The price the founders paid to get all of the states to sign on to the Constitution, on the other hand Massachusetts had to secularize their state constitution to gain admittance to the union
All of our current problems harken back to the Constitution Written in 1787, ratified in 1788, and in operation since 1789, which is also the year of the French Revolution. But where would this country be without it, but a collection of feuding, maybe warring states, and none of us and I mean none of us would have even been born. There would have been no Civil
War, no Spanish American War, no Hitler or Tojo, not WWI and WWII, no Bolshevik Revolution, no Mao TseTung. Every child has a father, but not every father has a child
Another great article Thom. The first step is to recognize the problem and the second is to fix it! It is a lot harder when the employees are stealing the company safe.
You mean the employers are stealing the people's money via low wages and low taxes on the rich. They hoard their absurd profits and loan them back to the government and get paid interest for their trouble, plus the return of the principal at will! Talk about rigged. It's win-win for the rich, lose-lose for the real workers who pay 3-5 times the rate as wealthy tax payers.
Brilliant!!! Thank you for this post! After your post about the Republicans talking out loud about taking away women’s “right to vote”, I was ready to go to the target range and start practicing. Not kidding! Vladimir is probably laughing at the chaos his trumpy puppet is causing in Russia’s greatest opponent. Meanwhile, NATO is being forced to make plans to secure Ukraine to prevent a further land incursion by Putin. “Satan is laughing with delight” at the chaos the false prophets calling themselves Christian Nationals are wrecking in the supposed Greatest Democracy in the world. So - thank you Thom. Let the peoples’ votes be the determining factor of the future of the United States as those “founding fathers” believed they should be. After all, what well meaning father doesn’t want his offspring to Grow, to Mature and reach their Potential. The MAGAts are like the abusive, narcissistic parents who are trying to stifle their children because they are blood suckers and can’t let go.
Mr. Hartmann. It seems clear that the Founders' purpose for creating the Electoral College two and a half centuries ago was to prevent a clearly unqualified person from entering the White House. They believed that a group of electors whose soul function was to select the President, would keep the unqualified person out. It is clear now that purpose has failed. In recent years we have had a few candidates sent to the White House who were not the choice of the majority of American voters. And all were in the same party: Republican.
One of them was clearly not qualified for such a high, important office. He had never held any elected office before; he was a repeatedly failed businessman; he has since been found guilty of rape; he will very likely be soon convicted of repeated frauds; he has the intellectual capacity and vocabulary of a 12 year old; and he is in thrall to foreign despots.
The original purpose of the Electoral College has failed in its function.
We must force those who favor, it into the position where they will be required to defend keeping it. This defense must be a public, reasonable, rational and understandable reason which the American people can understand.
The Founders' very different circumstances may not have led to a great solution, but they had to do something. That's exactly where we are now. Until we can introduce and pass an amendment, NPVIC will be a great improvement.
The link to the website enabled me to read the history of my state's legislation and how long it took to get the bill passed and signed. This wasn't easy, and it was a bi-partisan effort passed on a bi-partisan basis. That's a bit heartening these days.
Thanks Thom---always need to be educated further on each subject.
Hey Thom? Be careful what you wish for…the other side is pushing scenarios whereby state legislatures can ignore the popular vote and do what they want….and we all know they desperately want to!
While I think the NPVIC looks like a great solution to reducing the subversive impact of the EC has against democracy, it needs some Congressional support. Specifically, legislation to invoke Article 3.2.2 to deny an activist, and corrupt SCOTUS from intervening to put their preferred candidate into the White Houses. And as Republicans are exploring ways to combat it that have made their way into the discourse, such as invoking untested provisions in the 1877 E.C.A., it seems the NPVIC is going to need strengthening.
Here is another solution to the EC that's worth doing. Expand the number of seats in the House, as discussed in a series of essays at the Washington Post. Here's one of the articles... I'd go with the 1,305 target because besides dealing with the gerrymandering issue, it also provides for a truer measurement of representation of our "one person, one vote" democratic principle.
If the House were expanded by 3 fold, to be as supported there, 1,305, the E.C.'s bias towards smaller population states by way of the 2 electors for each state's senators is significantly reduced.
I've only done the math for the 2000 election to show the tremendous effect. If America had 1,305 House Representatives in 2000, the E.C. count - still with Florida for Bush - would have elected Al Gore!
Here's how the math works:
a.) Subtract the Senate based electors from each candidates total.
Bush was awarded 271, -60 electors from the 30 states he won = 211 House based electors
Gore was awarded 266, -40 electors from the 20 states he won = 226 House based electors
b.) Increase the total number of Reps. in each state 3 fold, or 3x the number in 2000.
Bush has 633
Gore has 678
c.) Add the Senate base electors back to each candidate's House base electors:
Bush 633 + 60 = 693
Gore 678 + 40 = 718
(BTW, the WaPo mentions an "earlier proposed" alternative expansion of 150 seats, but applying that to the 2000 election, with still the 1 vote abstention from DC, and you still get an election that may have been a tie in the EC! That would not be helpful.)
Awhile back I did the rough math, and I forget whether it was Wyoming or Idaho, but it came out that one citizen of one of those two has 47,000 times the Senate clout as one Californian! Thom's piece on the one hand gives hope! Next impulse is the opposite: easy to foresee the twisted "supreme" Court overrule all those states in a hot minute. (The new "Select States Rights" doctrine.) But Thom's research demonstrates why it ought to take them two hot minutes. Sorry.... But I was remembering the Bush family ties to the Saudis, and how the Saudis got a no-questions-asked green light to fly out when Americans were grounded post 9/11.
To summarize my previous ramble: If we get serious about dismantling all aspects of our system that are "not democratic" -- we might find we don't have much left. So it might be a good idea to think about "What's next?" before we start down that road.
As far as I know, the Maine House of Representatives passed the measure -- by the slimmest of margins, 73–72 -- but it hasn't gone to the state senate yet. Is this really a giant step toward having the president and vice president determined by the nationwide popular vote? Not sure about that. The process has been crawling forward since 2007 when Maryland became the first state to ratify. My state of Massachusetts was #6 in 2010. True, four states ratified in 2019, but momentum was lost during COVID and no more states signed on till Minnesota joined in May 2023.
So far 16 states and D.C. have joined, representing 205 of the 270 Electoral College votes necessary to elect a president. If the Maine Senate passes it, that'll add only 4 votes to the total. It doesn't seem all that likely that the count will reach 270 by 2028, and even if it does, it sounds like there will be legal challenges to it. So we shall see.
Agreed that the electoral college is a mess. Bless Hamilton's heart! (But isn't the musical awesome?)
At first blush the college does seem to merit being tossed overboard. A couple of things stump me though. If we were to toss the electoral college based on the grounds most people would use, then how do we rationalize the whole federal system of legislation? In other words, the electoral college is made up of members distributed according to federal legislators, upper and lower. So isn't that "formula" basically the same one we use to pass federal legislation?
And when it comes to "democracy," if that's our rallying cry -- well then, there went the U.S. Senate -- with its two members per state, regardless of population. There's not much "democratic" about that arrangement either.
So, these "anti-democratic" (well, maybe just "not democratic") elements are woven throughout the constitutional system that IS "our Republic," our rule of law. I distrust pure democracy for most of the reasons the founders were leery of it -- plus maybe a couple more.
I still favor some kind of "representative government." But whole elective paradigm we have in this country is broken -- Seems to me we really need some whole other way of arriving at representative government. Almost minus elections all together, or at least minus anything we would presently recognize as an election. I don't know how that might be done -- but it might be something to think about.
That's why we need more senators. It will even the playing field. It can be done. So can age limits for judges, including Justices, and any other official.
Get rid of the Electoral College. have every presidential candidate have to appear in each of the 50 states and sign a document that allows them to be on the ballot in that state. no more just only visiting six or seven states. now everyone in both red States and blue states can feel that their vote will make a difference.
You probably already know this story. It's worth reading again.If for some reason you believe that getting rid of our current democratic form of government will enable people you believe are more like you to be better represented by whatever replaces it; history says you're wrong. If my house doesn't suit me and I want to change it to suit me, I don't start by burning it down.
Thank you! Well, our constitutional republic is that rather than the "democracy" we hear so much about. If we delete all the "non democratic elements" we'll be left with democracy.
But I really **like** liberty, freedom of speech, etc. Pure democracy would very quickly be the tyranny of the majority. As a guy who has almost never been in the majority in any aspect of life, I'm not supposing I would prosper under "tyranny of the majority."
So trading in our badly flawed constitutional republic for a real democracy (what we'll be left with if we really delete all "non democratic elements") -- would be akin burning my house down. And no, I don't want to!
No use in quibbling. Not acting WILL result in having the current form of government we're working with extinguished. If you think Democracy is hard on your "individual rights" try a Theocracy.
Hi Tom! Thanks for the reply. In a society where the majority favored theocracy, I guess a democracy would be a happy theocracy -- at least for the majority. Agreed, we need to do something different. I think it's important to be clear about what we need to do differently. I don't want a tyranny of the majority or a tyranny of the minority. I don't want tyranny. I think the aspect of our system that has so far helped minimize tyranny against most of us has been the aspect of a constitutional republic, and our habit of taking care of it as best we've been able. Imperfect for sure -- yes, improvements to be made, maybe even fundamental changes.
But the major media and most other engaged people who perceive a threat looming -- keep harping on "democracy." I don't think "democracy" is my answer -- not much assurance of guarantee against the tyranny of that majority -- whoever they are -- whether theocrats or socialists, or anybody else. Or for that matter, theocratic socialists!
I just wish we would dwell a lot more on the threat to our constitutional republic, our real Gold Standard, and a lot less on some "idealized democracy."
Nice to have a box to comment on again. I"ll use this to tell you abut hubermanlab.com in his episode of May 1st, 2023 Dr. Noam Sobel about minute 29 for odor tracking tells about the ability to know if someone is adhd and or using ritalin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS7cNaBrkdxo
The system is rigged —
. . . But in favor of Less-populated states (Senate) and the Less-popular party (GOP).
A pseudo-democratic contrivance. A gag. A scam. A flimflam. A bunko. A tenebrous illusion. You get the picture;
I said it before and I'll say it again — Rigged.
A gift to crazies, grifters, vote-whores, hypocrites, cowards, foreign malefactors and political weaklings.
The price the founders paid to get all of the states to sign on to the Constitution, on the other hand Massachusetts had to secularize their state constitution to gain admittance to the union
All of our current problems harken back to the Constitution Written in 1787, ratified in 1788, and in operation since 1789, which is also the year of the French Revolution. But where would this country be without it, but a collection of feuding, maybe warring states, and none of us and I mean none of us would have even been born. There would have been no Civil
War, no Spanish American War, no Hitler or Tojo, not WWI and WWII, no Bolshevik Revolution, no Mao TseTung. Every child has a father, but not every father has a child
Another great article Thom. The first step is to recognize the problem and the second is to fix it! It is a lot harder when the employees are stealing the company safe.
You are right about that Bob. Fixing the problem requires power, and sadly we the people have none,save perhaps the vote.
You mean the employers are stealing the people's money via low wages and low taxes on the rich. They hoard their absurd profits and loan them back to the government and get paid interest for their trouble, plus the return of the principal at will! Talk about rigged. It's win-win for the rich, lose-lose for the real workers who pay 3-5 times the rate as wealthy tax payers.
Brilliant!!! Thank you for this post! After your post about the Republicans talking out loud about taking away women’s “right to vote”, I was ready to go to the target range and start practicing. Not kidding! Vladimir is probably laughing at the chaos his trumpy puppet is causing in Russia’s greatest opponent. Meanwhile, NATO is being forced to make plans to secure Ukraine to prevent a further land incursion by Putin. “Satan is laughing with delight” at the chaos the false prophets calling themselves Christian Nationals are wrecking in the supposed Greatest Democracy in the world. So - thank you Thom. Let the peoples’ votes be the determining factor of the future of the United States as those “founding fathers” believed they should be. After all, what well meaning father doesn’t want his offspring to Grow, to Mature and reach their Potential. The MAGAts are like the abusive, narcissistic parents who are trying to stifle their children because they are blood suckers and can’t let go.
Mr. Hartmann. It seems clear that the Founders' purpose for creating the Electoral College two and a half centuries ago was to prevent a clearly unqualified person from entering the White House. They believed that a group of electors whose soul function was to select the President, would keep the unqualified person out. It is clear now that purpose has failed. In recent years we have had a few candidates sent to the White House who were not the choice of the majority of American voters. And all were in the same party: Republican.
One of them was clearly not qualified for such a high, important office. He had never held any elected office before; he was a repeatedly failed businessman; he has since been found guilty of rape; he will very likely be soon convicted of repeated frauds; he has the intellectual capacity and vocabulary of a 12 year old; and he is in thrall to foreign despots.
The original purpose of the Electoral College has failed in its function.
We must force those who favor, it into the position where they will be required to defend keeping it. This defense must be a public, reasonable, rational and understandable reason which the American people can understand.
I believe they will fail this test.
What acceptable reason can they give?
Yeah, but he knew what the malcontents and misinformed wanted to hear.
The Founders' very different circumstances may not have led to a great solution, but they had to do something. That's exactly where we are now. Until we can introduce and pass an amendment, NPVIC will be a great improvement.
The link to the website enabled me to read the history of my state's legislation and how long it took to get the bill passed and signed. This wasn't easy, and it was a bi-partisan effort passed on a bi-partisan basis. That's a bit heartening these days.
Thanks Thom---always need to be educated further on each subject.
Maybe someone could draft a proposed Amendment: "The Nationwide Abortion Rights AND National Popular Vote Amendment." That'd be a winner!
Yes, coupling the two issues just might succeed more quickly than otherwise.
Hey Thom? Be careful what you wish for…the other side is pushing scenarios whereby state legislatures can ignore the popular vote and do what they want….and we all know they desperately want to!
While I think the NPVIC looks like a great solution to reducing the subversive impact of the EC has against democracy, it needs some Congressional support. Specifically, legislation to invoke Article 3.2.2 to deny an activist, and corrupt SCOTUS from intervening to put their preferred candidate into the White Houses. And as Republicans are exploring ways to combat it that have made their way into the discourse, such as invoking untested provisions in the 1877 E.C.A., it seems the NPVIC is going to need strengthening.
Here is another solution to the EC that's worth doing. Expand the number of seats in the House, as discussed in a series of essays at the Washington Post. Here's one of the articles... I'd go with the 1,305 target because besides dealing with the gerrymandering issue, it also provides for a truer measurement of representation of our "one person, one vote" democratic principle.
https://wapo.st/3U4CBQg
If the House were expanded by 3 fold, to be as supported there, 1,305, the E.C.'s bias towards smaller population states by way of the 2 electors for each state's senators is significantly reduced.
I've only done the math for the 2000 election to show the tremendous effect. If America had 1,305 House Representatives in 2000, the E.C. count - still with Florida for Bush - would have elected Al Gore!
Here's how the math works:
a.) Subtract the Senate based electors from each candidates total.
Bush was awarded 271, -60 electors from the 30 states he won = 211 House based electors
Gore was awarded 266, -40 electors from the 20 states he won = 226 House based electors
b.) Increase the total number of Reps. in each state 3 fold, or 3x the number in 2000.
Bush has 633
Gore has 678
c.) Add the Senate base electors back to each candidate's House base electors:
Bush 633 + 60 = 693
Gore 678 + 40 = 718
(BTW, the WaPo mentions an "earlier proposed" alternative expansion of 150 seats, but applying that to the 2000 election, with still the 1 vote abstention from DC, and you still get an election that may have been a tie in the EC! That would not be helpful.)
Awhile back I did the rough math, and I forget whether it was Wyoming or Idaho, but it came out that one citizen of one of those two has 47,000 times the Senate clout as one Californian! Thom's piece on the one hand gives hope! Next impulse is the opposite: easy to foresee the twisted "supreme" Court overrule all those states in a hot minute. (The new "Select States Rights" doctrine.) But Thom's research demonstrates why it ought to take them two hot minutes. Sorry.... But I was remembering the Bush family ties to the Saudis, and how the Saudis got a no-questions-asked green light to fly out when Americans were grounded post 9/11.
To summarize my previous ramble: If we get serious about dismantling all aspects of our system that are "not democratic" -- we might find we don't have much left. So it might be a good idea to think about "What's next?" before we start down that road.
As far as I know, the Maine House of Representatives passed the measure -- by the slimmest of margins, 73–72 -- but it hasn't gone to the state senate yet. Is this really a giant step toward having the president and vice president determined by the nationwide popular vote? Not sure about that. The process has been crawling forward since 2007 when Maryland became the first state to ratify. My state of Massachusetts was #6 in 2010. True, four states ratified in 2019, but momentum was lost during COVID and no more states signed on till Minnesota joined in May 2023.
So far 16 states and D.C. have joined, representing 205 of the 270 Electoral College votes necessary to elect a president. If the Maine Senate passes it, that'll add only 4 votes to the total. It doesn't seem all that likely that the count will reach 270 by 2028, and even if it does, it sounds like there will be legal challenges to it. So we shall see.
Agreed that the electoral college is a mess. Bless Hamilton's heart! (But isn't the musical awesome?)
At first blush the college does seem to merit being tossed overboard. A couple of things stump me though. If we were to toss the electoral college based on the grounds most people would use, then how do we rationalize the whole federal system of legislation? In other words, the electoral college is made up of members distributed according to federal legislators, upper and lower. So isn't that "formula" basically the same one we use to pass federal legislation?
And when it comes to "democracy," if that's our rallying cry -- well then, there went the U.S. Senate -- with its two members per state, regardless of population. There's not much "democratic" about that arrangement either.
So, these "anti-democratic" (well, maybe just "not democratic") elements are woven throughout the constitutional system that IS "our Republic," our rule of law. I distrust pure democracy for most of the reasons the founders were leery of it -- plus maybe a couple more.
I still favor some kind of "representative government." But whole elective paradigm we have in this country is broken -- Seems to me we really need some whole other way of arriving at representative government. Almost minus elections all together, or at least minus anything we would presently recognize as an election. I don't know how that might be done -- but it might be something to think about.
So . . . (?) I really don't know.
That's why we need more senators. It will even the playing field. It can be done. So can age limits for judges, including Justices, and any other official.
Trumpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Trumpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the rich fascists with all of their ken
Couldn't put Trumpty together again.
Get rid of the Electoral College. have every presidential candidate have to appear in each of the 50 states and sign a document that allows them to be on the ballot in that state. no more just only visiting six or seven states. now everyone in both red States and blue states can feel that their vote will make a difference.
You probably already know this story. It's worth reading again.If for some reason you believe that getting rid of our current democratic form of government will enable people you believe are more like you to be better represented by whatever replaces it; history says you're wrong. If my house doesn't suit me and I want to change it to suit me, I don't start by burning it down.
Thank you! Well, our constitutional republic is that rather than the "democracy" we hear so much about. If we delete all the "non democratic elements" we'll be left with democracy.
But I really **like** liberty, freedom of speech, etc. Pure democracy would very quickly be the tyranny of the majority. As a guy who has almost never been in the majority in any aspect of life, I'm not supposing I would prosper under "tyranny of the majority."
So trading in our badly flawed constitutional republic for a real democracy (what we'll be left with if we really delete all "non democratic elements") -- would be akin burning my house down. And no, I don't want to!
No use in quibbling. Not acting WILL result in having the current form of government we're working with extinguished. If you think Democracy is hard on your "individual rights" try a Theocracy.
Hi Tom! Thanks for the reply. In a society where the majority favored theocracy, I guess a democracy would be a happy theocracy -- at least for the majority. Agreed, we need to do something different. I think it's important to be clear about what we need to do differently. I don't want a tyranny of the majority or a tyranny of the minority. I don't want tyranny. I think the aspect of our system that has so far helped minimize tyranny against most of us has been the aspect of a constitutional republic, and our habit of taking care of it as best we've been able. Imperfect for sure -- yes, improvements to be made, maybe even fundamental changes.
But the major media and most other engaged people who perceive a threat looming -- keep harping on "democracy." I don't think "democracy" is my answer -- not much assurance of guarantee against the tyranny of that majority -- whoever they are -- whether theocrats or socialists, or anybody else. Or for that matter, theocratic socialists!
I just wish we would dwell a lot more on the threat to our constitutional republic, our real Gold Standard, and a lot less on some "idealized democracy."
People are going to have to vote with pitchforks . . . Including disenfranchised women.
Nice to have a box to comment on again. I"ll use this to tell you abut hubermanlab.com in his episode of May 1st, 2023 Dr. Noam Sobel about minute 29 for odor tracking tells about the ability to know if someone is adhd and or using ritalin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS7cNaBrkdxo