What do you Trayvon Martin’s mother, Donald Trump, Jr., and Chris Christie’s dad have in common? They are three of the 538 members of the Electoral College, according to the Politico.com article, The People Who Pick the President.
Also on the list of citizens who will cast the “only ballots with the power to formally elect the next president” in mid December are an anti-abortion radical, a couple of Clinton haters, a motorcycle lobbyist, a Powerball winner and, of all things, a civil rights advocate for Trump. Oh, and Bill Clinton himself.
The article includes links to short bios for each electoral collegian and points out that while the college has rarely deviated from the will of the voters and never changed the outcome of an election, “for six weeks, this assortment of party insiders, donors and, in some cases, fringe activists will be the most powerful force in American democracy. And most Americans will never know who they are.”
Isn’t it time to expel ourselves from the Electoral College?
Is this really the best way to elect the president of a democracy for all the people? Of course, it isn’t. A democracy that represents all the people was not what the white, land-owning forefathers of this country had in mind. They dreamed of a bipolar America, an elite land where elite white males choose a new elite, white male leader every few years.
They also dreamed of a buffer between the hillbillies and Capitol Hill, as it were, so they dreamt up the Electoral College and other ways to elect a president, most of them having nothing to do with a popular vote from a general population.
Let’s get serious: if you were starting a new country with a new constitution containing a systematic method to elect new leaders, one of the first ideas thrown in the trash would be the Electoral College.
But since that isn’t the case in this 2016 election, isn’t it still a good idea to be informed about the identities of the 538 members of this out-of-date relic?
After all, if we don’t keep an eye on them, how can we make sure they, too, don’t rig the election? Lol
Randy Boyd author 