The Electoral College

Occasionally presidents win the electoral vote but not the popular vote. It has happened four times before (1876, 1888, 1824, and 2000 with Bush-Gore) and looks likely to happen again in this election. That will no doubt bring up again calls to abolish the Electoral College by journalists who have a less than complete understanding of American history. (PS - I’ve just seen the first such article pop up)

When the founders of the nation were putting together the Constitution, one of the major issues they faced was the worry of the smaller states, like Delaware, that they would always be overpowered and outvoted by the larger states, like Virginia. The solution, or compromise, was to create two chambers in Congress, the House with representation (roughly) proportional to the population of each state, and the Senate where each state got exactly two representatives, irrespective of size or population.

In essence the Electoral College addresses that same issue. States with smaller populations get slightly proportionally more electoral votes than larger, more populous states. That means that elections aren’t always just decided by California and New York, with the largest populations and the largest cities. The smaller, less populated portions of the nation get a say as well, as they should in a democracy.

Liberal urban voters (like the journalists who will push to eliminate the Electoral College) would not be happy if their elections were always settled by conservative rural voters, so they need to understand that those conservative rural voters would be equally unhappy (for equally valid reasons) if elections were always settled by a few big states and big cities.

The essential problem with democracy is to ensure that it doesn’t just become mob rule by the majority, and that the rights and views of the minorities are also heard and respected. Direct election by the majority of the popular vote sounds like a good idea, but it would tend to destroy one of the essential features of America – the recognition and protection of a wide diversity of views and needs across many states. It would become the tyranny of the majority – mostly urban dwellers in a few big cities in a few large states.

Recommended: Ten-Step Program for Adjusting to President-Elect Trump

For a little humor (but with some sound advice underneath) see the New York Times article Ten-Step Program for Adjusting to President-Elect Trump. Very good.

Recommended: The Democratic Party Deserved To Die

The Huntington Post (very liberal) has a very good piece today by contributor Krystal Ball (very liberal) entitled: The Democratic Party Deserved To Die.  I highly recommend it.  Ball tells it like it is - not only how unsuitable Hillary was, but how the whole Democratic Party has sold out its core values and ignored the desperate plight of middle America, and deserved to lose the election because of it.  One hopes this is the opening bell of a top-to-bottom rethinking of the party, long overdue.

I'm looking for the same sort of insightful piece about the Republican party, which needs an overhaul even more than the Democrats do.

The morning after

I have friends and even family who are in despair after this election – sure that Donald Trump will ruin the country. On the one hand the despair it is understandable – Trump certainly has some unpleasant and undesirable traits. On the other hand, the despair is also a form of unwarranted intellectual arrogance.  Almost exactly half the voters thought that Donald Trump, despite his flaws, was a better choice than Hillary Clinton and her flaws.

Are we really willing to say out loud that we think half of our American friends and neighbors are deluded, sexist, racist, politically incorrect, Islamophobic, “deplorables”, who were dumb enough to be taken in by Trump’s promises?  Because, at root, that is what we would be saying if we dismiss the fact that they all voted for Trump. Oh, we wouldn’t admit to ourselves that we thought that way – it would be politically incorrect – but that is in effect exactly what we would be thinking.

If we are a well-off, well-educated urban liberal with a nice safe white-collar job and a comfortable office, we certainly might have preferred Hillary.  But put yourselves in the shoes of a 50-year old worker in a Rust Belt mill or factory or a West Virginia coal mine, with a wife, three kids and a mortgage, who faces losing his job and having his town (and his equity in his house) disappear when the factory or mill moves overseas or automates or the mine closes, and the picture looks a lot different. Hillary is all about helping African-Americans, Hispanics, the inner city poor, (and her wealthy corporate sponsors) etc, etc.  But what is she offering to do for this desperate 50 year old, who sees his lifetime of building his skills become irrelevant, and his savings and home disappear – with no effective help at all from Hillary’s “trade agreements” government?   I didn’t vote for Trump, but I certainly understand why this 50 year old would have! And I respect that.

American democracy is about the free and open competition of ideas. We each of us certainly have our preferred views on these ideas, but none of us has the Godlike wisdom to know which of these ideas is really best, or which will be best suited to the unknown problems that will arise in the future, so when our particular views happen to lose for the moment it is childish petulance to despair. A adult response would be to wonder why others preferred another view, and to think with an open mind about why they preferred that view.  We might learn something.  We might grow in understanding. We might even (gasp) begin to see their point of view.

Trump’s Victory

Well, Donald Trump again exceeded expectations and won the presidency, and by a decisive margin, despite the predictions of the (mostly liberal) media and most of the pollsters (and note that in the end Scott Adams was right again!). And he clearly outsmarted and outmaneuvered the entire Washington establishment, both Republican and Democratic – that is an amazing performance which I didn’t really expect. I’m sure the numbers will be dissected in detail ad nauseam over the coming months, but here are my immediate take-aways from this result:

1)      The shopworn old Republican promises – never kept – of less government, lower taxes, less regulation, “family values”, etc, etc simply aren’t selling anymore. And Republicans need appealing new ideas, not just opposition to Democratic ideas. This has been clear ever since Trump buried all the establishment candidates in the primaries.

2)      Hillary’s big mistake was not to learn from Bernie Sanders’ unexpectedly good performance in the primaries that part of the traditional Democratic base – the blue collar workers – were not on board. Instead, once she had dispatched Bernie, she simply ignored him and his proposals and steamrollered her way to the nomination.

3)      The Democrat’s’ big mistake in the first place was to field a candidate as unpopular and scandal-tainted as Hillary. Or perhaps their mistake was to allow the Clinton “machine” to so thoroughly dominate and control the nomination process.

4)      The liberal’s “identity politics” didn’t work very well for them in this election. Latinos didn’t vote for Hillary in a block. Women didn’t vote for Hillary in a block. African-Americans didn’t vote for Hillary in a block. In fact all of these groups voted pretty much as they normally do.

5)      The establishment politicians of both parties have clearly gotten out of touch with their bases. In particular, the liberal elite have not succeeded (nor even really tried) to sell their view of a globalized world with open boarders to the average American.  Instead they have arrogantly assumed that any "right thinking" person would agree with them, and that everyone else is a racist, Islamophobic or sexist "deplorable".  This is not a way to win a democratic election.

I expect major civil wars within both parties over the coming year or two, as they try to figure out how to respond to these events.  It will be interesting to see how they reshape themselves.

About Immigration

Most of us have homes, owned or rented, and we have set up our homes to suit our lifestyles, values, and preferences.  We certainly welcome strangers into our homes as visitors, but we don’t expect strangers to move in with us and change the furniture and décor to suit themselves. And we certainly don’t expect to keep our door open all the time for just anybody to come in off the street if they feel like it.

The same is true with countries. America has a certain more-or-less uniform set of American values. We expect people to respect the law, unlike some lawless areas of the world. We expect people to be tolerant of other religions, unlike some Muslim countries, and other political views, unlike some dictatorships. Our culture doesn’t condone tax avoidance like the Italians or Greeks. We don’t tolerate “honor killings” or allow village elders to order punitive rapes, unlike Pakistan. We believe in a democratic system of government (messy as it sometimes is), unlike Russia. We value individuality, unlike China or Japan.

We are a nation of immigrants, but what is more-or-less common among all our immigrant ancestors  is that they came to America and became “Americans” – learned the common language, learned and respected the universal values and customs, supported the democratic process (and sometimes got pretty good at using it).  They certainly brought with them and added to the America culture many valuable things:  their music, their cuisine, their art, their holiday customs, and their own unique religions.  But they didn’t expect to come here and change America back into their home country – in fact many if not most left their home countries precisely because they didn’t like something about it – the lack of economic opportunity, the lack of religious freedom, political persecution, etc, etc.

The liberal dream of worldwide open borders is roughly equivalent to having everyone in town open their homes to any stranger coming by at any time of the day or night.  It just doesn’t make sense, and it certainly isn’t a popular view with the majority of Americans – perhaps just with wealthy liberals living in gated communities, who are happy to have low-wage immigrants mow their lawns, but certainly don’t want them moving in next door and lowering the neighborhood property values.

We should accept immigrants, (a) in reasonable numbers that don’t swamp the culture, (b) that want to become Americans and adopt American ways and learn the American language rather than just set up an enclave of their own country within America, and (c) that appear able to support themselves in our economy and not become a welfare burden on the taxpayers.

And we ought to do a lot more than we now do to help new immigrants settle in.  Some nations have “sponsor” programs where new immigrants each have a sponsor family who help them adjust for the first year or so, get jobs, learn their way around, and integrate into the American culture.  We would be smart to do the same.  And we certainly ought to make it easier for bright, well-educated (often in American universities), ambitious people to immigrate and strengthen our nation. Indeed, we already do a fairly stupid thing with foreign students who come here for a graduate education – we force them to leave after they get their degree, instead of encouraging them to stay and help the economy grow.

This liberal dream of "worldwide open boarders" is a recipe for disaster, as the EU is already finding out. On the other hand the knee-jerk right-wing opposition to immigration is also a disaster, and shows an appalling ignorance about our American history.

Boy, is the FBI amazing!

It took the FBI 16 months to review 55,000 Clinton e-mails and determine that there was no basis for prosecution.  Yet it took them only 8 days !!! to review a reported 650,000 new emails - over 6 times as many - and clear Hillary again just two days before the election. Amazing! Unless of course it had already been determined what the answer would be, irrespective of the content of the emails. In that case all that was needed was a theatrical pause and then an announcement.

I wouldn't be so cynical about the FBI if it weren't for the questionable history of the Clinton investigation up to now.