Posted on 08/22/2019 9:36:08 AM PDT by Kaslin
New York Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently trashed the electoral college on her Instagram Live, saying that the system used to determine the president of the United States every four years is racist and disproportionately advantageous for white people. Tara Ross, author of Regnery's The Indispensable Electoral College: How the Founders’ Plan Saves Our Country from Mob Rule, broke down for Townhall just why AOC is so misinformed.
"We’re coming to you live from the Electoral College," Ocasio-Cortez said, showing largely empty farmland. "Many votes here, as you can see. Very efficient way to choose leadership of the country. I mean I can’t think of any other way, can you?"
"The Electoral College has a racial injustice breakdown," Ocasio-Cortez added. "Due to severe racial disparities in certain states, the Electoral College effectively weighs white voters over voters of color, as opposed to a 'one person, one vote' system where all our votes are counted equally."
""#FactsAreFacts, America. The Electoral College has got to go," the Democratic Socialist remarked.
Ross told Townhall that AOC fundamentally misunderstands the purpose of the electoral college and fails to see why it is necessary.
"Her arguments are at odds with those made by civil rights leaders such as Vernon Jordan in the late 1970s," Ross said in an email.
"'Take away the electoral college,' Mr. Jordan wrote at the time, 'and the importance of that black vote melts away. Blacks, instead of being crucial to victory in major states, simply become ten percent of the total electorate, with reduced impact,'" the retired attorney told me.
But, Ross said that ultimately comments like AOC's are simply about "changing the narrative." In fact, she said critics of the system are "working overtime" to revise history.
"If these activists can paint a picture of the Electoral College as something racist and evil, then it will be far easier to eliminate the system," Ross surmised.
The antidote to this malady is simply better education of actual American history.
"Americans would be better served to remember the real history of the Electoral College: The institution was created because the Founders knew the dangers of simple democracies. Two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner is not just. Instead, the Founders created a system of checks and balances, including our Electoral College," Ross said.
As for the idea that since more people live in cities, therefore, rural areas should have less of a say, Ross rejected this claim.
"A handful of densely populated urban areas should not be able to gang up on everyone else. Every voice matters. Every voice should be heard."
Furthermore, what these leftists fail to understand is that demographics and population change in states. "There is no such thing as a permanently safe or swing state. States change their allegiances fairly often, which is why California voted for George H.W. Bush in 1988, but also voted for Bill Clinton in 1992," she noted.
Ross also said AOC would be wise to remember that the electoral college "isn’t looking to skin color any more than it is looking to religion, industry, or proximity to the border."
"The purpose of our state-by-state presidential election process is simply to ensure that voters from a variety or regions, states, and subcultures are taken into account at election time," Ross said. "The truth is that the Electoral College helps all Americans, no matter their skin color. It does this by rewarding presidential candidates who do the best job of taking into account the needs of a wide variety of voters."
So then what should critics like AOC be doing instead? Ross said presidential candidates need to create better platforms that appeal to both rural and urban voters in order to overcome any perceived disadvantages.
"We’ve had close elections lately because neither political party is doing an especially good job of coalition building. The first party to rectify this problem will also start winning presidential elections in landslides," she added.
Thanks. Please share it widely as we’re heading into the valley of the shadow of death of AMERICA, the IDEA, if these morons are not routed.
STALIN’S WARNING FOR AMERICA!
https://www.brighteon.com/6039981365001
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJa7dYgo51g&feature=youtu.be
The Democrats review the new incoming Freshman pledges
She was clearly missing the point in that video. That farmland doesn’t have a lot of EC votes. The more populous states have greater representation. It is fair the way it is.
They want to eliminate the sovereignty of states and have only one land-mass government, headed by the President. However, that's not the Constitutional framework we operate under.
I wonder if people like Ocasio-Cortez believe that if they do away with the Constitution, the existing leaders can step into some void and take over rulership. They fail to remember that the states were founded by the Declaration of Independence and predate the Constitution. The states ordained and established the Constitution. If the Constitution is abolished, the states revert back to independent sovereign territories with no national unifying framework.
What may come of this is not necessarily what left-wing liberals imagine. In a post-constitution North America, there is nothing to stop, say, California from declaring itself an independent nation. It's possible that the south from Texas to Florida to the Carolinas could reform its own union. New England might follow, creating its own nation from Maine to Maryland. Canada might follow Trump's example and offer to buy Wisconsin, Minnesota or Washington.
We'd end up with a balkanization of North America instead of a United States ruled by liberals with no constitutional guardrails.
-PJ
She absolutely knows what she’s doing. She’s a good little soldier of the lefty commies. They are actively trying to break down the fiber of our constitution.
she is so hawt
GREAT posts, embarrassing House.
I was going to ask if you’d had your eyes checked lately but to be honest, she is not an unattractive person - IF ONLY SHE’D KEEP HER MOUTH SHUT....
WHAT may I ask is “kinda cute?”
In the early history of the U.S., most states allowed only white male adult property owners to vote.
That was the ‘becoming strong, prosperous and great’ part.
That is funny!! Thanks for the laugh!!!!
AOC is not misinformed.
Leftists know exactly why we have an Electoral College and they hate it because it hinders their lust for power.
That's the popular mythology. It's purpose was to elect an endless succession of George Washingtons.
This is exactly right. Anyone who puts forth the argument the purpose of the Electoral College is to somehow balance large vs. small states, or urban vs. rural influence hasn’t read their Federalist.
The EC was established in order to put a - somewhat permeable - barrier between the will of the people, and the person of the President. The Framers felt the people should be listened to, but they could not be trusted to make the final judgement.
In Hamilton’s own words:
“It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. ...
It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made 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. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.”
The Electoral College that currently exists - one where Electors are more-or-less completely bound to choose whoever won the popular vote in their State - would horrify Hamilton, Jay, Jefferson, and the rest of the Framers.
Hamilton goes on to speak of the benefit of “this detached and divided situation” which would ensure “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;” and men with “talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity,” would never become President.
I wonder how Hamilton would feel about some of the men who have filled the Oval Office in the 20th and 21st Centuries.
AOC is angry at the Electoral College because she couldn’t qualify to get in to it. Her Bartending grades were too low.
Not one in a hundred Freepers understand the purpose of the EC.
Unfortunately, political parties corrupted the process. The Framers would freak at limiting the practical voting choices to one of two factional party leaders.
With rare exception, the first loyalty of modern presidents is to their party . . . then themselves . . . then, maybe the USA.
The Framers’ process, if followed, meant talented executives with great public virtue, and unburdened with political debts to pay. Men like GW and Donald Trump!
To be fair, it was the Framers themselves who developped the two-party system: Adams, the Pickneys, Ames, and - to some extent - Washington being the Federalists and the Jefferson, Madison being the Democrat-Republicans.
While they did vote in substantially different ways - the splitting of the ticket between the top vote getters, for example - I don’t think they’d be overly horrified at the existence of the PARTIES.
I personally think it’s the calibre of the MEN which would horrify those early Americans.
Hmm. I’m currently reviewing the large v. small state electoral issue in my blog series “Shaping the Presidency.”
Yes, there was concern that qualified favorite sons from small states wouldn’t have much of a chance. BUT, this was a minor matter to address only AFTER the delegates dedicated themselves to a process that hopefully produced an endless succession of George Washingtons.
To give the small states a better chance when, as expected, most elections were decided in the House of Reps voting federally, one vote per state, Article II required electors cast two votes, and one of them had to be for someone outside their state.
But, the large v. small state issue soon fizzled out. From 1804 onward, thanks to the 12th Amendment, electors cast one vote for a President and another for a Vice President.
I just bought a used book, “Why the Electoral College is Bad for America” by George C. Edwards III (2004). Like AoC, he believes in majority popular rule in Presidential elections and fairly ignores the central purposes of the EC. Lots of otherwise educated people feel this way, as if more and more democracy is the cure for all ills. It isn’t. Democracy isn’t perfume. It is poison.
I disagree to the extent that the Framers were very aware of factions, and did everything they could in their design to repulse this great enemy of republics.
Madison goes on at length about controlling factions in Federalist 10.
If you review Federalist 10, you’ll see that the Federalists and Democrat-Republicans of the 1790s were not factional parties.
FOAD
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