I & I Editorial BoardWhile Americans brace for another contentious presidential election, the Democrats have a better idea: Subvert the Constitution in the name of “democracy.” Once again, the party of the left shows why it’s losing Americans’ trust.
Quietly but steadily, the Democratic Party has been advancing its latest bold idea to create a uni-party state: A “National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.”
In case you missed it, the Associated Press reported last week that “Maine will become the latest to join a multistate effort to elect the president by popular vote,” the 17th state to do so.
As the AP noted, “Under the proposed compact, each state would allocate all its electoral votes to whoever wins the national popular vote for president, regardless of how individual states voted in an election.”
The goal of this “movement” — it’s really a plot — is to get enough states to join to get to the magic number of 270 electoral votes, the amount needed to win the Electoral College. With Maine, the group now claims 209 electoral votes, a mere 61 away from their goal.
What’s wrong with this picture? Nothing, except it’s an out-and-out attempt at subverting the protections placed in the Constitution to keep from having a national popularity contest for the presidency. This is what Democrats call “democracy.” In fact, it’s a recipe for mob rule.
Our founders, who were extraordinarily wise and deeply steeped in both political history and philosophy, understood very well: Nations that start as law-respecting republics (America, in case you didn’t know, is a republic, a representative democracy, not a pure democracy) and employ “majority rules” quickly devolve into dictatorships.
That was the whole reason for the Electoral College, which plays a vital role in determining our president by giving states a role in the election of a president. The media understand this, as a recent ABC News headline shows: “State law takes U.S. a step closer to popular vote deciding presidential elections”.
A “popular vote”? Only to the extent the Democrats can rig it, with questionable mail-in ballots, dead people voting, live people voting more than once, and millions of government tax dollars handed out to left-leaning groups that focus almost exclusively on “getting out the vote” for Democrats.
Giving states guaranteed clout in presidential elections is the surest way to keep our nation intact. Should this be dissolved, and we move to a pure popular vote, states might think about seceding rather than being neutered.
Do we want another Civil War?
And what kind of candidate wins like that anyway, in an election in which his or her party can ignore half of the country’s voters? A demagogue.
Because in such a system, states no longer matter, but Washington, D.C., will. Our current system makes even small states important to election outcomes. They can’t be ignored. Which means politicians must pay attention.
“Under the compact, campaigns will be devoted to driving maximum partisan turnout in the states where each party dominates – California, Texas, and so on. Who cares about South Dakota when there are millions of votes to be had in Florida?” John Hinderaker of the popular Power Line blog correctly notes. “The interstate compact would turn our republic into a country that essentially is governed by plebiscite.”
Exactly.
It bears repeating, because so few understand: Our republic elects its officials democratically, but also recognizes the sovereignty of each state and the sanctity of individual rights enshrined in the Constitution. We are not a “democracy.” And, no, the “majority” doesn’t rule. The Constitution does, and it’s hard to change it, by design.
The Electoral College was created as a buffer between the people and their government, specifically to prevent mob rule, which is what pure “democracy” ultimately becomes. The Constitution protects the rights of all, not just the mob that rules.
There’s an old joke, funny mostly because it’s so true: “Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.” If you’re not in the majority, you’re the sheep, and you are eaten.
Democrats feel a sense of urgency. One more term for the gerontocrat and his handlers (nearly all former Obama and Clinton retreads) now in the White House, and America’s far-left turn will be complete.
Remember, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016 in the Electoral College (304 Trump, 221 Clinton), but lost in the popular vote (46.1% Trump, 48.2% Clinton). He nearly did the same again running against Joe Biden in 2020.
Trump is the only person standing between the Democrats and the radical changes in America they seek: Forming an unrecognizably woke, equity-obsessed, and race-based society, with corporations and businesses tightly controlled by inept Washington bureaucrats.
Where does it all end? Ask anyone who ever lived in a “socialist” country with rigged national elections. It’s an invitation for voter fraud on a national scale, and power without end for an elite few in the name of “our democracy.”
With six of the seven major swing states now favoring Trump in the polls, the compact’s authors clearly hope to keep Trump from winning again. They likely won’t reach their goal this year, but might for 2028.
But there is some hope: The scheme is likely unconstitutional. As the Princeton Legal Journal recently argued, “This (compact) constitutes a violation of the Compact Clause, which states that ‘No State shall, without the Consent of Congress … enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State.'”
Even the Harvard Law Review, hardly a bastion of conservatism, argues against the legality of the compact.
So, more than likely, any deal that deprives people of their rights under the Constitution will be declared null and void by the Supreme Court.
That said, don’t think for a minute that mere unconstitutionality will stop the Democrats. If you’re in a state that has yet to join the other 17 in this deceptive compact, you should make it clear to your elected officials that you strongly object to it.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
Paul F. Petrick
Using these vague “policy violations,” Google is now threatening to demonetize us. It’s part of Big Tech’s effort to silence conservative voices.
I’ve read the same hand-wringing article at least a dozen times over the past ten years. Everything you say is true, but you’re forgetting one big thing: there is no requirement, constitutional or otherwise, that presidential electors be chosen by popular vote (or as you term it, plebiscite).
US Constitution, Article II, Section 1: “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.”
Thus, if the compact reaches its 270 vote threshold, red states could decide not to choose electors by popular vote, and the legislatures among them appoint the electors themselves. I don’t think it will get to that, but this is a crazy country with nothing off the table.
So much for letting the people decide, you advocate having some group select the President. Now most of those people will be, or have been, elected officials.
If choosing a slate of alternate electors was cause for alarm and proponents and participants are being charged with crimes, I assume the only reason the signatories to this scheme aren’t being rounded up and held accountable for subverting the constitution is because the scheme is designed to benefit the Democrats. Perhaps there should be a related hearing in the House as part of their election integrity efforts.
Leave it to the Republicans to wait until the compact has achieved its goals before they even think about taking action. They will once again find themselves rounded up and accused of “subverting democracy “.
I fear the Democrats have ALREADY stolen the presidency for good…in 2020.
And yet there is NO evidence of that. Maybe some hidden in mike lindell’s pillow factory?
And if a Republican won the popular vote but lost the EC your opinion would immediately change.
No. That might be true of transactional morons in elected office called “Republicans,” but this is not true of those of us for whom reassertion of the Constitution is paramount.
In any case, the odds of that happening are effectively zero — California and New York by themselves, combined with their harvesting and ballot box-stuffing efforts, make that essentially impossible, no matter how the rest of the states go.
In any event, this is just another facet of the Democrat effort to merge with the state and the fact that a couple of election results having the “national popular vote” (despite the fact that it’s not actually a thing) be at variance with the EC total is the excuse. They don’t give the slightest damn what’s in the Constitution and haven’t since Wilson.
You Have a Republic if You can keep it
Benjamin Franklin Words on the type of Government lost to both the Politcal bands in 1913
I&I ONE People so few today are ONE People
Out of MANY
ONE
AMERICANS
What can be Done to solve the TREASON that is now
Quite obvious from what was seen over an over thru stolen TAXS To Fund WAR by other means
I&I Is there a Peaceful Soul-lution to this madness ?
Only The Truth can Keep
One People Free
And when it is
Abused Regularly by the poo-litcal bandits
The Declaration of Independence
Has a Soul-lution
First Paragraph
Please I&I
Give the soulution
A little
Thought provoking column
Dissolve the Political bands
Theodore Roosevelt in 1913 wrote
Fear God And take your own part
With in his book is what is Todays
Madness
His word
CHINAFY
It is the reason all of this IS
Foretold in 1913
This is a plot to abolish the Electoral College within=out following the proper procedures for amending the Constitution. Surely, SCOTUS would stop it? The Electoral College was made a part of the Constitution for a reason., The founders did not want this country ruled by two or three large cities like NY<.Philadelphia and Boston. Since large cities are typically found in the North and on the coast, the Southern and interior States would have little chance of ever electing a President to represent their interests.
Yet another example of how Democrats are domestic enemies of the Constitution and the rule of law.
Calm down everyone. If the popular vote was a thing then candidates would try for the popular vote. Republicans would campaign in California, New Jersey, New York etc as hard as they do in states they can win. At present, there’s simply no reason to, and it shows in the numbers. Sure, it would cost even more than campaigns do now, but poor people can’t stand anymore anyway. It’s hard to feel sorry for anyone who can.
But the popular vote isn’t a thing, except in the minds of the Democratic Party.
[“questionable mail-in ballots, dead people voting, live people voting more than once, and millions of government tax dollars handed out to left-leaning groups that focus almost exclusively on “getting out the vote” for Democrats.”]
This getting out the vote straddles the line of bribery, usuary and impelling innocent yet clueless sometimes illiterate voters.
Shameful!
It is sad to see an American who tells us that some votes are more important than others, and who says that having the majority of voters agree on something is “mob rule”. The author obviously feels that listening to the voter is mob rule and the voters are a violent mob that must be controlled.
If the majority votes for a candidate – that candidate has been selected by most people. So how can we impose a candidate that was picked by a minority?
The founders were very concerned about majoritarian tyranny. Then the anti-Federalist faction of the founders insisted that a Bill of Rights be added to the Constitution. There are many things that should not be done in our nation, even if a majority of the public “agree to do it.”
Ben Franklin (and the other founders) would be appalled at the sort of government that we have now, with a president with near king-like powers for four years, renewable for four more years. Our future would be best by starting with a 1960s-era slogan “Resist authority”. Push the government back, and away from so much authority over us.
The electoral college has always had problems. See the 1800 election, followed by the 12th Amendment. It has never been what the founders intended.
But it is one emblem of a bigger problem that we have Presidents and a Federal government that has much more power than the founders ever intended. What we have is a person (all men to date) who has the powers of an elected king, with plenary power to command and control us. He is not the public servant chosen to preside over our national government for four years, to faithfully execute the laws of this nation. There are no longer any men elected president like James Madison, who vetoed a charity bill, saying “I can not lay my finger on any …” of the Constitution that authorizes Congress to pass any such law.