Democrats and the Electoral College

Many Democrats have decided that since Hillary Clinton got the votes of more people than Donald Trump did, the solution for  their difficulties is to abolish the electoral college and let a national popular vote select the president.  One assumes they think this plays well with and stirs up the more ignorant people within their "base”, but one should also assume they are not serious about it and not go charging at the red cape in the manner of numerous conservative media people.

The first thing to notice is that it won’t happen.  It would require a constitutional amendment, and that would require two thirds of the senate and the legislatures of two thirds of the states to support it. Those representing the less populous states are not likely to go for it, and there are enough of them to block an amendment.

Then there is the fact that the left did not win the popular vote in 2016. Hillary did get more votes than Trump, but she was not the only leftist getting votes, and Trump was not the only opponent of the left getting votes. Gary Johnson was not a very good candidate, but he received over four million votes for president as the candidate of the Libertarian Party,  far more than the party’s  candidates in other elections. While I  would like to believe that millions of people became libertarians between 2012 and 2016, it is likely that many or most of Johnson’s voters did so because they opposed Clinton’s leftist policies but could not stand Trump. Evan McMullin ran as an independent and a more or less explicit Republican alternative to Trump and got over seven hundred thousand votes. Darrell Castle of the Constitution Party received slightly over two hundred thousand votes.   On the other side Jill Stein of the Green Party got over a million votes with positions usually to the left of Clinton’s.  Bernie Sanders picked up a little over a hundred thousand, probably mainly from leftists who did not like Clinton, and Gloria La Riva of the Socialism and Liberation Party got over seventy thousand.  No one else is listed as getting a large number of votes, though several hundred thousand were cast for assorted “other” candidates.

It seems reasonable to combine the votes for  for Clinton, Stein, La Riva, and  Sanders  as generally favoring the Democrats/left  and those for Trump, Johnson, McMullin, and Castle as generally opposing it.  Doing so gives  the anti-leftists not only the lead but a majority of  all votes cast.

So conservatives should simmer down. The Dems are only kidding, and even if they weren’t and got their way, it might not do them any good.