favorites, but upsets do happen. Unfortunately, 2002 was one such example, when LePen got into the second round. The top two candidates from the first round then go on to a run-off a few weeks later, where it is between those two, with the winner taking the presidency. That is how France, and I believe quite a few other European nations, do it. And yes, I prefer that over the Electoral System that we have here in the United States. As for the British parliamentary system, which they have in numerous countries as well, including Canada, that too is by popular vote, except there are a number of different, competing parties, and the winner, the party with the largest percentage of popular votes, gets to either select the leader directly with the presumed mandate after receiving a majority, or collaborate with other parties and form a government that way. Also, there were more than merely two hiccups with this system. The loser of the popular vote has won a number of times, and the two times that you listed were only the most recent (and I would argue, clearly most obvious) examples. It also happened in 1824, 1876, and 1888, as well as, of course, 2000 and 2016. Fact of the matter is that the college electoral system was indeed a compromise to slave owning states that feared losing their ability to keep slavery legal. It is outdated, and was a major source of embarrassment for the country twice in recent memory. It was bad enough when W "won" an election completely fraught with controversy. And then, there was 2016, when the "winner" received nearly three million less votes than the "loser" did. This embarrassment is only exacerbated when the man who "won" then boasts about how historically dominant his election win was to anyone who will listen, including other foreign heads of state. There are valid concerns and questions regarding our college electoral system, and dismissing anyone who actually sees these and tries to address them as "stupid" is not exactly helpful. I think that Trump might just win again in 2020 without the popular vote, just like he did in 2016. Personally, I think that is bad for democracy in this country, and wish we would take that a little more seriously. I also think that it would make elections far more fair if results were not revealed as each state closes ballots, but when all votes have been counted after a nationwide general election, so that people in California, Washington, Nevada, and Oregon, let alone Hawaii, do not already know the election results, and decide to stay home. You can call concern over such discrepancies stupid, but I am a concerned American who fears our elections are riddled with cracks from which democracy is leaking out, leaving us with less. That includes the electoral college, big money and private, specialized interest sponsorship in elections, and restricting these elections to the two major parties. It has not worked well for decades now. We can learn from other countries in a whole lot of areas, including elections.
No response yet was given at the time that this was published, but I will add it if there is one.
I obtained the specific information on the historical Electoral College controversies from here:
America's Unique and Controversial Electoral College BY V. LANCE TARRANCE, NOVEMBER 7, 2016:
I would hasten to add that the infamous "three fifths compromise" provides more than enough empirical evidence to refute the argument that the Founding Fathers were infallible, and therefore not to be questioned. Slavery is a crime against humanity, and the fact that it existed for millennia before them and continues to exist in certain parts of the world to this day neither diminishes its gravity, nor their complicity in perpetrating it. Or, to put it more succinctly, having some brilliant and inspired ideas and having some horrible and indefensible ones aren't mutually exclusive.
ReplyDeleteGood point.
DeleteThank you, Unknown.
ReplyDelete