Electoral College

[MaineBlueBear]

Wouldn't it be great if it could operate according to our founders design and save America from itself?

[FBaggins]

1. Don't even start

It was bad enough in 2016. It would backfire massively if we even tried to call for it now.

[DeepWinter]

2. A problem is

eliminating it is only loved in the most liberal of liberal places. Like DU. With Democrats in my real life who are establishment and moderate Democrats, it's not hated at all. The conversation happens in passing, but not in any serious way, and not with any serious support. It's a non-starter.

[FBaggins]

3. MBB isn't advocating getting rid of the EC

That wouldn’t have helped this cycle.

The desire here is for the EC to override the will of the voters and pick someone else.

[MaineBlueBear]

4. Exactly

The way I learned this as a child (9) is that the electoral college is there to protect the proletariat from itself.
It's the singular reason why we don't elect the president by popular vote.

[FBaggins]

7. You learned it wrong as a child I'm afraid

Yes - the EC was to some extent an intentional avoidance of "the tyranny of the majority" - but that was by combining the senate and house representative models with the limitations of the all-or-nothing state totals. This ensured that even a super-majority in one state or region could not overcome smaller majorities in most other states.

That's entirely different from a small number of faceless elites deciding for themselves that the popular vote and electoral vote winner should be replaced with someone else.

[groundloop]

8. The EC was implemented to appease slave states, here's a good article I found on this

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/electoral-colleges-racist-origins

[FBaggins]

9. I've seen that before - but it doesn't fly

It wasn't a compromise between north and south... it was between the large states and the small ones. And the largest state of all was VA - while four of the five smallest were NH/DE/RI/NJ

The 3/5 compromise was the one between the slave and free states... and of course that had an impact on the number of house seats and thus electoral votes... but that was separate from the design of the EC itself

[MaineBlueBear]

11. Makes sense

Thanks for sharing this. Tracks with the rest of our racist founding.

[MaineBlueBear]

10. I wouldn't be surprised

It was fourth grade. Surprised I learned the word proletariat that day.

[Jspur]

5. I'm all for getting rid of the EC but

it wasn't the reason why the Democrats lost this time around which is more damning since the Democrats lost the popular vote.

[ck4829]

6. Electoral Clown College

It's crazy.