Tom Nichols has a typically tart piece in the Atlantic today about the state of the election. This part of it is one of the most depressing aspects of this whole thing. Harris will win the popular vote by millions of votes, you can bet money on that, but once again the electoral college could favor Trump. What kind of a democracy is this?
I think it’s important to ask why this election, despite everything we now know, could tip to Trump.
Perhaps the most surprising but disconcerting reality is that the election, as a national matter, isn’t really that close. If the United States took a poll and used that to select a president, Trump would lose by millions of votes—just as he would have lost in 2016. Federalism is a wonderful system of government but a lousy way of electing national leaders: The Electoral College system (which I long defended as a way to balance the interests of 50 very different states) is now lopsidedly tilted in favor of real estate over people.
Understandably, this means that pro-democracy efforts are focused on a relative handful of people in a handful of states, but nothing—absolutely nothing—is going to shake loose the faithful MAGA voters who have stayed with Trump for the past eight years. Trump’s mad gibbering at rallies hasn’t done it; the Trump-Harris debate didn’t do it; Trump’s endorsement of people like Robinson didn’t do it. Trump once said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose a vote. Close enough: He’s now rhapsodized about a night of cops brutalizing people on Fifth Avenue and everywhere else.
For years, I’ve advocated asking fellow citizens who support Trump whether he, and what he says, really represents who they are. After this weekend, there are no more questions to ask.
I think maybe we’re not asking the right question. We talk a lot about saving our democracy but it’s pretty clear that we don’t really have one at least in the sense of one person one vote and majority rules. We never have.
But there have been improvements from the beginning when only white landowning men could vote. So maybe we actually could take the next step and get rid of the anachronistic electoral college. Sadly, I suspect that won’t ever happen until the Republicans lose one in the electoral college whenthey’ve won the popular vote.
You can just imagine the howls. Actually we did. In 2004 when it looked as though that might happen to George W. Bush they had armies of pundits and talkers out there denouncing the illegitimacy of such an outcome. But it didn’t stick for obvious reasons.
This change is long overdue. Rocks and cows should not have more say over the running of this country than the people who live here. It’s undemocratic to its core.