Update: Since this article was published, several electors have demanded that they receive intelligence briefings on the relationship between Donald Trump and Russia.
To stop demagoguery; to defend against tyranny. A flash of ideological expedience? Trying to find an electoral college definition that makes sense in the 21st century is no easy task.
The Enlightenment was the product of European thought, but the idea of a state founded upon the freedom of the individual was unequal to the task at hand. Centuries of entrenched tradition stood in its way. At least it did in the old world.
Coup De Toilette
The American Revolution was no coup d’état. Replacing one tyrant with another would never have satisfied men enamored with the ideas of René Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke. What political scientists today call Classical Liberalism, was to them the boldest of experiments. It was the literal application of theory. The transformation of thought into action.
They must have been shitting themselves.
Because European philosophical tradition consists almost entirely as a series of footnotes to Plato, and so it stands to reason that the Founding Fathers were well versed in his thinking. His hostility towards democracy was predicated on its most obvious flaw; that people might be swayed not by the most compelling argument, but rather by the most seductive voice.
Breitbart, Fox. President-elect Donald Trump. Peddlers of snake oil; masters of the spectacle.
Driving the ship’s keel across the needle-sharp rocks.
The Ship Of Fools
To the Founding Fathers — who were about to hand political power over to an unruly and mostly illiterate mob — this was anything but idle philosophical posturing. James Madison’s fear of an inevitable rise of factions within the democratic process was prescient. His solution was to create a Republic; a system that preserved “the sense of the people,” but did not necessarily represent its will in all things.
As Alexander Hamilton explained, the Constitution was designed in such a way that:
“… The office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.”
The Electoral College then was the Republic’s way of ensuring that the president was selected only by:
“… Men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice.”
In other words. they were to reject anyone elected to high office whom the deemed to be something of an ass-hat.
Real Big Fish
On December the 19, electors have an opportunity to stop Trump’s attempted transformation of America into a Russian style kleptocracy dead in its tracks.
In America’s 240 year history, there have been 157 faithless electors. Those are the men and women who chose to vote with the dictates of their conscience, as opposed to the majority will of the state.
We just need 37 more.
That’s how many electors have to consider whether or not Trump meets the Hamilton proviso; whether he has the ‘requisite qualifications,’ to hold office. Because the rules are simple. Whoever amasses 270 college votes wins the presidency.
If no candidate gets that many then Congress gets to choose.
This isn’t the masturbatory fantasy of some post-truth Liberal wet dream. This is real.
This could happen.
Thirty-Seven Deadly Sins
Indeed, a group calling themselves the Hamilton Electors is trying to make it happen.
Colorado elector Michael Baca told Salon:
“My personal goal is a little loftier than 37 … Because I don’t necessarily want it to just get sent to the House, where there’s a chance they could choose Donald Trump or choose a different Republican. My whole message regarding the Hamilton Electors has been the unification of Americans. And so again, ideally, I’d like 135 Democrats and 135 Republicans to avoid the House altogether. Now that’s quite a lofty goal, but that’s what we’re aiming for. If we fall short, I do believe that we’ll still be able to weigh in on 37.”
Who they choose is largely irrelevant at this point. Stopping Trump is what matters.
Former Secretary of States Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, former Ambassador and Ohio Governor, Jon Huntsman, Arizona Senator John McCain, and former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney; these are the names that are floating around as potential Trump Spoilers.
And then there is Gov. John Kasich, a man who apparently doesn’t want to be the group’s savior but is topping the list regardless.
Here There Be Paddy Wagons
There will be consequences to carting Trump off to lie fallow in a field of his own inequity.
The electors will be branded traitors by some. The incoming president will spend half his time reaching out to those who voted for Trump and the other half cradling chewed stumps of the fingers they have bitten off. There will talk of revolution. There will be threats of war.
These moments will pass.
Electors have the legal right, and the constitutional duty, to prevent Trump’s coronation. Rules are, after all,. rules.
They apply when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wins the popular vote, but loses the electoral college, and they apply when those very same electors reach the conclusion that giving Trump access to executive power is akin to loaning an unrepentant heroin addict the keys to the local pharmacy.
Good intentions disintegrate, willpower crumbles. And the pharmacy?
That gets stripped down to the fucking gypsum.
Featured Image By Thomas Altfather Good Via Flickr/CC-By-2.0
