The reactions to my column last week, titled with the question “Is It Time for Conservatives to Support A National Popular Vote?”, was basically a resounding, “HELL NO! It is NOT time for conservatives to support a national popular vote, there will NEVER BE a time for conservatives to support a national popular vote, and you are an IDIOT for even bringing it up! Now, go back to the Democrat-infested hellhole you crawled out of!” Or something along those lines.
To be fair, it wasn’t unexpected, and I completely understand. When I first encountered a case for the issue coming from a conservative (incidentally, from Townhall Senior Editor Matt Vespa’s neutral analysis of the issue in 2017, well before I started writing for the site), I had a knee-jerk reaction as well, and I would have completely agreed with most of the comments made last week. I too had always firmly believed in the ‘firewall’ theory, that the current system, as the ‘Founders intended,’ kept places
Letters to the editor for April 22
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North Dakota lawmakers put study into bill opposing presidential popular vote movement
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When most conservatives think of the Electoral College, they think of one of the last bastions holding back the hordes of Democratic voters just frothing at the mouth to take away our liberties and turn us into a socialist, commie-lite one-party police state.
It’s only natural, considering that the last two instances where a U.S. president lost the popular vote yet won thanks to the current system came in 2000 with George W. Bush and 2016 with Donald Trump. Had we been under a popular vote system and Al Gore had won reelection in 2004, we could have conceivably been looking at 32 years of unimpeded Democratic Party rule, and the utter collapse of our Republic. You think things look bad now, imagine how bad it could have been, or so goes the logic.
The United States of America was founded on the proposition of We the People making decisions about who would develop policy and manage our government. It was to be of and by the people, for the people.
Initially, however, only landowning white males could exercise the privilege of voting. That left the bulk of citizens out in the cold and unable to affect those that governed and the policies they enacted and enforced. Most of us were precluded by law from We the People.
The bulk were powerless yet demanded full participation in democracy. Eventually, all white males regardless as to their wealth, station in life, or education attainment were grudgingly allowed into the club of voting privilege. Then immigrants from Africa, whether immigrating by choice or coercion. Finally, females and others.