Trip the EC Breaker
The Electoral College (EC) breaker that is.
For as much flack as the EC has received, when our nation’s founders sought to balance the power of the democratic process within a republic, the EC represents the final safety check in the case of an emergency. As Peter Beinart notes in the Atlantic (emphasis added):
It is “desirable,” Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 68, “that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of” president. But is “equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station.” These “men” — the electors — would be “most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.” And because of their discernment — because they possessed wisdom that the people as a whole might not — “the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.”
To be clear, I am not entirely convinced that Donald Trump’s bluster will match his actions, but the unprecedented amount of evidence for his capacity for such action still represents a clear and present danger. If ever there were a time to trip the EC breaker, it is now.
If just 37 “faithless” electors refused to vote for Trump on December 19th, the breaker is tripped. No candidate would have the requisite 270 electoral votes, and the final decision would go to the House of Representatives. In the House, each state would get one vote, giving our representatives the chance to cast the final judgement. It is a check and balance built into our Constitution for just such an occasion.
Look, the House is still controlled by Republicans. If they vet all the conflicts of interest, all the examples of past and current behavior, and come to the decision that Trump is indeed still fit for office, then so be it. Yet, if — in light of all that evidence — the House decides that Trump is too great a threat to an already fractured nation, then we have a perfectly legal mechanism for choosing a more qualified President.
I understand that right now, most people just want to move on, but you have to ask yourself — What exactly are we moving on to? During this cycle, the democratic process has clearly failed over and over again. From the primaries to the final election, the integrity of our process has reached an unacceptable low.
This is not crying wolf, it is not an overreaction, this is an emergency.
Trip the breaker. It takes just 37 electors of conscience. Send this election to the House and make doubly sure that we get it right, because Trump very well may be the one mistake that we — as a nation — simply cannot afford.
