Defiant Oath Keepers founder:18yrs in prison for seditious conspiracy

[Dill]

(05-26-2023, 12:14 PM)Nately120 Wrote: That's what is wacky about it.  I'm not the most educated on this board when it comes to history or the government, but it seems to me like this whole electoral college and "you can get fewer votes and still win" thing is defended as being a means for the minority to still have a say and maintain a democracy.  Well, that minority wants us to NOT have a democracy now, so....help?

Or is this just the way it goes?  I can't imagine the founding fathers wanted a system where 3 out of 10 Americans wanting authoritarianism would have to be so frighteningly enforceable.

Last Tuesday night I found myself at a potluck dinner debating the Electoral College with a PolySci professor from our local college. She's a good friend but we go round and round about this whenever it comes up. 

She is AGAINST the EC and I am FOR it. The difference is I want to preserve more of state sovereignty, to keep that check on our federal system. She thinks we don't need to do that anymore because we are not "attached" to states the way early Americans were.  Having grown up in rural Western states, I'd not be happy to see them rolled over by CA and NY. She's fine with that, apparently, if they have less people. But I share her concern. Why should 20% of the population or potentially less get to force its beliefs on the country?

She thinks ending the EC will solve the problem of Trump and like politicians winning elections, but I don't think it will. Clearly Republicans would lose, but the battle to take away state power would get very bloody, I think. And I think it dangerous to our democracy to regard states as we do county/municipal governments in a single state. They need more power than that to balance/defend their interests at the national level.

Also, I reminded her of the convention debates which put forth the various plans regarding Congressional representation, which resulted in our current bi-cameral legislature. They were a solution which fixed a serious problem, and I don't see the gain in unfixing it.

Far more concerning to me is the anti-democratic and delegitimizing force of RWM. It's thanks to them that politics is now more about identity than policy.  That's why MAGA supporters are unlikely to vote for any Democrat because s/he offers better (workable) policies (e.g., regarding immigration or health care, including abortion, or trade with China); the power to "see" the policy separate from party is gone, as is the desire to hold politicians of both sides to the same standards. Impossible to do if the RWM can convince masses of people that crimes committed by their guy are not really crimes, that the other side is really committing the crimes their guy is accused of, and that they should self-censor by ignoring "fake news" which includes legal backstory and a more complete factual record.