(December 3, 2016 at 10:00 am)Tonus Wrote:(December 1, 2016 at 3:52 pm)abaris Wrote: Elected exclusively by American standards. I would be hard pressed to name another country where the losing candidate actually leads by 2.5 million votes according to latest counts.
I think that the founding fathers of the US understood that the electoral college could lead to that result. While they would not have wanted it to happen, they felt it important enough to give low-population states a say to take the risk. There are at least a few things about our government that are based on how things were done more than 100 or 200 years ago, but changing them can be difficult. Getting rid of the electoral college will be near impossible because it would require the ratification of a new amendment by 3/4 of the states, and I think that there are too many states who would fear being disenfranchised under a popular vote system.
As someone who didn't vote for most of his life because of his stupid religion, I am keenly aware of how valuable that opportunity is. But fewer than half of eligible Americans do so in presidential years, and far fewer still in between. Those percentages are much worse as the demographics get younger. And those younger voters skew liberal. If we were somehow able to ditch the electoral college for a popular vote, those non-voters might be even less incentivized to get to the polls. Republicans didn't just take the White House, they still have majorities in congress and have solid footholds in many local government positions throughout the country. Instead of focusing on the electoral college, Democrats must figure out how to get more people to the polls.
As for the question in the OP: My thoughts on Trump are that he was more interested in running for President than in being President, and if the next four years turn out to be forgettable we'll have dodged a bullet. But he already stumbled by publicizing a phone call with the President of Taiwan which could have long-lasting repercussions on our relations with China. It's a bad way to start a presidency that hasn't even started yet.
There were only the 13 states at the time they created the electoral college, right? And most states were small and had fairly similar populations. There were no Florida's, Texas, or California's yet.
My understanding is they created the electoral college because they did not trust the "common man" to vote in an informed way.
It seems to me this accidentally caused exactly what they were trying to avoid, which is easily swayed uneducated folks voting for a demagogue.
“Eternity is a terrible thought. I mean, where's it going to end?”
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead