Scientists, when reporting on the results of their inquiries and the conclusions to be drawn therefrom, are required by the norms of scientific discourse to give an account of the strongest argument that could be advanced against the view they are espousing. That's pretty clearly not the case regarding political discourse! But suppose it were. If the topic is the Electoral College, and I favor abolition, so that the president is elected instead by direct popular ballot, where might I find the strongest case for retaining the College in its current form? Maybe in an article in Politico from the pen of the editor of National Review, by its own admission the "leading conservative magazine and website covering news, politics, current events, and culture with detailed analysis and commentary"? Well, that would be this. Let's see what Mr Rich Lowry has to say.
The argument, if that's what you want to call it, begins in the ad hominem vein.
Elizabeth Warren, the pointy end of the spear of Democratic radicalism, has called for the end of the Electoral College.
If Warren is accurately described here, then Lowry is the barrel of an assault rifle that only a reactionary wingnut worried about size would purchase. Actually, it's not "radical" to think that the winner of a presidential election should be the candidate who, from sea to shining sea, and including Hawaii and Alaska, gets the most votes. That's why polling shows that strong majorities of Americans favor the direct popular election of the president. This would be impossible without Republican support. Here is an editorial, "Delaware Republicans Should Support National Popular Vote," co-authored by the former chairman of the Republican National Committee and the former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party. Bob Dole has spoken on the floor of the Senate in favor of the direct popular election of the president. Though it looks as if the Republican party now belongs to Trump, it's not only former chairmen and former party leaders who can add two and two and get something pretty near four: in my home state, for example, several Republican legislators have signed on to bills that would enroll Minnesota in the National Popular Vote interstate compact. Here is an editorial co-authored by one of them, Pat Garofalo.
Lowry continues:
Her statement elicited the support of other 2020 candidates. The same people who complain daily about Donald Trump violating norms are now openly advocating eliminating the Electoral College and packing the Supreme Court.
I'm going to go out on a limb and postulate that Lowry thinks increasing the number of justices on the Supreme Court, and then nominating judges of your own tribe to fill the new slots, is even more problematic than the Electoral College. Borrow some of the taint, therefore, and smear it around. The topic at hand, however, is the Electoral College. I think I hear Lowry saying that someone who believes, for example, that Trump should have released his tax returns, and placed his financial assets in a blind trust, and not lied about having business interests in Russia, is barred from simultaneously believing that the Electoral College is a rickety old Rube Goldberg machine that should be retired from active duty. But there's no reason those propositions can't all be true, and, if you think they are, why not say so? Lowry continues:
The Constitution, where the workings of the Electoral College are set out at length, is impossible to change on a partisan basis. So the Electoral College isn't going anywhere soon, although opponents are attempting an end run through a compact of states.
I may or may not understand what the first sentence means, and it may or may not be true, but it surely is irrelevant, since a political liberal who thinks the Electoral College is an undemocratic and superannuated mechanism that currently favors the conservative party could very well be correct on all counts, the former reasons being sufficient to call for the "end run" mentioned in the second sentence. The mildly pejorative "end run" permits Lowry to suggest, without stating, that the interstate compact is unconstitutional, which spares him the trouble of explaining why it's unconstitutional.
He drones on:
The disproportion of this effort is notable. In 2016, Democrats rigged their nominating process in favor of a radioactive candidate who was uninterested in appealing to white working-class voters and operated on a deeply flawed view of the electoral map--and yet they blame her loss on a mechanism for electing presidents that has existed, with slight modification, since the adoption of the Constitution.
The Electoral College may be "impossible to change on a partisan basis," but that is the only basis, evidently, on which Lowry will defend it. Hillary's strategy for winning the Electoral College was flawed, therefore the Electoral College is good. Is it possible to imagine that Lowry is saying something more, or different, than that?
Democrats want to beat Donald Trump and win the presidency going forward. There are simpler, less far-reaching expedients within their grasp before trying to dump the Electoral College: Nominate a more appealing candidate. Find a way to pick up a little more support in the Rust Belt and Upper Midwest. Moderate on culture issues. Drive up African American turnout.
Search these sentences in vain for any account of why the Electoral College is a good way of electing the president. The first sentence is roughly analogous to, "My sister is a girl." The rest is just amplification of the Democrats' alleged deficiencies. Their candidate was not appealing. (And Trump?) They should moderate on culture issues. (Like the Republicans?) It is not enough to win more votes in the land, they must win more votes of Americans on whom the Electoral College bestows the most power. (He is unconsciously making my case.) For some reason, Republicans are not exhorted to "pick up a little more support" from African Americans--no, it's Democrats who must "pick up a little more support" from whites while at the same time driving up African American turnout. Lowry's tactics are like Trump's--full of holes and, what is worse, off point.
What else does Lowry have?
The case against the Electoral College is, first, as Elizabeth Warren said, that it supposedly ensures that some votes don't matter: In heavily blue or red states, voters on the other side are effectively disenfranchised.
This isn't true, though. All votes are counted toward the outcome in every state. Voters from Republican, rural areas in California, for instance, aren't disregarded; they are simply outnumbered.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Voters "on the other side" are effectively disenfranchised, because it's electoral votes that elect the president, and their ballot did not help their preferred candidate win a single one. Moreover, they knew, if they reside in a "heavily blue or red state," that their ballot for the inevitable state loser would prove worthless before they marked it. And it's not just voters "on the other side" whose ballot is devalued. You're a Californian who voted for Hillary? That's nice, but she would have won 55 electoral votes without you and a million others. Give your ballot some heft by relocating to Wisconsin! I guess we're supposed to esteem a system that makes large scale migration a viable electoral strategy. Instead of paying people to vote, pay voters to move.
Yes, Rich, Republican voters in California are outnumbered. That's why it has a Democratic governor and a Democratic state legislature. The problem is that Trump voters were outnumbered in the country and he's president anyway. You are avoiding the question about the wisdom of a system that makes such a result possible.
But keep at it!
If it is the considered progressive view that this is tantamount to disenfranchisement, California could immediately mitigate the problem by splitting its electoral votes by congressional district the way Nebraska and Maine do. This would require no change to the U.S. Constitution, or elaborate schemes. Of course, California is loath to give up any of its solidly Democratic electoral votes.
Suppose it's your "considered view" that, as a Californian, you have been "disenfranchised," since basic math shows your presidential ballot weighs less than one marked in Michigan, Rhode Island, or Wyoming. The obvious remedy is the direct popular election of the president. Lowry, however, proposes to tinker with the design of the Rube Goldberg machine, bypass a ramp but insert a new pulley. He says that if Californians don't like being disenfranchised they should apportion their electoral votes by congressional district, as Maine and Nebraska do. But this is no remedy at all. In the 2016 election, Trump, though he was outpolled in the country by almost 3 million, carried 230 congressional districts to Clinton's 205. It's bad enough that Republicans have gerrymandered the congressional map in order to boost their representation in the House. Should they be further rewarded for this chicanery in a presidential election? No, California should join the National Popular Vote movement's interstate compact. (It has.)
I could go on. Lowry sure does. I think I'm only about half through quoting his dopey essay, but the rest just makes it longer, not better, and I have basketball games to watch. Sayonara.
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