Changing my Mind on the Electoral College

I have previously expressed the opinion that we don't need to abolish the Electoral College. Because of recent developments, I have now concluded it should be abolished.

As relentlessly reported by Rachel Maddow on her nightly show, there was a concerted attempt to present phony slates of electors from seven states. What Rachel did was to show every night on the screen the documents sent in from the seven states, all of which had the same wording, spacing, and fonts. Her point was that there was obviously a nationally-coordinated attempt to subvert the election results. And now, as of this past week, we know that the attempt was engineered by Trump campaign operatives, coordinated by Rudy Guiliani. Kudos to Maddow for shining a light on this issue.

This chicanery is properly the subject of criminal charges on the national level, since it was planned and coordinated on the national level. Several Attorneys General have weighed in saying that state laws were clearly violated by the attempted forgeries, but that they will defer to the Dept. of Justice for federal charges. Unfortunately, Merrick Garland seems too timid to pursue this. We definitely need an AG who has some energy.

What the Electoral College does is to insert an additional, and unnecessary, step in the process, a step which is ripe for abuse by corrupt actors. We just don't need it anymore, in an era in which personal character no longer seems to matter.

We live in exciting times. Rarely does one get to be on hand to witness the demise of a 250-year-old democracy. I can't help but think of the great foreign correspondent, William Shirer, who was on hand in Germany in the 1930s to witness first-hand the rise of Naziism in Germany, and who wrote so informatively about it. His books are among my favorites.

I am fascinated by the famous study which concluded that the average age of great nations is 250 years, given that the U.S. reaches the 250-year mark in just four years. Actually, the study uses the term "empire", rather than "great nations". But when I use the term empire, someone will inevitably object to calling the U.S. an empire. I think the term can be defended; after all, what was the Monroe Doctrine other than a statement of empire? Nevertheless, this gets us off into an annoying tangent, distracting from the issue at hand. So, I choose to use the term "great nation" instead.