To channel Rush – I know that there are many out there in America – especially in Rio Linda – who think that the Electoral College is a Community College in Upper Jersey that focuses on electrician certifications, but that’s not what it really is.
Publius – aka early American opinion editors and “influencers” – Hamilton, Madison, and Jay – argued quite successfully that the US needed to get rid of the Articles of Confederation and replace them with a brand spanking new Constitution. And today we can read those opinion pieces that they penned in the Federalist Papers.
I won’t go into excruciating detail (well, a little) about the topic of why they recommended and gave us an electoral college for the process of selecting our President – but I will simply draw from a couple of passages I find most relevant from the Federalist Papers. Before I get into the weeds where most modern English speakers will get lost trying to decipher the language – I will start by saying that Federalist Paper 68 was probably written by Hamilton and describes specifically the method in which a US president should be “selected”. And the bottom line is Hamilton and the rest feared “pure democracy”. The key was Publius’ fear in rule by the mob stated earlier in other essays. Federalist Paper 68 was first published March 14, 1788 in the New York Packet. Here is the portion that I think is most relevant:
“Another and no less important desideratum was, that the Executive should be independent for his continuance in office on all but the people themselves. He might otherwise be tempted to sacrifice his duty to his complaisance for those whose favor was necessary to the duration of his official consequence. This advantage will also be secured, by making his re-election to depend on a special body of representatives, deputed by the society for the single purpose of making the important choice.”
From this we explanation – we now have a key reason for why we have the present process of “electors” from the various states – rather than a simple popular vote to choose the President.
From Federalist Paper 9 we get the following:
“A FIRM Union will be of the utmost moment to the peace and liberty of the States, as a barrier against domestic faction and insurrection. It is impossible to read the history of the petty republics of Greece and Italy without feeling sensations of horror and disgust at the distractions with which they were continually agitated, and at the rapid succession of revolutions by which they were kept in a state of perpetual vibration between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy.”
The horror, to net it out, was created by the tyranny of the mob which inevitably morphed into anarchy.
They quote Montesquieu – famous for his notion of separation of powers and checks and balances of the government:
“In the Lycian confederacy, which consisted of twenty-three CITIES or republics, the largest were entitled to THREE votes in the COMMON COUNCIL, those of the middle class to TWO, and the smallest to ONE. The COMMON COUNCIL had the appointment of all the judges and magistrates of the respective CITIES. This was certainly the most, delicate species of interference in their internal administration; for if there be any thing that seems exclusively appropriated to the local jurisdictions, it is the appointment of their own officers. Yet Montesquieu, speaking of this association, says: “Were I to give a model of an excellent Confederate Republic, it would be that of Lycia.”
Hence, it is their correct observation from history in ancient Greece and Rome, that the electoral college, essentially the “Lycian confederacy” model, was the preferable way to select a chief executive of the Republic.
For most of our history, it did not matter much since the popular vote and electoral college had the same outcome. However, its recent history with George W. Bush and Donald J. Trump – the importance of the electoral college has been demonstrated. Despite population centers like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago (and many democrat-controlled cities) where the democrat contender won the popular vote, the electoral college – determined the winner – and in both cases it was a Republican that lost the popular vote.
Here is the bottom line for modern America. We live in a Republic with an electoral college that determines the winner in a Presidential election. To the dismay of the illiberal tyrannical left and those Globalist cheap labor “Rinos” on the right – The electoral college vote – NOT the popular vote is the one that counts. Thank our wise Founders and Framers of the Constitution that we do not live in a Pure Democracy run by the mob. For those of us who understand why our Framers of the Constitution chose to use the electoral college to select a president, by using the Lycian Model – the Electoral College – we cannot be ruled by the mob or the masses brainwashed in large population centers to the detriment of the rest of the population. California is the “canary in the coal mine” – the cautionary tale of what happens when your state morphs into a one party tyranny ignoring most of the counties and rural areas and end up simply relying on the brainwashed elitists and their minions in the metropolitan areas to dictate to the entire state. The sad fact is that middle class citizens who can – have been moving to other states with more opportunities like Nevada, Texas and Florida – while sadly California is being populated by illegals, drug dealers, human traffickers and criminals. Yes, the cartels and the ruling elite democrats and their minions prosper while the middle class exits this once great state in droves. The population centers in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles – overrun by the mob of illegals and a population brainwashed by a generation of America hating Media and Schools – has now given us a California that tragically has gone from the Golden state to a one-party Dystopian Hell Hole in a single generation. This the model that the Democrats and Ruling elite want to give the rest of the country when they whine after losing an election because of the electoral college. The problem is that once the country has morphed into a one party tyranny there is no place to go other than to leave the country. I do not think that is what most Americans who want to live in the land of the free and home of the brave want to do. One way or another we must fight to win our freedom – hopefully at the ballot box if we can avoid another corrupt rigged election or as our forefathers did during the Revolutionary War fight and win our independence and freedom back. Yes, it may come to that. As Jefferson warned: The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.