As much as I'd like to return to business as usual, I don't seem to be capable yet. Other people keep themselves busy or immerse themselves in positivity to handle grief - I problem solve. Although, when I finally get my head on straight, I absolutely plan on telling you about Year of Yes, which was an amazing read/listen and talks about various issues that are relevant at this particular moment.
My excessive sharing of various petitions about abolishing the electoral college mostly met with approval (or silence, which is fine). But on Facebook an interesting conversation emerged that gave me pause for thought.
A couple people pointed out the basis for the electoral college. To prevent small, rural states from being completely overrun by the cities, who had/have little to no understanding of the needs or culture of those communities.
At first glance, this made sense to me. They are very different worlds and, a fact I was highly unaware of, about 80% of the population lives in urban areas vs only 20% in the rural ones. So we have to give the rural states something to help them balance this inequity, right?
I was thinking in terms of land usage, and economic factors and things that would directly affect localized areas.
But another commenter reminded us that there are tons of different minority groups, and tons of ways to "split up" the country. Why was this one group being given an extra say and not any of the other minority groups? And that reminded me, "Oh, duh. It's not about just land use. It's not just about protecting one group's homes or culture. It's about the rules that govern ALL of us and determine what our personal liberties will be."
Why should the minority decide for the majority who they're allowed to marry, whether sex ed or religion should be taught in schools, who is allowed to enter the country, what rights a woman has to her body, and on, and on, and on. These are issues that affect all of us, not just one minority group or another.
The only way to be truly fair is to give every single individual one voice and to do our best to not silence any of them. And the electoral college simply does not accomplish either of those goals.
And honestly, I still have trouble seeing how the electoral college truly gives more power back to those rural communities and small states. Sure, everyone is guaranteed 2 votes, but after that it's determined by population anyway. AND THEN you effectively silence up to 49.9% of the voters within that state by forcing the entire state to vote one way or the other.
Delaware's got 3 votes and we're a "blue state." No conservative voice here matters and no presidential candidate is going to waste their time on our local issues. Wyoming also has 3 and is a determinedly "red state." Same goes for them.
All the electoral college does is give power to the "swing states." How is that a better solution? Why are we ok with silencing all the conservative voices in California and New York and all the liberal voices in Idaho, Kansas, and Nebraska?
Another blogger pointed out to me that because of all the silenced voices and people not bothering to vote, the cumulative impact of eliminating the electoral college might not even be a shift to the left side, because more people would come out to vote. I don't think that's a bad thing! Everyone should want to vote. Everyone should feel like their voice matters.
There are other possible solutions. Young Turks gives a pretty comprehensive overview of the situation and (in my opinion) covers the issue from all sides. By simply splitting the electoral votes so that they don't have to all go to one party, we allow everyone within a state to have more input.
But I still believe the electoral college, in any form, is outdated and unjust. I almost feel like the petition to have the electoral college vote for Hillary despite Trump "winning" their votes is cheating the system and the real answer is to change the system BUT it would accomplish 2 very excellent things: 1) The electoral vote would actually represent the popular vote and what the majority of people in this country want and 2) It would make Republicans angry and they would finally agree with us that the electoral college needs to go.
Even if the electoral college by some miracle caves and accedes to the popular vote, it still needs to go. As Slate.com refers to it, this "watered down Democracy" is an outdated institution that sticks around only because of the support of those who are given unfair advantage by it and apathy of those who ought to do more to oppose it.
There's a lot of anger and discussion and social media attention to the issue right now, but if we really want change, we have to keep on this issue even after Trump becomes president. Even if the electoral college changes its mind and elects Hillary instead. We have to do more than just send out angry tweets and we have to do more than just sign petitions (although I personally think that's a fantastic starting place and you can do that on Change and MoveOn if you haven't already).
So what's next? I wish I had a more inspiring, exciting answer that would thrill you into action, but I don't. We write. We email. We call. We tell our legislators what we want and we hope that after they've heard from enough of us that they do something about it.
National Popular Vote makes the email portion of it fairly easy. Just fill out their form and hit send.
Last week I asked you for 15 seconds of time. This week I'm asking for a whole minute.
Email for change?
My excessive sharing of various petitions about abolishing the electoral college mostly met with approval (or silence, which is fine). But on Facebook an interesting conversation emerged that gave me pause for thought.
A couple people pointed out the basis for the electoral college. To prevent small, rural states from being completely overrun by the cities, who had/have little to no understanding of the needs or culture of those communities.
At first glance, this made sense to me. They are very different worlds and, a fact I was highly unaware of, about 80% of the population lives in urban areas vs only 20% in the rural ones. So we have to give the rural states something to help them balance this inequity, right?
I was thinking in terms of land usage, and economic factors and things that would directly affect localized areas.
But another commenter reminded us that there are tons of different minority groups, and tons of ways to "split up" the country. Why was this one group being given an extra say and not any of the other minority groups? And that reminded me, "Oh, duh. It's not about just land use. It's not just about protecting one group's homes or culture. It's about the rules that govern ALL of us and determine what our personal liberties will be."
Why should the minority decide for the majority who they're allowed to marry, whether sex ed or religion should be taught in schools, who is allowed to enter the country, what rights a woman has to her body, and on, and on, and on. These are issues that affect all of us, not just one minority group or another.
The only way to be truly fair is to give every single individual one voice and to do our best to not silence any of them. And the electoral college simply does not accomplish either of those goals.
And honestly, I still have trouble seeing how the electoral college truly gives more power back to those rural communities and small states. Sure, everyone is guaranteed 2 votes, but after that it's determined by population anyway. AND THEN you effectively silence up to 49.9% of the voters within that state by forcing the entire state to vote one way or the other.
Delaware's got 3 votes and we're a "blue state." No conservative voice here matters and no presidential candidate is going to waste their time on our local issues. Wyoming also has 3 and is a determinedly "red state." Same goes for them.
All the electoral college does is give power to the "swing states." How is that a better solution? Why are we ok with silencing all the conservative voices in California and New York and all the liberal voices in Idaho, Kansas, and Nebraska?
Another blogger pointed out to me that because of all the silenced voices and people not bothering to vote, the cumulative impact of eliminating the electoral college might not even be a shift to the left side, because more people would come out to vote. I don't think that's a bad thing! Everyone should want to vote. Everyone should feel like their voice matters.
There are other possible solutions. Young Turks gives a pretty comprehensive overview of the situation and (in my opinion) covers the issue from all sides. By simply splitting the electoral votes so that they don't have to all go to one party, we allow everyone within a state to have more input.
But I still believe the electoral college, in any form, is outdated and unjust. I almost feel like the petition to have the electoral college vote for Hillary despite Trump "winning" their votes is cheating the system and the real answer is to change the system BUT it would accomplish 2 very excellent things: 1) The electoral vote would actually represent the popular vote and what the majority of people in this country want and 2) It would make Republicans angry and they would finally agree with us that the electoral college needs to go.
Even if the electoral college by some miracle caves and accedes to the popular vote, it still needs to go. As Slate.com refers to it, this "watered down Democracy" is an outdated institution that sticks around only because of the support of those who are given unfair advantage by it and apathy of those who ought to do more to oppose it.
There's a lot of anger and discussion and social media attention to the issue right now, but if we really want change, we have to keep on this issue even after Trump becomes president. Even if the electoral college changes its mind and elects Hillary instead. We have to do more than just send out angry tweets and we have to do more than just sign petitions (although I personally think that's a fantastic starting place and you can do that on Change and MoveOn if you haven't already).
So what's next? I wish I had a more inspiring, exciting answer that would thrill you into action, but I don't. We write. We email. We call. We tell our legislators what we want and we hope that after they've heard from enough of us that they do something about it.
National Popular Vote makes the email portion of it fairly easy. Just fill out their form and hit send.
Last week I asked you for 15 seconds of time. This week I'm asking for a whole minute.
Email for change?
P.S. I wasn't a huge fan of the form letter options National Popular Vote provides, so here's what I wrote:
Subject: National Popular Vote Should Determine President
"The system we currently have in place gives an unfair consideration to the voices of rural, white communities. Considering the sheer number of other minority populations, it seems unjust that one group would be raised above another and their voices given more consideration. In addition to that inequity, the all-or-nothing system for allocating electoral college votes effectively silences up to half of each state's population.
Everyone should have the right to make their voice heard. The only way to do that is with a national popular vote."
