So yesterday the Electoral College met and formally elected Donald Trump as our next president. The Left had been applying significant pressure to get electors to flip, and to vote for candidates other than what the popular vote of their state had determined for them. The end result was that two Trump electors were faithless, and four Hillary electors abandoned ship. But even under the most optimistic scenario, if they had gotten Trump’s electoral tally down below 270, this would only have resulted in the presidential election being tossed into the House of Representatives, which is controlled by the Republicans. Practically, at the end of the day, it was just an argument about how to wind up with Donald Trump.
In this election, the unfaithful electors didn’t matter. But it is not hard to imagine an election where it would matter, and so the states would be well-advised to institute additional protections against such fecklessness. Even when they don’t bring home the intended goods, such shenanigans are intended to delegitimize both the incoming administration and the Electoral College itself. State-by-state reforms are needed so that the Electoral College becomes what it really needs to be, which is largely invisible.
The argument that the Left presents against the Electoral College system is that this way of determining the president can (and in this case, did) run contrary to the overall popular vote. The Electoral College is therefore “undemocratic,” and the argument is thought to be over.
There are two replies to this. The first is that you can’t game an election after the fact, pretending that the rules were other than what they were. The competing parties structured their strategies (or ought to have) based on calculations that took the existing rules in account. What would have happened had the Electoral College been taken out of the picture, and Trump and Hillary ran against one another in a bid for the national popular vote? The answer is that we have absolutely no idea. If we got rid of the Electoral College, would we still have the state-by-state system of primaries to select the two final candidates? Or would the Republicans and Democrats have had to hold a national primary election to settle on their respective candidates? The actual election would have been between Hinkendoof and Smith. Counterfactual analysis can be a lot of fun, but this is only because being totally unproductive can sometimes be a lot of fun.
The second reply is that if we were to go to a straightforward popular vote, coast to coast, and both sides knew it before the election so that they could prepare their strategies accordingly, this would at least be fair to the candidates. But it wouldn’t be fair to the states. In this last election, Hillary won the overall popular vote. But if you look at the popular vote tally in 49 out of 50 states, dropping California, Trump would have won the popular vote. So do we really want California to be our swing vote?
The whole point of the Electoral College was to prevent the development and dominance of regional candidates. In short, the Electoral College is not letting us down. It is succeeding wonderfully, and we really need another bank holiday named after Madison. We don’t want national elections where 45 states are treated by both candidates the way Hillary treated Wisconsin.
The Founders had the fantods about popular democracy. They wanted the House of Representatives to be the democratic element in our system of government, but they decidedly did not want that to be the only element. They wanted the states as states to have a voice as well. They established checks and balances in every direction—between the three branches of government, between the federal government and state governments, and between the will of the people and the established Constitution. They wanted the popular vote to be significant and to be heard, but not to be handed a bottle of whiskey and the car keys.
This was wise and prudent, and reflected a profoundly biblical sentiment about the heart of man. C.S. Lewis once pointed out that there are two different approaches to democracy. One is where there is unbounded faith in man, and so we don’t want to do anything without consulting every last one of us. The other is the view held by the Founders, which was that we are all so radically unreliable that no one of us can be entrusted with all the power, and so we spread the power as thinly as possible in order to prevent and head off populist and/or governmental outrages.
And thus we have a system that protects us from one another. This is why Rhode Island, with a population of 1 million, has two senators and New York City, population 8.5 million, has no senators. We do it this way because our states are states, and not administrative districts or provinces.
Those on the Left who believe this system is unfair should begin by changing those things that they can change. The Electoral College will not be changed because the majority of the states are small states, and are not about to relinquish their influence. Nor should they. But those who believe that this is an immoral system can take steps. They can institute electoral reforms in large blue states like California, abandoning the “winner take all” approach to their apportionment of electors.
Yesterday Bernie Sanders defended his populist democratic principles when he said, “We need to change the electoral college.” But on the basis of this approach, senators from small states (like Bernie from Vermont) should actually resign in protest—because, as we all may see at a glance, that state is radically over-represented in the Senate. I mean, they have a population of just over 600K, and they have two senators. Texas has a population of 27 million, and they only have two senators. If Texas were to be represented at Vermont rates, they could have 45 senators. I think it is high time that Bernie go out in a blaze of consistency.
We don’t however know who won the popular vote, thousands of absentee ballots were never counted, they didn’t need to be because they wouldn’t have changed the individual state outcomes. They would affect the overall popular vote . Since the majority of these absentee ballots come from the military which historically vote republican the outcome would be quite different
Wilson wrote: State-by-state reforms are needed so that the Electoral College becomes what it really needs to be, which is largely invisible. I think I see Wilson’s point about tightening up Electoral College loose ends for the sake of orderly transition, but it seems folks really have the notion that they are directly electing the President, rather than understanding that it is the State, as a representative entity, that votes for the President through the Electoral College. In that sense the Electoral College doesn’t seem visible enough. When it comes to tangibly seeing that we are a republic, and not… Read more »
katecho, if you’re so inclined, I would be very interested your response to my comment on a very old post of Wilson’s: The Whole Hipster Food Industry. I imagine you’re the type that wouldn’t agree with me, but I’m curious how you would try to pick apart my argument (assuming you would.)
I really have to wonder what significance is placed on this “republic not a democracy” distinction I hear from conservatives so often. The USA was never organised like the Roman republic, for example. What differences do you (or others) see that go beyond the merely technical and procedural? The ultimate justification for all power in Americanism is still popular opinion, at all levels.
Go back and read the article. Our esteemed host explains this well. The framers of our Constitution knew well that an unfettered democracy could easily become a tyrannical mob. Mel Gibson’s character in The Patriot had a pithy line: “How are a thousand tyrants one mile away better that one tyrant 1000 miles away?” Having observed man’s nature from the history in Europe and the Scriptures, our Framers wisely instituted checks and balances. Your last sentence was flawed. The ultimate justification for all power in Americanism is the rule of law which has been implemented with the consent of the… Read more »
How is “consent of the governed” different from “popular sovereignty”? i.e., divine right of mob.
Because our consent was through our elected representatives who ratified the rule of law. Law is not abrogated when it becomes inconvenient. We are not all special snowflakes who get our whim when the law is inconvenient and become a boot to the neck of someone whose legal behavior offends us. You don’t seem to comprehend how easy it is to be part of the mob when we don’t like legal behavior that offend us. Just look at the good little fascists on modern university campuses who attempt to purge all ideas they find inconvenient.
So, again, you are saying that the only foundation of legitimate political power is The Will of The People, and the difference between democracy and republic is technical and procedural, not a difference in source of political legitimacy. Do I understand correctly?
No. That was not your question. You limited the question to “Americanism.” That was the question I answered. As a Christian, I believe that the ultimate source of law is God who sets up kingdoms and takes them down as part of His ultimate plan, which is focused on proclaiming the gospel of Christ to a world full of sinners for whom that gospel is our only source of hope. What I really care about is the freedom to proclaim that gospel. I also recognize that it will be viewed as foolishness to those who reject it and will often… Read more »
20 years ago I agreed with you. It’s manifestly untrue now.
ashv wrote:
The error ashv is making is to blame limited government rather than the failure to respect those limits.
Ashv is proposing autocratic and totalitarian forms of government as a solution to the failure of limited government. That’s like blaming the diet program after failing to follow it, and then proposing twinkies and eggnog as the solution.
If “respect for limits” is all that’s missing, maybe you should talk about the need for “respectful government” rather than “limited government” – it’d be more honest.
Having done further reading on the evolution of the English idea of limited government I agree with you that there are pre-democratic roots of the idea that deserve further inspection and discussion. Crucially, though, they are completely incompatible with popular sovereignty.
ashv wrote: If “respect for limits” is all that’s missing, maybe you should talk about the need for “respectful government” rather than “limited government” -it’d be more honest. Respect for limits implies a respectful government and respectful officials. However, respect for limits also implies that there are limits. If ashv is willing to grant the value of limited government, it might open the way to a lot more agreement on what those limits should be, and why. For my part, I wholeheartedly grant that “popular sovereignty” is to be rejected, if one assumes that “popular” means individualistic or autonomous. I… Read more »
Well said.
Also: Why is “the most freedom” the correct goal for a society to aim for?
Jesus said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” Freedom includes the free exchange of ideas and removes hindrances to the free proclamation of the gospel. Why would you want to hinder it?
That’s a pretty bad case of reading what you want into a passage; Jesus immediately makes clear that he is talking about slavery to sin rather than political subjection. Indeed, Paul describes himself as a “slave of Christ” with no fanfare. The “free exchange of ideas” is how we got same-sex mirage. I see no Scriptural support for the American devotion to freedom as a terminal value. Freedom is certainly good! Paul says if you’re a slave and can get free, do it. But moderation in all things. Why do we not view freedom the way we view wealth —… Read more »
ashv wrote:
Actually, same-sex mirage was imposed from the top, against the wishes of various lesser magistrates and cake bakers. Same-sex mirage was no more the result of a “free exchange of ideas” than Obamacare’s mandatory health insurance.
I’m not sure why ashv would want to take up the rhetoric of the left, as if it were valid and truthful.
Ashv’s warning against licentious freedom is all well and good, but no one here is advocating licentious freedom. We are talking about natural freedom and natural liberty.
Sure, but so was the Constitution.
Katecho, your distinction between “licentious freedom” and “natural freedom” is completely unclear. Write a blog post about it or recommend a book or something — most discussion on this topic is incoherent doubletalk. (I recently had M. Stanton Evans’ The Theme Is Freedom recommended to me, and I’m working through it. His definition of freedom is “the absence of coercion — to the extent that this is feasible in organized society.” No good.)
ashv wrote: Sure, but so was the Constitution. Ashv has some of the strangest comebacks. The Constitution was debated and refined with input across a wide spectrum of views, and it had to be ratified by each state. Same-sex mirage? Not so much. As Christians on a Christian forum, I shouldn’t have to define what licentious freedom is, but I’m game. Natural freedoms are liberties that God gives to all mankind without having to be earned or merited. Examples are things like freedom to own and control property, freedom from being convicted on the testimony of only one witness, freedom… Read more »
Freedom is actually defined as “the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.” The key words there are “power” and “as one wants.” So God wants us to freely choose Him and His ways, under our own power. Above Ashv asked, “Why is “the most freedom” the correct goal for a society to aim for?” The answer I think is because love always demands that it be freely chosen. It is a paradox because we freely chose to be as slaves to Jesus Christ, as in, being claimed and owned. In marriage… Read more »
ME wrote: The key words there are “power” and “as one wants.” So God wants us to freely choose Him and His ways, under our own power. The phrase “as one wants” was not part of the definition that I gave. However, the problem is the “power” part. We lack the power to choose to do what is righteous. We are in bondage. Christ must free us from the grip of sin before we can have the power to choose what is good. If we were already alive and free enough to choose Him (the Good), then we were not… Read more »
The Constitution was debated and refined with input across a wide spectrum of views, and it had to be ratified by each state. That’s true. But that’s completely compatible with the idea of things being imposed top-down. Your definition of “natural freedom” seems like a contortion of Scriptural commands to fit your rhetorical mold. God gives commandments and you talk instead of freedoms and liberties. Why is this? Government provided condoms and abortifacients are formal cooperation in evil, arguably in the same vein as Ahab setting up high places. Again, you want to couch this discussion in terms of freedom.… Read more »
I think what ashv is trying to say is that he would like to have an unhindered stage to freely express and proclaim his political platform of reduced freedom and wealth for the people who he believes can’t handle it.
Certainly we agree that wealth can be a temptation away from godliness, and so can a licentious freedom, however the solution in Scripture is not to preemptively confiscate people’s wealth and freedom. Such harsh treatment may give the impression of godliness, but offers no hindrance against the flesh, nor is it the jurisdiction of the state.
Fantods?
Are those anything like emerods?
I had to look it up too. A frequent occurrence here :)
Pastor Wilson,
I am still puzzled as to why a man who knows and preaches Reformed theology so well as you would still be defending the American system. The American system is a profoundly Enlightenment influenced system that sees man as central, and the demos as its god. The results speak for themselves.
We dodged a bullet via the Electoral College this time, glory to God, but keeping this anthropocentric system of governance will only result in more of the same.
Well, just to “surf” the terms here, what if:
The enlightenment is, to the popular vote,
What the reformation is, to the electoral college?
Aka, the enlightenment is an over rated poser. (?)
????
word salad
Oh no my good fellow, word soufflé.
????
Didn’t he just spend an entire blog post writing that its very intention was to protect the demos from its more Californian elements? You can argue its insufficiency, and I would probably agree with you, but not its intent.
We have to remind ourselves that no external structure, not even God’s perfect Law, keeps demos in line when His Law is not in the heart. God proved this with Israel. We can grant that there were Enlightenment influences in the founding of the U.S., but there were even greater Christian influences there as well; with important lessons to be learned. There are some who want to scrap the American system, and return to God knows what, but that comes across like a reckless change for the sake of change. Revolution and reform are two very different approaches. I think… Read more »
Conservatives are the abusive parents of political discourse. “Daddy wouldn’t drink if you behaved better.”
No, liberals are the abusive Arkansas Attorney Generals of politics.
Conservatives are the people who say, don’t trust a crooked Arkansas Attorney General, or his wife!
(Never mind vote for them!) ; – )
You’re out of your element, Donny.
Oh no my good fellow! Word soufflé!
????
; – )
Proverbs 12:16
Fools show their annoyance at once, but the prudent overlook an insult.
The number of times that quote would be appropriate on this blog. lol
Whoops! Believe it or not, I have never seen “The Big Lebowski”! ; – )
That analogy presumes the populace is as innocent and as helpless to affect the culture that creates and chooses our leaders as children are with respect to the identity and behavior of their father. Other than that, it’s right spot on.
Where do our leaders come from if not from among us and out of the culture we form?
By and large, from the ruling class. It isn’t hard to see that there are at least two very different (and antagonistic) cultural groups in America and that most people with political power come from only one of them.
They’re still “us.” They’re still part of the culture we live in. There is no impenetrable wall. Not even close. People migrate from one to the other constantly, within a single generation. Lots of ordinary decent people wind up having flaming liberal grandkids; poor people get educated in the elite system and become the elite, liberals raise people who get a dose of reality and change their ideas. I’ll bet most paleo-whatever people were raised by mainstream or even cultural liberal parents. No matter how much you want everything to be someone else’s fault and in no sense yours or… Read more »
People migrate from one to the other constantly, within a single generation. Yes! In a single direction. And they do so because the rulers of America have an elaborate system for making this happen: academia. Making successful consumption of propaganda a path to power and status is very effective. I’ll bet most paleo-whatever people were raised by mainstream or even cultural liberal parents. I’m not talking about political ideology. Our entire culture is messed up and while there may be individuals with clean hands, there’s no magic sector of society or cultural group that doesn’t bear responsibility for where we… Read more »
If I said “the cultures of America” that would answer your objection, and I wouldn’t have a problem with that wording.
It is the collective cultures of America that produce our leaders. And none of them is clean.
I wasn’t speaking about purely political ideology, either, that was just an example — the most political one you pulled out of the bunch and ignored the others.
No.
ashv wrote: Conservatives are the abusive parents of political discourse. “Daddy wouldn’t drink if you behaved better.” This may be the most revealing comment from ashv on the entire subject. It appears that ashv views government as his “Daddy”, and himself as an abused child. That could explain a lot about why he doesn’t see himself as needing to do any intercessory repentance, and why his approach has been to simply start over and get another “Daddy”, in the form of a monarch. This understanding is very different from the sort of government that the Founders envisioned for us. They… Read more »
‘Wonder if it’s a very succinct and elemental auto biography?
????
hilarious projection
Katecho, if you would forgive my jumping into this chat…
I would lay the blame on “We the people,” which is why I would suggest not making that the basis of our system of governance. That is the Enlightenment influence that has made this system fail. We threw a people who were heavily influenced by the Reformation into this secular system and that allowed us to not kill ourselves for a long time. That is not a defense of the system.
There is only one logically defensible foundation for a system of governance…“an explicit acknowledgement of Jesus Christ as King.”
What’s an example of good government that you recommend Americans should learn from?
I recommend that Americans should learn about principles of good government from overwhelmingly Christian statesmen who produced our Constitution. Americans should study their intentions, their accurate perception of human nature, and the ditches that they were attempting to protect against. I also recommend that Americans learn from the history since the Constitution, to understand how the states lost their jurisdiction to an increasingly powerful and centralized federal government, and how secularism got a foothold and became a lever against acknowledging Christ from civic office, and how that then became a lever against the people through the teaching that the Constitution… Read more »
LOL
Who didn’t see ashv’s “LOL” coming?
My comment was as predictable and unnecessary as yours. (I wasn’t asking you.)
Above all, we should learn the greatest governmental lesson from Scripture, that even with a perfect Law, with its perfect examples and statutes for good government, the people will always send it straight into the ditch if that Law is not in their heart. No good example of government, outside the heart, can solve this problem, and we should not expect it to. No law written on paper can ultimately impose a limit on the depravity of unchanged man. I believe this very principle should be directly acknowledged and codified in any form of good government, as a recognition that… Read more »
Ideally, we would be a theonomic system. This type of system is the only logically defensible system. Unless it is rooted in God’s law, declaring Christ as King, in some way, it is appealing to human autonomy. Here in the real world it is more complicated. I would argue for something akin to constitutional monarchy or if one prefers to avoid the monarchical aspect, then some type of national executive council. I would add that the church must have a role, similar to Scotland under Knox. Here is the rub, though, the “constitution” needs to be theonomic. The basis for… Read more »
Thanks.
The Founders of this country were overwhelmingly Christian, and steeped in Christian ways of thinking, but they also lifted from Enlightenment ideas. The worst example of that is leaving Jesus Christ out of our Constitution, in favor of an appeal to human self-interest and self-evident reasoning. In other words, they opened the door to the lie of secular neutrality. I believe they did so in the interest of avoiding religious wars that they wanted to leave behind in Europe, but it created its own new war against Christ in the public square. I don’t know if there is a way… Read more »
The founders of this country were overwhelmingly Deists. Some were effectively secular, like Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson. The ones who made the greatest impact would not be given communion in most Reformed churches today. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, James Monroe, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, I could keep going. Basically, our first 6 presidents were Deists. They did not believe that Jesus was anything other than a good teacher, at best, and that is why they left him out of the constitution. History is not on the side of those who would see America as a biblical… Read more »
Durden wrote: The founders of this country were overwhelmingly Deists. This is simply false. Setting aside the debate about whether Thomas Paine should be counted as a founder, he was the only one in Durden’s list who was self-consciously, and consistently a deist. He was not representative of the founders. He was called out as a “Blackguard”, and mostly denounced and shunned in his time. Apparently only six mourners attended his funeral, and none of them were political leaders. Thomas Jefferson was functionally a deist in many ways, but he rebuffed that association. We understand that he was quite the… Read more »
Katecho, I’m going to take one off your Deist list: Ben Franklin. While it’s true that Franklin was a Deist in his youth, he didn’t seem to think highly of Deism for very long: …in short, I soon became a thorough Deist. My arguments perverted some others, particularly Collins and Ralph; but each of them having afterwards wronged me greatly without the least compunction, and recollecting Keith’s conduct towards me (who was another free-thinker) and my own towards Vernon and Miss Read, which at times gave me great trouble, I began to suspect that this doctrine [Deism], tho’ it might… Read more »
Old Ben, not satisfied with inventing bifocals and a stove, invented his own theology too: http://thefederalistpapers.org/founders/franklin/benjamin-franklin-articles-of-beliefs-and-acts-of-religion
Perhaps we are stumbling over the term Deist. My sole contention with this post was that the American system of government is secular in nature, and not in line with a proper theonomic legal basis. Do you challenge this? I have stated numerous times that we are still and have been a Christian nation, and my contention was that this was because of the Reformation influence. In short, we are nation of Christians, not a biblical republic. Sadly, we are living down stream from that mistake. Regarding the founders, my claim that they were overwhelmingly Deist simply meant that they… Read more »
The electoral college is just a shuffling of Titanic chairs. The system is flawed at its root. The basis of this system of legal governance is the sinful heart of man.
In this case the electoral college skews the system toward the rural and less populated sinful hearts, who glory to God have retained a semblance of our Reformation influence.
Just because we sometimes get a modicum of blessing doesn’t mean we should defend the system.
This is incorrect. The intent of the electoral college was not to simply preserve popular representation (rural or urban), but to preserve each state’s representation, as a state. This is why many of the states have a “winner take all” approach to the electoral college. I believe the intent of the Founders was good, but that the principle would have been more obvious if each state elected a single State Elector from a list of Elector candidates, instead the Presidential candidates by name. The Elector candidates would run on a platform of who that Elector pledged to vote for, and… Read more »
We are talking past one another. You are right that the electoral college preserves the representation of the states. It was an early compromise between those wanting a true democratic vote for the presidency, and those who did not. This compromise greatly slowed the decline of this nation into secularism by allowing the lesser populated states to have more of a voice. If not, New York, Philadelphia, and Boston would have pulled us into liberal fairy-tale-land by 1850. But that does not change the basis upon which the electoral college votes. It skews it to a different group, but the… Read more »
Note that there are good reasons for this distribution of electors. As a nation, we are stronger together than separate. Without the EC, candidates could focus on pandering to a few large states and effectively disenfranchise the smaller states. These states include the grain belt. There are changes that states could make to improve their individual processes. As an aside, it would take a constitutional amendment to change it. Note that Article Five requires for proposal either a 2/3 vote of BOTH House and Senate or passage by a Convention of States by 2/3 of the states. Approval then requires… Read more »
The sinful heart of man corrupts them all. This is precisely true, and also precisely why we cannot make it the foundational basis of our legislative process. Any system of laws based upon democratic principles, even representative democratic principles has its own built-in poison. Unless our legal system is rooted in theonomic principles, it is indefensible logically, and inherently unstable. The fact that our system has worked as well as it has for as long as it has is simply a testament to staying power of our Reformation influence among the culture. I don’t want to eliminate the electoral college,… Read more »
Seems like our current day liberal faux-fighters have far more fantods than The Founders. (?)????
“They can institute electoral reforms in large blue states like California, abandoning the “winner take all” approach to their apportionment of electors.”
They’ve gotten right on that already. Our state voted for Hillary, winner take all, but in order to protest against Trump, four electors voted AGAINST Hillary. As you can see it’s all very confusing, but I’m pretty sure that by voting against Clinton, we have now punished Trump…..or something.
Its good to see that Pastor Wilson clearly affirms the SEC’s role as the premier college football conference. I was worried since he’s near PAC 12 country. I didn’t want to have to have a disagreement on something so foundational and break fellowship.
Ahaha, love the Bernie burn at the end. :)
“…you can’t game an election after the fact, pretending that the rules were other than what they were” is the only response to current complaints about the EC that holds any water, and it certainly is a valid observation. Representation for the states as states, not so much. What interest is it we think a state has, apart from the interests of the people residing in that state? There are better uses for an electoral college.
All the calls for abolishing the electoral college is nothing more than play-acting a principled stance. In reality they don’t care about the popular vote or “the will of the people” at all. It’s just a big power-play, and their whiny, passive-agressive pretense of whatever principle that would, at this moment, run up their score is simply the tool that they select.
It’s all in Lewis, you know.
Another well-suited argument would be ‘how come that until now, the College served you right?’ Apparently, some participants of the US political system have no issue with the ‘don’t like the result, rig the entire system’ approach.
Hillary’s lead in the popular vote is now up to about 3 million votes. That’s significant, no matter how much you say it isn’t. Just for fun I did some maths. It is possible, by winning the 39 lowest pop states with 51% and the 11 highest with 0%, to win the electoral college while only winning about 25% of the popular vote. If anything close to that happened, you wouldn’t need bitter liberals to delegitimize the result. That’s really the key takeaway from the EC debate, that the aggregate popular vote is seen as the legit result, the baseline,… Read more »
Do you want to abolish the Senate too? It is even more biased than the EC. California and Wyoming have the same number of senators.