One of the most humbug aspects of our over-extended presidential campaigning is that it now taints the holidays. We should only be enjoying the eating of turkeys on Thanksgiving and Christmas, and not be subjected to the political versions' sound-bite stumping for votes that won't be cast for nearly a year.
With the election pre-season pushing further back comes the wholly predictable rants of progressives against constitutional concepts that, despite having stood the test of time and achieving peerless global success, far-lefters think are outdated and in need of change.
Thanksgiving leftovers were still in the fridge last week when New York Times columnist Gail Collins groaned against our singularly effective system of indirect election of the nation's chief executive.
After referring to the fact that the Electoral College votes are equal to the number of representatives and senators each state has in Washington, she complained that, "as I never tire of saying--around 193,000 people in Wyoming get the same clout as around 715,000 people in California."
Collins isn't alone among Democrats. Last election season, before Joe Biden seized the steering wheel of his party, no less than 11 Democratic primary contenders were on record in support of abolishing the Electoral College.
Truth be told, at least some of the impetus (and maybe most of it) has to do with fear of another 2016 anomaly in which Donald Trump loses the popular vote but wins the Electoral College count. There's not nearly as much Electoral College bashing by Democrats when their candidates are handily winning the Oval Office.
But most of these modern Electoral College opponents are like the guy who wakes up on third base and thinks he hit a triple. They've been born into so many civic and social blessings from the genius of the founding fathers that they're clueless about the truth that their birthright--not their own abilities or accomplishments--is the source of their unique U.S. political privilege.
Inheritance often empowers ignorance, and the latter is toxic to liberty, self-government and our constitutional system.
These "third-basers" only see what they consider to be problems with the Electoral College. In fact, many of them voluminously echo Collins' main beef that the Electoral College gives small-state voters more clout than their population warrants.
That was part of the founders' intent, no doubt. But it wasn't aimed only at the president. That's the foundation for the whole federalist formula compromise, and it starts with Congress.
As Collins initially asserted, but then quickly forgot, the presidential electors match the number of each state's representatives and senators in Congress. Wyomingites carry more clout in the legislative branch than Californians, too--a lot more.
In the Senate, around 577,000 people from the Cowboy State have the same voting power as 39 million people from the Golden State.
That's one way to look at it, anyway. But it's an ignorant way, because it ignores a crucial, defining fact: We are a democratic-republic of 50 united, though diverse, states.
The Electoral College elevates the states' interest regarding the executive branch. Direct election by popular vote would unite urban population centers, not states, in support of the president. That could deliver a truly dictatorial tyranny of the majority that we cannot imagine or comprehend, since our Constitution has capably prevented it for more than two centuries.
The siren song of "popular vote" can sound sweet in the abstract. But consider that New York City has more residents than the states of Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, North and South Dakota, Delaware, Rhode Island, Montana and Maine combined.
Should the discrete interests of a single municipality carry more clout in the White House than those of nine entire states?
The top 10 U.S. cities have a population of about 26.5 million, but are in only six states. Their voting power in a national direct election would outweigh the electorate in close to half (40 percent) of the remaining states.
T hankfully, the list of things the president cannot do is long; see Section 8 of the Constitution, which enumerates the powers of Congress. But if the principle of "united" states' interest via federal separation of powers ever gets trampled by direct-democracy mania, why wouldn't the same argument hold for electing senators?
What Electoral College abolitionists are clamoring for, whether fully aware or not, is the destruction of our union of states, and the establishment of a stateless American nation.
Elimination of the Electoral College requires a constitutional amendment, so it's not going to happen (again, thank the framers for a high-threshold amendment process that resists faddish whims).
The real solution to all the sniping and griping about Electoral College failings is simple: Our political parties need to stop serving up Bozos as presidential contenders.
Winning the popular vote but losing the Electoral College occurs in close races--the kind produced by divisive candidates and campaigns.
The parties are what's broken, not our system. When they rediscover how to provide a candidate who's able to unite more people in more states, that will once more produce a winning proposition in both the Electoral College and the popular vote.
Dana D. Kelley is a freelance writer from Jonesboro.