BREAKING NEWS
After I posted this blog entry this morning, the Colorado State Supreme Court issued a ruling that Trump is ineligible for the GOP Primary ballot in Colorado. The case will now move to the Supreme Court of the United States, which has three judges appointed by Trump.
Weather Forecast: Donald Trump, Jr. takes up his father’s mantle and the GOP convention becomes the most chaotic affair since the Democrats met in Chicago in 1968.
The Original Constitution: The Gerrymandering of Taxation*
The odds are hardly worth risking even $10, let alone a hundred or a thousand dollars. Still, I’ll wager two dollars, or even as much as five, that we could have a national election in November, 2024 that ends up with the House of Representatives selecting Donald Trump as the next president, and the Senate choosing Joseph Biden as vice-president.
Such an outcome, of course, would reflect the gerrymandering that took place when the Constitution was first consented to by the original 13 states. The Electoral College, after all, was an attempt to balance unequal increments of power with the result that those states with the larger populations agreed to a social policy that blatantly violated the principle of “no taxation without representation.” If no candidate wins 270 or more electoral college votes, the election goes to Congress.The House (with each state’s ensemble of representatives getting one vote each) selects the president, and the Senate choose the vice-president.
The egregious disparity that would lead to such an outcome as President Trump and VP Biden is the result of an electoral arrangement in which almost 40,000,000 people in California will contribute infinitely more in taxes to the federal government than states with less than a million residents — and yet — and yet — and yet (it’s that unbelievable) get only ONE vote for President in the House of Representatives, while Wyoming and North Dakota and South Dakota will garner THREE votes. That’s a total of two and a quarter million people having a three to one advantage over tens of millions. If you added Idaho to this tabulation, you would have four states having one vote each for the president and California only having one: an almost ten to one discrepancy in deciding whether the United States becomes a dictatorship.
North and South Dakota, and Wyoming and Idaho — Four votes in the House of Representatives for President
California – one vote
If that isn’t massive gerrymandering in which people are being taxed outrageously out of proportion to their political power, then how extreme would it have to be for that term to be invoked?
Cue Boy George’v voice:Trauma Trauma Trauma Trauma Trauma machivellian
*(For historical background, see https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R40504.pdf)
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The AIOSEO Score for the above blog post is 62 out of 100. Apparently, I have violated the rules that help a blog post attract readers. At the top of the list of these rules is “avoid using complex words.” I am advised to “(d)umb down your content to make your content easier to understand for all readers.” Dumbing down is exactly what fascism does.
Democracy, following their rules, would need a new spelling:
Dumb-mock-racy
The second rule that this system offers as advice for increasing readership is to use “easy to understand and short sentences.” This advice reflects the “Trump Effect” in which the style of his tweets is seen as effective communication and is therefore a model for all writers.
Sigh.
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Post-Script:
What is amazing to me is how the commentary on the ruling of the Colorado State Supreme Court indulges in the fantasy that the popular vote should determine whether Trump deserves to become president again.
Example: Adam Liptak wrote:
“Donald Trump is accused of doing grave wrongs in trying to overturn the election. But who should decide the consequences of that? Should it be nine people in Washington, or should it be the electorate of the United States, which can, for itself, assess whether Trump’s conduct is so blameworthy that he should not have the opportunity to serve another term?”
Dear Mr. Liptak: By “electorate,” you are covering over what really happens in American presidential elections. Al Gore and Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. They lost the election. An assessment was made about the qualifications of the candidates in 2000 and 2016 in which Bush and Trump were not the popular choices. Nevertheless, those two men were imposed on those who vote for Gore and Clinton.
THe decision of whether to shift the government of the United States from a representative republic to an authoritarian system should be done by a direct, popular vote, not by an electoral college that is effectively a version of taxation without proportionate representation.
Liptak is not alone is dissembling. The New York Times carried brief excerpts from two other writers who are also engaged in deceiving people as to what is involved in the “election” of the next president.
Michael Mukasey has argued in The Wall Street Journal that the provision doesn’t apply to Trump. “If Mr. Trump is to be kept from office, it will have to be done the old-fashioned way, the way it was done in 2020 — by defeating him in an election.”
“Section 3 of the 14th Amendment should not be used to prevent Americans from voting to elect the candidate of their choice. The best outcome, for the court and the country, would be for a unanimous court … to clear the way for Trump to run,” Ruth Marcus writes in The Washington Post.
Along with Liptak, Marcus is selling people an illusion of power in which all voters are equal. In point of fact, the voters of California will not get to choose their president The voters of Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Idaho will instead by the ones who disproportionately control the Electoral College’s choice. To pretend otherwise is to deny a ground-level reality.
About Bill Mohr