According to Gallup, an amazing 74 percent of Americans are either very or somewhat dissatisfied with their government. But this has been going on for a while, in 2019 (pre-Covid) the figure was 72% in the Trump administration (https://news.gallup.com/poll/469070/americans-dissatisfaction-nation-eases-high.aspx ).
But, as recently as 2001, this figure was just 42% percent! So, in recent years dissatisfaction has gone up under both parties. So, Steve Brown is correct that our democracy is on the brink (“Our fragile democracy and its future”). However, as is always the case, Steve blames the Democrats. But they are not the ones undercutting democracy.
Former President Donald Trump is a populist billionaire who was elected due to this discontent. Trump said he wanted to drain the swamp and return our government to the people. Now, several political commentators have analyzed the 2025 plans put forth by close associates of Trump. They have concluded that Trump wants to take 44,000 jobs held by qualified civil servants and fill them with right wing political appointees. So much for draining the swamp.
Isn’t it time for populist candidate Trump to embrace real electoral reform that enables the people’s will to be heard (as a true populist by definition must do)? Instead of just preying on “white grievance” … and then pretending he supports democracy?
Historically, we were not originally set up to be a true democracy by our Founding Fathers. They had little faith in the average American voter (and restricted voting to white men). Instead, we were founded as a republic that would be dependent on a vestige of feudal system — the Electoral College. But that can be changed via Constitutional amendment if the bipartisan will is there.
Here is the real issue:
The Republicans (my former party) have lost the popular vote several times in the last 30 years, but won the presidency anyway via the undemocratic, unrepresentative, antiquated Electoral College. That is how both W and Trump, who were not chosen by popular vote (i.e., the American people) were elected. So, GOP leaders do not want true democracy.
Republican bosses give inane and transparent excuses, such as using the popular vote would cause domination of the presidency by a few blue big states. Of course, the corollary to this statement is that the current system provides for unfair domination by smaller, red states.
Is an unrepresentative dictatorship of smaller states better than “one person, one vote”? The next time it could be a GOP nominee for president denied by the Electoral College. If Trump wants to be a populist, fix it.
Let’s also fix a few of our other ills related to our national, state and local elections. Let’s:
• Mandate early voting and absentee provisions instead of pushing disincentives.
• Change voting days to include Saturday and Sunday (note — our Fayette Elections Board rejected this) and have an Election Day holiday.
• Halt gerrymandering and end discrimination against minorities. Stop creating artificial lines in minority districts.
• Stop removing voting privileges for felons who have paid their time.
• Institute automatic registration of Americans at birth.
• Allow phone, email or mail registration of any citizen.
These reforms can increase the representative nature of our government and improve democracy. The only question is whether our supposed populist Trump and the rest of GOP leadership will ever advocate for them. So far, the answer is a resounding “no”.
Jack Bernard
Peachtree City, Ga.
While I disagree with most all of the OP’s letter, I will comment on only one aspect of it.
Per the OP;
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“Instead, we were founded as a republic that would be dependent on a vestige of feudal system — the Electoral College. But that can be changed via Constitutional amendment if the bipartisan will is there.”
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When Germany developed a new constitution in the 1920’s, after a disastrous war and several less than enlightened leadership changes, they decided to model their new constitution very closely after our US Constitution.
The one major concept that they decided NOT to follow was the Electoral College model for national elections. How did that work out for them? As the saying goes, “The rest is history.”
Aside from any other idealistic differences the Founding Fathers had on how the Constitution should be structured, the concept of the Electoral College was agreed by them all to be “if not perfect, than most excellent.”.
Calls to move away from the Electoral College have existed for decades, as have calls for SCOTUS packing and other blatant attempts to rig the system to benefit those who would destroy the foundations of our Republic.
It’s time to recognize these attempts for what they are.
The Electoral College was a compromise between the federalist and the anti-federalist. What they didn’t count on was the winner take all environment instituted by states. I believe there are only two states that do a proportional allocation of their electors. Should states adopt this method instead of winner take all, I’d wager the popular vote would come closer to the electoral vote, and remove the critical concentration on a handful of states. It also protects the nation from a pure popular vote where a large state could increase their weight by a failure to discourage illegal voting.
I agree with you, Lulu. The electoral college was a “hold your nose” compromise that allowed slave states more say since they were counting their “property” as a 3/5 population addition. If proportional electors (instead of winner take all) was adopted, the electoral college would be very close to the popular vote.
Of course your dig about illegal voting is a Fox News/45 fantasy, not a real thing.
I’ll only comment on 2 of Mr. Barnards suggestions:
• Institute automatic registration of Americans at birth.
• Allow phone, email or mail registration of any citizen.
I say that an adult American citizen should at least get up off the sofa, put down the iPhone and actually register to vote in person.
Amen Vics
My wish is that anyone wishing to vote in a national election must earn it by passing the civics test that immigrants must pass in order to be citizens. With even that low bar, I bet there would be no waiting at the precinct on election day to cast a vote.
Like eliminating the electoral college, a knowledge of U.S. civics in order to vote is a great idea, but it has little chance of being implemented.
If you don’t pay any taxes and your tax burden is zero, then you can’t vote.
Outlaw vote by mail. How can we trust the post office with something that important when they can’t deliver mail on time?
Jim – Everyone pays taxes. Those who don’t have income tax liability pay sales taxes, property taxes directly (like their car) or indirectly (through rents), etc., and often their proportional taxation (as a percentage of their income) is greater than those who pay income taxes.
If one chooses to vote by mail, and then the postal service does not deliver the ballot on time, the voter loses his/her vote as a consequence, but that doesn’t jeopardize the election.
Your objections are pointless.
Jack – I highly doubt you were ever a Republican, certainly not really a conservative. No one with core American values and understanding would blather about removing the Electoral College, principally because constitutionally, we are a representative republic.
ToSir did an excellent job of taking apart your “fixes” to our election process. There’s racism embedded in the thinking that the only way for a person of color to get elected, or to be represented, is to rig up “minority districts”.
If we’re into setting up voting districts based on immutable characteristics, then we also need to gerrymander based on sex, age and eye color. Gerrymandering goes both ways, unfortunately, and if anyone has an alternative, I’d be interested.
What you missed completely is the unwinding of controls over our voting process that give rise to doubters in the fairness of elections. That is the biggest threat to our way of government.
It starts with eligibility to vote. Why do Senate Democrats and Chuck Schumer refuse to allow a vote in the Senate on the SAVE Act, which has passed the House, that would require verified US citizenship to vote in federal elections?
Progressives don’t want to require proof of citizenship so they can capitalize on their open border. They’ve required that the Census counts “bodies”, not citizens, so that the number of Congressional seats and Electoral College points for each state are calculated including illegals.
The government just hands out voter registrations (eg at the DMV), and states (including Georgia) are finding illegals who are registered to vote. How many illegals get their vote through in states that don’t check voter rolls for eligibility?
Obviously, voter registration must be better maintained; it shouldn’t take lawsuits to get government officials to cleanse the voter rolls. Dems also oppose common sense voter ID, vote tracking / chain of custody verification, and mail-in voting deadlines. Why, if the goal is truly a free and fair election that we all believe in?
So, if you really want to restore trust in our system of government, you’d be focused on setting up an election process that makes it easy to vote AND next-to-impossible to cheat. And you’d vote for conservatives since Dems have an agenda that is inconsistent with a trustworthy democratic process.
“Stop removing voting privileges for felons who have paid their time.” Once a felon has completed his sentence they CAN be reinstated. Completed means they have finished parole and paid their fines and restitutions.
“• Change voting days to include Saturday and Sunday (note — our Fayette Elections Board rejected this) and have an Election Day holiday.” — Saturday has the poorest turnout of voting for any day of the week in Fayette County. I would expect Sunday to be even worse because of church services, however I’m all for cancelling one of the Saturdays, and substitute a Sunday instead. Since the majority of church goers are Republicans, it would be a good opportunity for pastors to load up their busses and make sure their flock vote for candidates that support Christian values.
I’d like to see a National Election Holiday and it be the First Sunday after the first Friday in November, with all non-essential services closed.
” Halt gerrymandering and end discrimination against minorities. Stop creating artificial lines in minority districts.” — The Civil Rights act of 1964 requires a proportional number if districts have a racial minority majority. You can’t achieve this without gerrymandering. If a state has a 25% minority population, then 25% of their districts must have a minority majority to allow for the minority to elect a representative. and give have a proportion representation in the larger body. I guess Jack wants that repealed that as to eliminate minority dominated districts, and all the majority to dilute the minority votes.
If anybody is interested in reading the Project2025 transition plan straight from the horse’s mouth, rather than the regurgitated DNC talking points misrepresentation here, then simply go to PROJECT2025 dot ORG and read it for yourself.
Yep go to Project 2025, then onto the Policy tab of the website to view the agenda. Scroll down to view the table of contents to read section titles, Taking the Reins of Government, the Common Defense, the General Welfare, the Economy, Independent Regulatory Agencies, etc. Also note the listed authors under each subsection, such as Cuccinelli, Navarro, Vought, Dearborn and so on. Yep, plenty of horse’s mouths.
If you care to, checkout the training videos too. Dan Huff, a former legal advisor in the previous administration (WH Personnel Office) is speaking about (to) their future political appointees and hires, “Be prepared to enact significant changes in American government and be ready to face blowback when they (you) do.” This is all in reference to reenacting Schedule F if their candidate is successful. Again, the expectation here is that all federal government workers must now be required to swear to a loyalty oath to the new president and not the Constitution.
And Harris isn’t reading out of Open Society’s playbook? wink wink nod nod. Michael Fuchs who served as Harris’ deputy chief of staff is tied to the Open Society Foundation. Read Open Society’s causes and this sounds remarkably like the Democrats goals.
Yep, democratic goals of advancing justice, education, public health, and an independent media that has branches world-wide (37 countries) and well respected around the world … except in Russia (banned them in 2015), Pakistan (2018) and Turkey (2018). I’ll let those dates (years) speak for themselves.
Let me know how San Francisco turns out. Our kids are educated on 187 different genders but can’t recite the multiplication tables. Where killing babies in the womb is considered reproductive health care, as well as sterilizing children to promote transgenderism. As for independent media, but only if they subscribe to Marxist ideals, the rest need to be silenced, demonetized, or prosecuted for disinformation as determined by the minister of disinformation. How is it that the MSM only suddenly realized the cognitive decay of Biden after they couldn’t hide it from the public after his first debate.
Lulu – Thanks for that concise summation of last night’s (and every night’s) Fox newscast. I feel so much better informed now. I think I know exactly whom to hate.
Yes, indeed Jack, that Project 2025 is very concerning. Dismantling federal agencies and replacing them with political appointees? It’s clearly an attempt to take over parts of the federal government in a way that is not loyal to the Constitution. It has no interests in the will of the people, and it will force current / all new employees to take orders, whether they are legal or not. This is what the Radical Right (Heritage Foundation) is proposing.
Ah Jacketman, in case you were dozing back in school or through many past national political conventions, it’s basically the presidential contender at the convention with the most state delegate votes, wins his or her party’s nomination. Same with Presidential Electoral College voting. When you vote for a Presidential candidate, you are actually voting for your candidate’s preferred elector.
Then at the meeting of electors in each state after the election, the first Tuesday after the 2nd Wednesday in December, they meet and cast their vote for President and Vice President on separate ballots. This Certificate of Vote is then sent to Congress (by each state) to be counted in a joint session of Congress on January 6 following the election. Both examples (Convention & Electoral College) are examples of a defining right of a representative democracy as we know it.
Makes it seem like the electoral college is some slight if hand by President Trump. Like the Dems changing candidates after the one they elected in the primary could not win
The electoral college will never be abolished. Dude writes asking for stuff like a kid’s Christmas list.
110% correct. especially after the swindle, I mean switch the dems just pulled. You want a parliamentary system, move.