Filed Away

Warning! Politics! Skip if you are sick of it all!

Disclaimer: I live on the East Coast, not terribly far from Boston, MA.

To those aching to abolish the Electoral College, I ask that they take a serious look at the nation at its founding, then look again at the nation as it exists today.
At the founding, people did not move about very much. Even settlers going west tended to go only as far as they had to, then settle down and take root. Most people did not leave the state they were born in, maybe not even the town they were born in. Fast forward to today and there is the impression that the population is so very mobile that the notion of a “State” seems irrelevant.

This is an illusion.

If you live on the North East or West coast, yes, that distinction becomes blurred; however, in vast stretches of this country people still do not wander, not nearly as much as the coastal populations. Do they move more than they did a century ago? Certainly, but not nearly as much as the coastal megalopolis dwellers. This creates two very distinct cultures, perhaps even three as Americans of Latino descent cluster in the south-west.

The Electoral College is designed to avoid the problem of a few populous states ruling over the whole. It recognizes that different regions have different priorities and that no single cluster of the population should dictate to the whole. This is why the STATES elect the President, not the people. It is what defines a Democratic Republic.

If the Electoral College is abolished, the Union will dissolve within forty to fifty years. Arguments can be made that this would be for the best, but that is NOT the argument presented by those who wish to abolish a political system that has served this nation well since the last Constitutional Convention.