Ironic, Trump defends Electoral College that was created to keep him from being President.

Trump's "rigged election" threat and criticism of the Jill Stein recount have sent a chill into the entire electoral process. It will probably result in Trump becoming president.

The electoral college was designed to specifically keep guys like Trump out. But with Trump's backing, and endless threats against anyone calling into question his electoral college win, will the electoral college be afraid to do its job? You bet.

Vox had a great piece on this, with the featured section below that spelled out why the electoral college should reject Trump outright. Compare the reasons why the founding fathers created the electoral college, and the three ploys used by Trump that require the college stop him:

Constitutional history makes clear that the founders had three main purposes in designing the Electoral College.

The first was to stop a demagogue from becoming president. At the Constitutional Convention, arguing in support of the Electoral College, Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts said he was “against a popular election” for president because the people would be “misled by a few designing men.” In Federalist No. 68, Alexander Hamilton wrote that the electors would prevent those with “Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity” from becoming president. They would also stop anyone who would “convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements.

The second goal was to stop foreign interference in election. In the founding period, the framers were extremely concerned about infiltration by rivals including Great Britain. In Federalist No. 68, Hamilton wrote that one major purpose of the Electoral College was to stop the “desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils.” He said that the college would “Guard against all danger of this sort … with the most provident and judicious attention” from the electors.

The third goal was to prevent poor administration of government. This is a less well-known purpose of the Electoral College, but it is again expressly discussed in Federalist No. 68. Hamilton wrote that “the true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration,” and for that reason, he said, the electors should be “able to estimate the share which the executive in every government must necessarily have in its good or ill administration.”

This election has three aspects that have brought the Electoral College back to relevance.

First, Donald Trump is the first unquestioned demagogue to become a major-party nominee in our country’s history. On his quest to the general election, he stoked prejudices and passions to flout fundamental constitutional norms, such as our freedoms of the press, religion, and peaceful assembly. 

Second, there’s incontrovertible evidence that Russia interfered in the campaign, by hacking the email accounts of top Democratic officials and cooperating with WikiLeaks’ parallel campaign to undermine Hillary Clinton campaign. Meanwhile, Trump has business entanglements in Russia and other foreign countries, the extent to which are unknown because Trump has not released his tax returns.

And third, his opponent, Hillary Clinton, is on track to win the popular vote now by over 2 million votes — over four times Al Gore’s narrow margin over George W. Bush in 2000 — a factor electors ought to be able to weigh, whether or not they think it is conclusive.

The Electoral College was designed precisely for such extraordinary instances. As Jeffrey Tulis, Sanford Levinson, and Jeremi Suri (respectively professors of political science, law, and history) recently argued in the New York Daily News, “Our Founding Fathers created what we now call the Electoral College to protect our country against the precise danger we now face: a demagogue who has manipulated and bullied voters, exploited fears and now threatens the very foundation of our republic.”

Entitled Trump has Twitter Tantrum: Tries to Discredit his Loss of Popular Vote to Clinton.

Narcissism is a disorder that seems to be consuming every waking moment of Trump's life.

He can't and won't lose, even if he does. I'm still trying to figure this out; if Trump had lost, that would prove the election was rigged, but if he won...it wasn't rigged. Then again, if Hillary wins the popular vote...it's rigged again, even though Trump won. Throw in Green Party candidate Jill Stein and a recount, and Trump's legitimacy fades and he loses the "mandate." Not going to happen.

Imagine Trump dealing with a major world problem requiring a quick reaction.

It's twitter time, using the ultimate troll weapon, capital letters:

There is a slim hope the electoral college could stop Trump cold. The Guardian:

Some legal experts argue that the electoral college cannot approve a candidate like Trump, who does not fulfil the basic legal requirements to be president.

Harvard constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe said in an email that the “electors who are to cast their votes for president on 19 December not as automatons but in light of constitutional constraints and principles cannot in good conscience vote for Donald Trump as president of the United States unless he fully divests himself of economic interests dependent on the fortunes, for good or ill, of the private Trump empire”.

That view is not restricted to academics and Democrats. Richard Painter, George W Bush’s chief ethics counsel, agrees that without a major reconfiguration of the Trump Organization, the president-elect is heading for a constitutional collision with the electoral college.

“The important thing for the electoral college is to ensure that he technically complies with the constitution,” Painter told the Observer. “This is just as important as the birth certificate. He should not be currently on the payroll of foreign governments.

“So he’ll have to provide assurance to the electoral college that he’s not himself going to be getting money from foreign governments that would violate the emoluments clause.”

Eisen and Painter called on the Trump transition team to take urgent steps to address the problem, before it triggers a constitutional crisis. They recommended he sell all his business holdings and put the proceeds in a blind trust, the composition of which would remain unknown to him, as his predecessors have done for the past four decades. Painter offered his advice to the Trump circle as a fellow Republican, but has not received any response. 

It's wonderfully ironic that Trump ran on calling Hillary crooked for the appearance of political influence from Clinton Foundation donors, when in fact, that's exactly what he was planning to do all along. The only difference? You can trust a Republicans:

“His view is that the voters know about this and and they are OK with it,” said Robert Weissman, president of the Public Citizen watchdog group.

“But it is absolutely contradictory to his core message he was going to sweep away the corruption in Washington and all the deal-making.”

Republican Power; the people may not want it, but that's not the point.

Rachel Maddow also took a look at the possibility that we might be looking at a permanent Republicans president, as long as gerrymandered districts stay mainly in place.



From TPM:

Call it a gaffe: a slip-up that accidentally reveals the truth.

A recent memo by the Republican State Leadership Committee emphasizes the party’s 2010 victories in state legislatures as central to the House GOP retaining its majority in the 2012 elections.

The reason? Redistricting — or more precisely, gerrymandering.

In the memo — titled “How a Strategy of Targeting State Legislative Races in 2010 Led to a Republican U.S. House Majority in 2013” — RSLC boasts that it “raised more than $30 million in 2009-2010, and invested $18 million after Labor Day 2010 alone” to ensure statehouse victories in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Remember when Lyin' Ryan said the people spoke, and left the House in Republican hands?

Changes coming to Wisconsin's Electoral College Votes.

Thom Hartmann reveals the next move by Republicans to suppress the vote, this time, by making it nearly irrelevant. If policy won't get them votes, maybe rigging the way votes are counted will. Hartmann features Wisconsin's swing state status.