There comes a moment when we’re all Wyoming

cnelsen

Gold Member
Oct 11, 2016
4,317
497
160
Washington, DC
Joe Bob Briggs annihilates the anti-Electoral College dweebs.

Let’s all dogpile on the Electoral College.

It’s undemocratic, it’s outdated, it’s un-American. The New York Times (surprise, surprise) believes it should be abolished and we should go to a straight-up popular vote.

Because (this is the part they don’t tell you when they make this argument)...

Screw Wyoming.

Screw Vermont.

Screw Arkansas.

Screw Rhode Island.

Screw Delaware.

How could the concerns of those little pipsqueak states matter when the massive voting blocs of the Upper West Side and West Hollywood and Nob Hill and the South Side of Chicago are saying, “You people go back to your bass boats and your cattle ranches and your plaid work shirts and let us run the country as we see fit.”

The founders never intended 100 percent popular voting except at the lowest levels of government, town halls and city councils, where everyone knows one another. Anything beyond that, they wanted some kind of check on the passions of the mob, so that nobody got railroaded just because they were too small to defend themselves.

In other words, the Electoral College is set up to defend minorities.

That’s why Wyoming gets three votes out of 538. This one half of one percent apparently outrages the East Coast Brahmans who would prefer to ignore the small-government radicals from Laramie and Casper who keep rabble-rousing for causes like better management of the wolf population and more equitable policies for grazing livestock on federal land. Who cares about crap like that? They should have exactly what their population entitles them to—

.018 percent of the vote.

They can use the incredible clout of that .018 percent to get whatever they need and then go back to roping their goats or whatever they do.

The same goes for the syrup farmers in Vermont and the Walmart moguls in Arkansas. Twenty-five of the fifty states have seven electoral votes or fewer, so all those people who choose to live away from the crowded urban areas can basically just go artificially inseminate themselves. The most underrepresented people in America—citizens of the District of Columbia—should have those three votes taken away so we don’t have to listen to their constant bitching about, you know, how they’re not represented in Congress at all.

So we’ve had 56 presidential elections, and in four of them the Electoral College has differed from the popular vote. In 1876 it was because the North and Far West went for Hayes over Tilden even though the Democrats in the South came out in far greater numbers in an effort to get rid of Reconstruction. In 1888 it was Benjamin Harrison outcampaigning the solid Democratic South that wanted to keep Grover Cleveland. In 2000 it was the South and the Midwest defeating the big voter turnout on both coasts and the Rust Belt. And in 2016 it was, of course, the South, the Midwest, and the Rust Belt defeating the heavily populated coasts.

So 7 percent of the time, the small states get pissed off and defeat the big ones. This is exactly what the founders envisioned. They didn’t want the planter class of Virginia or the mercantile millionaires of Boston and Philadelphia running roughshod over Delaware, Rhode Island, and Georgia. In fact, the small states feared the big states so much that, without that provision, the Constitution never would have been approved.

But there’s another reason why the popular-vote argument doesn’t hold water. If the most recent presidential election had been decided by popular vote, that doesn’t mean Hillary would have won, because the patterns of campaigning and spending would have been completely different. Clinton didn’t campaign in Texas. Trump didn’t campaign in Illinois. Cities like Houston and Denver and San Diego would be in play if they weren’t written off in advance. To say “Trump would have lost if we had a popular-vote system” is to create some alternative universe in which the rules are all changed but the behavior of the candidates remains the same.

The Electoral College was set up to prevent injustice. Majority rule only works when everyone agrees on the basics. And one of those basics that no one agrees on is the role of states in our federal system. If you follow the New York Times argument to its logical conclusion, we shouldn’t have states at all. We should be more like Germany. Or Russia. Or Starbucks.

So today is Thanksgiving, the holiday that commemorates a moment when two entirely different cultures—the Puritans and the Native Americans—decided that, even though they both had weird lifestyles and they were never going to have anything in common, they were willing to live peacefully side by side and respect each other’s traditions. Red states and blue states need to be breaking bread together today, because consider the alternative.

Does anyone wanna risk a straight-up popular national vote on abortion? Or gun rights? Or gay marriage? Or sanctuary cities? Or affirmative action? Or any of a hundred other issues that affect one part of the population but nobody else cares about? Isn’t it better to keep the messy system we have, where small groups of people can still win because it’s impossible to ignore them? There comes a moment in everyone’s life when you’re the minority.

There comes a moment when we’re all Wyoming.

Let’s make sure our cowboy hats are creased and our eccentric causes are always heard. Let’s make sure the bigots in New York don’t eliminate the bohemians in Bozeman. The Electoral College works just fine.​


The Electoral College Works, Leave It Alone
 
Joe Bob Briggs annihilates the anti-Electoral College dweebs.

Let’s all dogpile on the Electoral College.

It’s undemocratic, it’s outdated, it’s un-American. The New York Times (surprise, surprise) believes it should be abolished and we should go to a straight-up popular vote.

Because (this is the part they don’t tell you when they make this argument)...

Screw Wyoming.

Screw Vermont.

Screw Arkansas.

Screw Rhode Island.

Screw Delaware.

How could the concerns of those little pipsqueak states matter when the massive voting blocs of the Upper West Side and West Hollywood and Nob Hill and the South Side of Chicago are saying, “You people go back to your bass boats and your cattle ranches and your plaid work shirts and let us run the country as we see fit.”

The founders never intended 100 percent popular voting except at the lowest levels of government, town halls and city councils, where everyone knows one another. Anything beyond that, they wanted some kind of check on the passions of the mob, so that nobody got railroaded just because they were too small to defend themselves.

In other words, the Electoral College is set up to defend minorities.

That’s why Wyoming gets three votes out of 538. This one half of one percent apparently outrages the East Coast Brahmans who would prefer to ignore the small-government radicals from Laramie and Casper who keep rabble-rousing for causes like better management of the wolf population and more equitable policies for grazing livestock on federal land. Who cares about crap like that? They should have exactly what their population entitles them to—

.018 percent of the vote.

They can use the incredible clout of that .018 percent to get whatever they need and then go back to roping their goats or whatever they do.

The same goes for the syrup farmers in Vermont and the Walmart moguls in Arkansas. Twenty-five of the fifty states have seven electoral votes or fewer, so all those people who choose to live away from the crowded urban areas can basically just go artificially inseminate themselves. The most underrepresented people in America—citizens of the District of Columbia—should have those three votes taken away so we don’t have to listen to their constant bitching about, you know, how they’re not represented in Congress at all.

So we’ve had 56 presidential elections, and in four of them the Electoral College has differed from the popular vote. In 1876 it was because the North and Far West went for Hayes over Tilden even though the Democrats in the South came out in far greater numbers in an effort to get rid of Reconstruction. In 1888 it was Benjamin Harrison outcampaigning the solid Democratic South that wanted to keep Grover Cleveland. In 2000 it was the South and the Midwest defeating the big voter turnout on both coasts and the Rust Belt. And in 2016 it was, of course, the South, the Midwest, and the Rust Belt defeating the heavily populated coasts.

So 7 percent of the time, the small states get pissed off and defeat the big ones. This is exactly what the founders envisioned. They didn’t want the planter class of Virginia or the mercantile millionaires of Boston and Philadelphia running roughshod over Delaware, Rhode Island, and Georgia. In fact, the small states feared the big states so much that, without that provision, the Constitution never would have been approved.

But there’s another reason why the popular-vote argument doesn’t hold water. If the most recent presidential election had been decided by popular vote, that doesn’t mean Hillary would have won, because the patterns of campaigning and spending would have been completely different. Clinton didn’t campaign in Texas. Trump didn’t campaign in Illinois. Cities like Houston and Denver and San Diego would be in play if they weren’t written off in advance. To say “Trump would have lost if we had a popular-vote system” is to create some alternative universe in which the rules are all changed but the behavior of the candidates remains the same.

The Electoral College was set up to prevent injustice. Majority rule only works when everyone agrees on the basics. And one of those basics that no one agrees on is the role of states in our federal system. If you follow the New York Times argument to its logical conclusion, we shouldn’t have states at all. We should be more like Germany. Or Russia. Or Starbucks.

So today is Thanksgiving, the holiday that commemorates a moment when two entirely different cultures—the Puritans and the Native Americans—decided that, even though they both had weird lifestyles and they were never going to have anything in common, they were willing to live peacefully side by side and respect each other’s traditions. Red states and blue states need to be breaking bread together today, because consider the alternative.

Does anyone wanna risk a straight-up popular national vote on abortion? Or gun rights? Or gay marriage? Or sanctuary cities? Or affirmative action? Or any of a hundred other issues that affect one part of the population but nobody else cares about? Isn’t it better to keep the messy system we have, where small groups of people can still win because it’s impossible to ignore them? There comes a moment in everyone’s life when you’re the minority.

There comes a moment when we’re all Wyoming.

Let’s make sure our cowboy hats are creased and our eccentric causes are always heard. Let’s make sure the bigots in New York don’t eliminate the bohemians in Bozeman. The Electoral College works just fine.​


The Electoral College Works, Leave It Alone


The popular vote doesn't screw the small states at all. If they are screwed by anything, it's simply the reality of their small populations.
But on the other hand, the small states give the big states a big screwing by virtue of their receipt of 2 Senators no matter how small the states are.
 
Joe Bob Briggs annihilates the anti-Electoral College dweebs.

Let’s all dogpile on the Electoral College.

It’s undemocratic, it’s outdated, it’s un-American. The New York Times (surprise, surprise) believes it should be abolished and we should go to a straight-up popular vote.

Because (this is the part they don’t tell you when they make this argument)...

Screw Wyoming.

Screw Vermont.

Screw Arkansas.

Screw Rhode Island.

Screw Delaware.

How could the concerns of those little pipsqueak states matter when the massive voting blocs of the Upper West Side and West Hollywood and Nob Hill and the South Side of Chicago are saying, “You people go back to your bass boats and your cattle ranches and your plaid work shirts and let us run the country as we see fit.”

The founders never intended 100 percent popular voting except at the lowest levels of government, town halls and city councils, where everyone knows one another. Anything beyond that, they wanted some kind of check on the passions of the mob, so that nobody got railroaded just because they were too small to defend themselves.

In other words, the Electoral College is set up to defend minorities.

That’s why Wyoming gets three votes out of 538. This one half of one percent apparently outrages the East Coast Brahmans who would prefer to ignore the small-government radicals from Laramie and Casper who keep rabble-rousing for causes like better management of the wolf population and more equitable policies for grazing livestock on federal land. Who cares about crap like that? They should have exactly what their population entitles them to—

.018 percent of the vote.

They can use the incredible clout of that .018 percent to get whatever they need and then go back to roping their goats or whatever they do.

The same goes for the syrup farmers in Vermont and the Walmart moguls in Arkansas. Twenty-five of the fifty states have seven electoral votes or fewer, so all those people who choose to live away from the crowded urban areas can basically just go artificially inseminate themselves. The most underrepresented people in America—citizens of the District of Columbia—should have those three votes taken away so we don’t have to listen to their constant bitching about, you know, how they’re not represented in Congress at all.

So we’ve had 56 presidential elections, and in four of them the Electoral College has differed from the popular vote. In 1876 it was because the North and Far West went for Hayes over Tilden even though the Democrats in the South came out in far greater numbers in an effort to get rid of Reconstruction. In 1888 it was Benjamin Harrison outcampaigning the solid Democratic South that wanted to keep Grover Cleveland. In 2000 it was the South and the Midwest defeating the big voter turnout on both coasts and the Rust Belt. And in 2016 it was, of course, the South, the Midwest, and the Rust Belt defeating the heavily populated coasts.

So 7 percent of the time, the small states get pissed off and defeat the big ones. This is exactly what the founders envisioned. They didn’t want the planter class of Virginia or the mercantile millionaires of Boston and Philadelphia running roughshod over Delaware, Rhode Island, and Georgia. In fact, the small states feared the big states so much that, without that provision, the Constitution never would have been approved.

But there’s another reason why the popular-vote argument doesn’t hold water. If the most recent presidential election had been decided by popular vote, that doesn’t mean Hillary would have won, because the patterns of campaigning and spending would have been completely different. Clinton didn’t campaign in Texas. Trump didn’t campaign in Illinois. Cities like Houston and Denver and San Diego would be in play if they weren’t written off in advance. To say “Trump would have lost if we had a popular-vote system” is to create some alternative universe in which the rules are all changed but the behavior of the candidates remains the same.

The Electoral College was set up to prevent injustice. Majority rule only works when everyone agrees on the basics. And one of those basics that no one agrees on is the role of states in our federal system. If you follow the New York Times argument to its logical conclusion, we shouldn’t have states at all. We should be more like Germany. Or Russia. Or Starbucks.

So today is Thanksgiving, the holiday that commemorates a moment when two entirely different cultures—the Puritans and the Native Americans—decided that, even though they both had weird lifestyles and they were never going to have anything in common, they were willing to live peacefully side by side and respect each other’s traditions. Red states and blue states need to be breaking bread together today, because consider the alternative.

Does anyone wanna risk a straight-up popular national vote on abortion? Or gun rights? Or gay marriage? Or sanctuary cities? Or affirmative action? Or any of a hundred other issues that affect one part of the population but nobody else cares about? Isn’t it better to keep the messy system we have, where small groups of people can still win because it’s impossible to ignore them? There comes a moment in everyone’s life when you’re the minority.

There comes a moment when we’re all Wyoming.

Let’s make sure our cowboy hats are creased and our eccentric causes are always heard. Let’s make sure the bigots in New York don’t eliminate the bohemians in Bozeman. The Electoral College works just fine.​


The Electoral College Works, Leave It Alone


The popular vote doesn't screw the small states at all. If they are screwed by anything, it's simply the reality of their small populations.
But on the other hand, the small states give the big states a big screwing by virtue of their receipt of 2 Senators no matter how small the states are.

Exactly! Small states have an equal voice in dictating how we all live. Corporations and acres are equal to humans.
 
Wow, Joe Bob Briggs is still around? I remember him from when I lived in Austin Texas back in the 80's. I never knew his political affiliation but it's good to know that he is on our side.
 
What is screwing democracy is gerrymandering. Draw congressional districts along county lines. Stop chopping up districts for political advantage.

The RSLC Redistricting Majority Project – REDMAP

Sorry puppy. The winners in this world get to make the rules. I know, "It ain't fair dammit!...wah..."

But when you're the winner, you can make your own rules such as triggering the "nuclear option" and changing the Senate rules, like the Democrats have in the past.
 
Joe Bob Briggs annihilates the anti-Electoral College dweebs.

Let’s all dogpile on the Electoral College.

It’s undemocratic, it’s outdated, it’s un-American. The New York Times (surprise, surprise) believes it should be abolished and we should go to a straight-up popular vote.

Because (this is the part they don’t tell you when they make this argument)...

Screw Wyoming.

Screw Vermont.

Screw Arkansas.

Screw Rhode Island.

Screw Delaware.

How could the concerns of those little pipsqueak states matter when the massive voting blocs of the Upper West Side and West Hollywood and Nob Hill and the South Side of Chicago are saying, “You people go back to your bass boats and your cattle ranches and your plaid work shirts and let us run the country as we see fit.”

The founders never intended 100 percent popular voting except at the lowest levels of government, town halls and city councils, where everyone knows one another. Anything beyond that, they wanted some kind of check on the passions of the mob, so that nobody got railroaded just because they were too small to defend themselves.

In other words, the Electoral College is set up to defend minorities.

That’s why Wyoming gets three votes out of 538. This one half of one percent apparently outrages the East Coast Brahmans who would prefer to ignore the small-government radicals from Laramie and Casper who keep rabble-rousing for causes like better management of the wolf population and more equitable policies for grazing livestock on federal land. Who cares about crap like that? They should have exactly what their population entitles them to—

.018 percent of the vote.

They can use the incredible clout of that .018 percent to get whatever they need and then go back to roping their goats or whatever they do.

The same goes for the syrup farmers in Vermont and the Walmart moguls in Arkansas. Twenty-five of the fifty states have seven electoral votes or fewer, so all those people who choose to live away from the crowded urban areas can basically just go artificially inseminate themselves. The most underrepresented people in America—citizens of the District of Columbia—should have those three votes taken away so we don’t have to listen to their constant bitching about, you know, how they’re not represented in Congress at all.

So we’ve had 56 presidential elections, and in four of them the Electoral College has differed from the popular vote. In 1876 it was because the North and Far West went for Hayes over Tilden even though the Democrats in the South came out in far greater numbers in an effort to get rid of Reconstruction. In 1888 it was Benjamin Harrison outcampaigning the solid Democratic South that wanted to keep Grover Cleveland. In 2000 it was the South and the Midwest defeating the big voter turnout on both coasts and the Rust Belt. And in 2016 it was, of course, the South, the Midwest, and the Rust Belt defeating the heavily populated coasts.

So 7 percent of the time, the small states get pissed off and defeat the big ones. This is exactly what the founders envisioned. They didn’t want the planter class of Virginia or the mercantile millionaires of Boston and Philadelphia running roughshod over Delaware, Rhode Island, and Georgia. In fact, the small states feared the big states so much that, without that provision, the Constitution never would have been approved.

But there’s another reason why the popular-vote argument doesn’t hold water. If the most recent presidential election had been decided by popular vote, that doesn’t mean Hillary would have won, because the patterns of campaigning and spending would have been completely different. Clinton didn’t campaign in Texas. Trump didn’t campaign in Illinois. Cities like Houston and Denver and San Diego would be in play if they weren’t written off in advance. To say “Trump would have lost if we had a popular-vote system” is to create some alternative universe in which the rules are all changed but the behavior of the candidates remains the same.

The Electoral College was set up to prevent injustice. Majority rule only works when everyone agrees on the basics. And one of those basics that no one agrees on is the role of states in our federal system. If you follow the New York Times argument to its logical conclusion, we shouldn’t have states at all. We should be more like Germany. Or Russia. Or Starbucks.

So today is Thanksgiving, the holiday that commemorates a moment when two entirely different cultures—the Puritans and the Native Americans—decided that, even though they both had weird lifestyles and they were never going to have anything in common, they were willing to live peacefully side by side and respect each other’s traditions. Red states and blue states need to be breaking bread together today, because consider the alternative.

Does anyone wanna risk a straight-up popular national vote on abortion? Or gun rights? Or gay marriage? Or sanctuary cities? Or affirmative action? Or any of a hundred other issues that affect one part of the population but nobody else cares about? Isn’t it better to keep the messy system we have, where small groups of people can still win because it’s impossible to ignore them? There comes a moment in everyone’s life when you’re the minority.

There comes a moment when we’re all Wyoming.

Let’s make sure our cowboy hats are creased and our eccentric causes are always heard. Let’s make sure the bigots in New York don’t eliminate the bohemians in Bozeman. The Electoral College works just fine.​


The Electoral College Works, Leave It Alone


The popular vote doesn't screw the small states at all. If they are screwed by anything, it's simply the reality of their small populations.
But on the other hand, the small states give the big states a big screwing by virtue of their receipt of 2 Senators no matter how small the states are.

Exactly! Small states have an equal voice in dictating how we all live. Corporations and acres are equal to humans.

These people can't accept that we're a nation, not some 50 nation club.
 
Per capita makes no difference. All states should be represented equally so as not to be bullied by a dozen. Because when it comes to politics, we are a club of 50.
One person in Wyoming should have as much leverage and voice as one person in California. If Wyoming is represented by one person and California has 12 in the same arena, then Wyoming becomes permanently ineffective. Which is why Dems. want to stack the deck.
Leave our system in place. It has worked for us all this time. No need to fix something that isn't broken. < a lesson we learned the hard way with our healthcare system.
Snowflakes are so dumb they would popular vote us right into UN control if a Dem or WaPo told them to. Keep that in mind.
 
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Since 2000 the GOP has lost the vote 4 out 5 times but they've been given the presidency 3 out of 5 times.

No wonder the Right adores the electoral college. It may be the GOP's only hope of staying competitive, as the People turn more and more against them at the national level.
 
Per capita makes no difference. All states should be represented equally so as not to be bullied by a dozen. Because when it comes to politics, we are a club of 50.
One person in Wyoming should have as much leverage and voice as one person in California. If Wyoming is represented by one person and California has 12 in the same arena, then Wyoming becomes permanently ineffective. Which is why Dems. want to stack the deck.
Leave our system in place. It has worked for us all this time. No need to fix something that isn't broken. < a lesson we learned the hard way with our healthcare system.
Snowflakes are so dumb they would popular vote us right into UN control if a Dem or WaPo told them to. Keep that in mind.

You people on the Right become more and more dependent on undemocratic means of clinging to power.
 
Joe Bob Briggs annihilates the anti-Electoral College dweebs.

Let’s all dogpile on the Electoral College.

It’s undemocratic, it’s outdated, it’s un-American. The New York Times (surprise, surprise) believes it should be abolished and we should go to a straight-up popular vote.

Because (this is the part they don’t tell you when they make this argument)...

Screw Wyoming.

Screw Vermont.

Screw Arkansas.

Screw Rhode Island.

Screw Delaware.

How could the concerns of those little pipsqueak states matter when the massive voting blocs of the Upper West Side and West Hollywood and Nob Hill and the South Side of Chicago are saying, “You people go back to your bass boats and your cattle ranches and your plaid work shirts and let us run the country as we see fit.”

The founders never intended 100 percent popular voting except at the lowest levels of government, town halls and city councils, where everyone knows one another. Anything beyond that, they wanted some kind of check on the passions of the mob, so that nobody got railroaded just because they were too small to defend themselves.

In other words, the Electoral College is set up to defend minorities.

That’s why Wyoming gets three votes out of 538. This one half of one percent apparently outrages the East Coast Brahmans who would prefer to ignore the small-government radicals from Laramie and Casper who keep rabble-rousing for causes like better management of the wolf population and more equitable policies for grazing livestock on federal land. Who cares about crap like that? They should have exactly what their population entitles them to—

.018 percent of the vote.

They can use the incredible clout of that .018 percent to get whatever they need and then go back to roping their goats or whatever they do.

The same goes for the syrup farmers in Vermont and the Walmart moguls in Arkansas. Twenty-five of the fifty states have seven electoral votes or fewer, so all those people who choose to live away from the crowded urban areas can basically just go artificially inseminate themselves. The most underrepresented people in America—citizens of the District of Columbia—should have those three votes taken away so we don’t have to listen to their constant bitching about, you know, how they’re not represented in Congress at all.

So we’ve had 56 presidential elections, and in four of them the Electoral College has differed from the popular vote. In 1876 it was because the North and Far West went for Hayes over Tilden even though the Democrats in the South came out in far greater numbers in an effort to get rid of Reconstruction. In 1888 it was Benjamin Harrison outcampaigning the solid Democratic South that wanted to keep Grover Cleveland. In 2000 it was the South and the Midwest defeating the big voter turnout on both coasts and the Rust Belt. And in 2016 it was, of course, the South, the Midwest, and the Rust Belt defeating the heavily populated coasts.

So 7 percent of the time, the small states get pissed off and defeat the big ones. This is exactly what the founders envisioned. They didn’t want the planter class of Virginia or the mercantile millionaires of Boston and Philadelphia running roughshod over Delaware, Rhode Island, and Georgia. In fact, the small states feared the big states so much that, without that provision, the Constitution never would have been approved.

But there’s another reason why the popular-vote argument doesn’t hold water. If the most recent presidential election had been decided by popular vote, that doesn’t mean Hillary would have won, because the patterns of campaigning and spending would have been completely different. Clinton didn’t campaign in Texas. Trump didn’t campaign in Illinois. Cities like Houston and Denver and San Diego would be in play if they weren’t written off in advance. To say “Trump would have lost if we had a popular-vote system” is to create some alternative universe in which the rules are all changed but the behavior of the candidates remains the same.

The Electoral College was set up to prevent injustice. Majority rule only works when everyone agrees on the basics. And one of those basics that no one agrees on is the role of states in our federal system. If you follow the New York Times argument to its logical conclusion, we shouldn’t have states at all. We should be more like Germany. Or Russia. Or Starbucks.

So today is Thanksgiving, the holiday that commemorates a moment when two entirely different cultures—the Puritans and the Native Americans—decided that, even though they both had weird lifestyles and they were never going to have anything in common, they were willing to live peacefully side by side and respect each other’s traditions. Red states and blue states need to be breaking bread together today, because consider the alternative.

Does anyone wanna risk a straight-up popular national vote on abortion? Or gun rights? Or gay marriage? Or sanctuary cities? Or affirmative action? Or any of a hundred other issues that affect one part of the population but nobody else cares about? Isn’t it better to keep the messy system we have, where small groups of people can still win because it’s impossible to ignore them? There comes a moment in everyone’s life when you’re the minority.

There comes a moment when we’re all Wyoming.

Let’s make sure our cowboy hats are creased and our eccentric causes are always heard. Let’s make sure the bigots in New York don’t eliminate the bohemians in Bozeman. The Electoral College works just fine.​


The Electoral College Works, Leave It Alone


The popular vote doesn't screw the small states at all. If they are screwed by anything, it's simply the reality of their small populations.
But on the other hand, the small states give the big states a big screwing by virtue of their receipt of 2 Senators no matter how small the states are.

Exactly! Small states have an equal voice in dictating how we all live. Corporations and acres are equal to humans.

These people can't accept that we're a nation, not some 50 nation club.

The electoral college insures equality for all states, and that is what keeps us a nation. Popular vote pits the wealthy in populous against the lesser populated states. It is stacking the deck and creates the bullies and the bullied. Exactly want the Dems are aiming for with this.
 
Joe Bob Briggs annihilates the anti-Electoral College dweebs.

Let’s all dogpile on the Electoral College.

It’s undemocratic, it’s outdated, it’s un-American. The New York Times (surprise, surprise) believes it should be abolished and we should go to a straight-up popular vote.

Because (this is the part they don’t tell you when they make this argument)...

Screw Wyoming.

Screw Vermont.

Screw Arkansas.

Screw Rhode Island.

Screw Delaware.

How could the concerns of those little pipsqueak states matter when the massive voting blocs of the Upper West Side and West Hollywood and Nob Hill and the South Side of Chicago are saying, “You people go back to your bass boats and your cattle ranches and your plaid work shirts and let us run the country as we see fit.”

The founders never intended 100 percent popular voting except at the lowest levels of government, town halls and city councils, where everyone knows one another. Anything beyond that, they wanted some kind of check on the passions of the mob, so that nobody got railroaded just because they were too small to defend themselves.

In other words, the Electoral College is set up to defend minorities.

That’s why Wyoming gets three votes out of 538. This one half of one percent apparently outrages the East Coast Brahmans who would prefer to ignore the small-government radicals from Laramie and Casper who keep rabble-rousing for causes like better management of the wolf population and more equitable policies for grazing livestock on federal land. Who cares about crap like that? They should have exactly what their population entitles them to—

.018 percent of the vote.

They can use the incredible clout of that .018 percent to get whatever they need and then go back to roping their goats or whatever they do.

The same goes for the syrup farmers in Vermont and the Walmart moguls in Arkansas. Twenty-five of the fifty states have seven electoral votes or fewer, so all those people who choose to live away from the crowded urban areas can basically just go artificially inseminate themselves. The most underrepresented people in America—citizens of the District of Columbia—should have those three votes taken away so we don’t have to listen to their constant bitching about, you know, how they’re not represented in Congress at all.

So we’ve had 56 presidential elections, and in four of them the Electoral College has differed from the popular vote. In 1876 it was because the North and Far West went for Hayes over Tilden even though the Democrats in the South came out in far greater numbers in an effort to get rid of Reconstruction. In 1888 it was Benjamin Harrison outcampaigning the solid Democratic South that wanted to keep Grover Cleveland. In 2000 it was the South and the Midwest defeating the big voter turnout on both coasts and the Rust Belt. And in 2016 it was, of course, the South, the Midwest, and the Rust Belt defeating the heavily populated coasts.

So 7 percent of the time, the small states get pissed off and defeat the big ones. This is exactly what the founders envisioned. They didn’t want the planter class of Virginia or the mercantile millionaires of Boston and Philadelphia running roughshod over Delaware, Rhode Island, and Georgia. In fact, the small states feared the big states so much that, without that provision, the Constitution never would have been approved.

But there’s another reason why the popular-vote argument doesn’t hold water. If the most recent presidential election had been decided by popular vote, that doesn’t mean Hillary would have won, because the patterns of campaigning and spending would have been completely different. Clinton didn’t campaign in Texas. Trump didn’t campaign in Illinois. Cities like Houston and Denver and San Diego would be in play if they weren’t written off in advance. To say “Trump would have lost if we had a popular-vote system” is to create some alternative universe in which the rules are all changed but the behavior of the candidates remains the same.

The Electoral College was set up to prevent injustice. Majority rule only works when everyone agrees on the basics. And one of those basics that no one agrees on is the role of states in our federal system. If you follow the New York Times argument to its logical conclusion, we shouldn’t have states at all. We should be more like Germany. Or Russia. Or Starbucks.

So today is Thanksgiving, the holiday that commemorates a moment when two entirely different cultures—the Puritans and the Native Americans—decided that, even though they both had weird lifestyles and they were never going to have anything in common, they were willing to live peacefully side by side and respect each other’s traditions. Red states and blue states need to be breaking bread together today, because consider the alternative.

Does anyone wanna risk a straight-up popular national vote on abortion? Or gun rights? Or gay marriage? Or sanctuary cities? Or affirmative action? Or any of a hundred other issues that affect one part of the population but nobody else cares about? Isn’t it better to keep the messy system we have, where small groups of people can still win because it’s impossible to ignore them? There comes a moment in everyone’s life when you’re the minority.

There comes a moment when we’re all Wyoming.

Let’s make sure our cowboy hats are creased and our eccentric causes are always heard. Let’s make sure the bigots in New York don’t eliminate the bohemians in Bozeman. The Electoral College works just fine.​


The Electoral College Works, Leave It Alone


The popular vote doesn't screw the small states at all. If they are screwed by anything, it's simply the reality of their small populations.
But on the other hand, the small states give the big states a big screwing by virtue of their receipt of 2 Senators no matter how small the states are.

Exactly! Small states have an equal voice in dictating how we all live. Corporations and acres are equal to humans.

These people can't accept that we're a nation, not some 50 nation club.

Yeah, well then start acting like a nation goddammit! In case you've been living under a rock or you've been in a coma the last year, the majority of violence and unrest has been coming from you fucksticks on the left.

What the fuck makes you yapping lap dogs think you can overturn a legal election carried out in this country? Do you think this is some kind of a fucking banana republic or something?

Donald trump won the election fair and square. There is nothing you can say or do about it that's going to change one single thing.. How about this: Instead of all the bitching, moaning carrying on, and parroting the propaganda that the the Russian and Chinese instigators are flooding this country with (Yes you are a shining example of what Stalin meant by "useful idiot") instead of serving the purpose of the same enemy that despises you and I equally, how about giving this President a little benefit of the doubt?

How about realizing just how this country is performing in real time, since Donald Trump took office? I mean for Christ's sake: Look at the stock market. Look at the economic growth number. Look at the employment figures. Look at how ISIS has been all but wiped off the face of the map. Look at how money is flowing back into this country, at how we are making new alliances and renewing old friendships,

Jesus fucking Christ already! What the hell is wrong with you people? You fuckheads are completely oblivious to how this country of yours has increased in stature and prosperity just over the last year. Get a fucking clue already, ok?
 
Per capita makes no difference. All states should be represented equally so as not to be bullied by a dozen. Because when it comes to politics, we are a club of 50.
One person in Wyoming should have as much leverage and voice as one person in California. If Wyoming is represented by one person and California has 12 in the same arena, then Wyoming becomes permanently ineffective. Which is why Dems. want to stack the deck.
Leave our system in place. It has worked for us all this time. No need to fix something that isn't broken. < a lesson we learned the hard way with our healthcare system.
Snowflakes are so dumb they would popular vote us right into UN control if a Dem or WaPo told them to. Keep that in mind.

You people on the Right become more and more dependent on undemocratic means of clinging to power.

I depended on our democratic means of electing a President. We aren't clinging, we won.
You people are clinging to the illusion that you won. You did not. Try again next time...
 
We are the United States of America, and those unschooled do not understand that that is not just some nifty title someone thought up. It actually means something.
 
Since 2000 the GOP has lost the vote 4 out 5 times but they've been given the presidency 3 out of 5 times.

No wonder the Right adores the electoral college. It may be the GOP's only hope of staying competitive, as the People turn more and more against them at the national level.

Clinton won CA by almost 4 million votes. If CA had 100 million people and clinton won by 95 million votes, you would still be in favor of screwing the country in favor of one state?
 
Do you think it’s fair that DC has 2 million people wh no representation, but Wyoming has 2 senators?
 
Since 2000 the GOP has lost the vote 4 out 5 times but they've been given the presidency 3 out of 5 times.

No wonder the Right adores the electoral college. It may be the GOP's only hope of staying competitive, as the People turn more and more against them at the national level.

Clinton won CA by almost 4 million votes. If CA had 100 million people and clinton won by 95 million votes, you would still be in favor of screwing the country in favor of one state?

We're electing the President of the UNITED STATES.

What makes the least sense is that a candidate could win a state with less than 50% of the votes (were it a 3 or more person race) and receive 100% of the electors.
 
Since 2000 the GOP has lost the vote 4 out 5 times but they've been given the presidency 3 out of 5 times.

No wonder the Right adores the electoral college. It may be the GOP's only hope of staying competitive, as the People turn more and more against them at the national level.

Clinton won CA by almost 4 million votes. If CA had 100 million people and clinton won by 95 million votes, you would still be in favor of screwing the country in favor of one state?

If a candidate was able to win 95% of CA, the race wouldn't even be close across the rest of the country.
 
If the roles were reversed and Trump had won the popular while Clinton won the EC the left would be screaming the virtues of the EC. They fool nobody, just a bunch of sore losers
 

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