The morning after the 2012 election, a lot of folks thought Romney had won the popular vote because the results from the west coast had yet to be fully tabulated and incorporated into the total. So we got some especially delicious reactions like this.
Of course when it ended up getting Trump elected, that's when Republicans fell in love …
The morning after the 2012 election, a lot of folks thought Romney had won the popular vote because the results from the west coast had yet to be fully tabulated and incorporated into the total. So we got some especially delicious reactions like this.
Of course when it ended up getting Trump elected, that's when Republicans fell in love with the idea of us being "a republic, not a democracy". It's a shame they have no idea what that's supposed to mean.
The point of being a republic is that, instead of everyday citizens voting directly on laws, we elect people to represent us in our legislative bodies. The advantages to this are mostly obvious, but perhaps somewhat underappreciated is that representatives are not bound to vote one way or another on any given bill. They profess to adhere to certain principles that will guide their decisions, but their decisions are theirs to make. They are expected to have the requisite knowledge that an average citizen might not so that their judgement is more sound and well-informed.
This was actually the way the Electoral College was supposed to work. Electors were supposed to have decision making power just like any representative. In fact, the only reason that our founders didn't entrust Congress (except as a backup plan) was because it would violate the separation of powers to allow the legislative branch such direct influence over the executive. So they empowered a separate representative body, to be convened for this purpose alone, to avoid the possibility of corruption in a standing body that regularly met for other purposes.
So the Electoral College was not meant to be free of deliberation. Furthermore, as with any representative body, it was expected that it would insulate the presidency from being occupied by someone who "is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications" yet possesses "talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity". So in Trump's case, it ended up being what enabled the very thing it was expected to prevent.
This is because, with Electors being effectively bound by the vote of a popular election in each state (or district, in the case of Nebraska and Maine), we've eliminated the principal advantages of representative democracy, giving us something like a popular vote but with a massive roundoff error. Disproportionate representation is an unfortunate side effect of representative democracy, not the purpose of it (some smaller states may have been enticed by the prospect of greater relative weight, but that only made it a deal-sweetener). The same can be said of the fact that the will of the minority within a state or district ends up being completely disregarded in the final outcome.
But to Republicans, who see that this has worked in their favor as of late, all of this is the point. You can bet that their opinion of it would do a complete 180 the moment it ever cost them an election. Which it could have in 2012, because in that race Obama actually had the Electoral College advantage. This is why, in hindsight, I now wish Obama *had* lost the popular vote.
The morning after the 2012 election, a lot of folks thought Romney had won the popular vote because the results from the west coast had yet to be fully tabulated and incorporated into the total. So we got some especially delicious reactions like this.
Of course when it ended up getting Trump elected, that's when Republicans fell in love with the idea of us being "a republic, not a democracy". It's a shame they have no idea what that's supposed to mean.
The point of being a republic is that, instead of everyday citizens voting directly on laws, we elect people to represent us in our legislative bodies. The advantages to this are mostly obvious, but perhaps somewhat underappreciated is that representatives are not bound to vote one way or another on any given bill. They profess to adhere to certain principles that will guide their decisions, but their decisions are theirs to make. They are expected to have the requisite knowledge that an average citizen might not so that their judgement is more sound and well-informed.
This was actually the way the Electoral College was supposed to work. Electors were supposed to have decision making power just like any representative. In fact, the only reason that our founders didn't entrust Congress (except as a backup plan) was because it would violate the separation of powers to allow the legislative branch such direct influence over the executive. So they empowered a separate representative body, to be convened for this purpose alone, to avoid the possibility of corruption in a standing body that regularly met for other purposes.
So the Electoral College was not meant to be free of deliberation. Furthermore, as with any representative body, it was expected that it would insulate the presidency from being occupied by someone who "is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications" yet possesses "talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity". So in Trump's case, it ended up being what enabled the very thing it was expected to prevent.
This is because, with Electors being effectively bound by the vote of a popular election in each state (or district, in the case of Nebraska and Maine), we've eliminated the principal advantages of representative democracy, giving us something like a popular vote but with a massive roundoff error. Disproportionate representation is an unfortunate side effect of representative democracy, not the purpose of it (some smaller states may have been enticed by the prospect of greater relative weight, but that only made it a deal-sweetener). The same can be said of the fact that the will of the minority within a state or district ends up being completely disregarded in the final outcome.
But to Republicans, who see that this has worked in their favor as of late, all of this is the point. You can bet that their opinion of it would do a complete 180 the moment it ever cost them an election. Which it could have in 2012, because in that race Obama actually had the Electoral College advantage. This is why, in hindsight, I now wish Obama *had* lost the popular vote.