• Introduction
  • About Ruby Red Republic
  • Contact
  • Blog

Ruby Red Republic

~ Thoughts on Red States and "Deplorables."

Ruby Red Republic

Tag Archives: Electoral College

Toward a Bipartisan National Divorce Settlement

22 Tuesday Sep 2020

Posted by Jim Langcuster in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Electoral College, national divorce, secession

Contradictory political and cultural trends seem to be playing out all around us.  For example, CNN’s Don Lemon, who remains, bar none, the dumbest and most untalented individual in cable news, urges the left to pack the courts as a first step toward abolishing the Electoral College.

It apparently has never occurred to him and to many others among our national commentariat class that the Electoral College underscores a vital truth: that the Constitution preceded the Union – or, to express it another way, that there is no such thing as a Union without safeguards such as the Electoral College.

Indeed, one could make case that Constitution and the Union, far from comprising a symbiotic relationship, are one in the same. The original 13 states joined the Union out of assurance that their sovereignty and independence would be protected. The remaining 37 that that joined over the next two centuries did so with the same convictions.

Lemon’s entirely uninformed argument about packing the federal courts partly with aim of subverting the Electoral College is tantamount to dissolving the Union.

With prominent news anchors calling for the dismantling of a vital safeguard of liberty, perhaps it’s not that surprising that another liberal columnist has  weighed in favorably on secession as a means of resolving this failing polity’s intractable divisions.

“Seventy percent of Americans are angry at a political system that is just not working for them,” writes  Chuck Bonfig, a small businessman and freelance photographer.

It seems that growing numbers of Americans on both ends of the political spectrum are coming to terms with what has heretofore been a rather unpalatable truth: that this country is simply too damned big and culturally diverse to be governed on the basis of an antiquated 100-year old Wilsonian centralist model.

Of Electoral College Coups and Popular Uprisings

19 Monday Dec 2016

Posted by Jim Langcuster in American Federalism, Mainstream Media, U.S. Politics, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Donald Trump, Electoral College, Jim Langcuster, Mainstream Media, Political Uprising, Ukrainian Revolution, West Coast

ukrainian-uprising-2014

2014 Ukrainian Revolution. Reference Photo Credit 

There are a few things associated with this media-driven Electoral College spectacle that really intrigue me.

First, the electors who vote today in their respective states  have been verbally harassed and, in some cases, even threatened with bodily harm.

Imagine if electoral fortunes were reversed and Hillary had won under identical circumstances – an Electoral College victory but a popular vote deficit.  Likewise, imagine that red state Americans were engaging in the same sort of angry behavior, bombarding electors with harassing e-mails and even threatening physical harm. The Obama Administration, characterizing all this outlandish behavior as a full-blown crisis, would have fully mobilized all of the resources of the Justice Department.

Within this electoral reality, however, the President has  focused solely on the specter of Russian interference in the presidential election, which remains more speculation than hard fact, while entirely ignoring what, in constitutional terms, should be his first priority: to ensure a safe environment for the 538 individuals charged with undertaking one of this country’s most critical constitutional tasks.

Second, who among thoughtful conservatives isn’t amused by the newfound affinity of Hollywood for the Founding Fathers and the hallowed institution of the Electoral College.

Ponder this irony for a moment: The Electoral College was conceived roughly a quarter millennium ago by these reactionary white-privileged WASPS to thwart the unbridled democratic impulses – the very impulses to which the vast majority of glitterati have paid such perfervid lip service for generations, certainly since the advent of FDR’s New Deal.

Talk about elite political discourse turning on a dime!

Third, I’m shocked that mainstream media are actually indulging talk of incipient revolution – a popular uprising that could topple Trump, much the same way that Ukrainians deposed ex-President Viktor Yanukovych.

Red state Americans raised similar concerns about what could follow a Hillary Clinton presidency throughout the election cycle, and many of their arguments were valid. Clinton Foundation shenanigans, the underhanded dealings of the Democratic National Committee to throw the nomination in favor of Hillary, and the Obama Administration’s politicization of the Justice Department and intelligence gathering apparatus really pointed to a regime resembling far more a Latin American banana republic than the historic Anglo-American republic bound by an ironclad commitment to the rule of law.

Yet, imagine the outrage within the mainstream media that would follow if the the specter of an popular insurgency were raised by right-leaning news sources and opinionators in the aftermath of a Hillary victory.  And to add an extra layer of irony to all of this: These are the same people who are devoting serious discussion to the topic secession, now that West Coast progressives have evinced an interest in the topic.

Fourth and finally, I am no less intrigued by the lengths to which the New York Times and other elite media have underscored the smallness of the Trump win.  Quite conveniently, as as the Electoral College meets today in state capitals throughout the country,  the New York Times posted an article with considerable graphic enhancement illustrating that Trump’s electoral victory ranks 46th among 58 presidential elections.  The Times stresses that among presidential victors Trump edges out only the rock-bottomed ranked Rutherford B. Hayes and John Quincy Adams in his popular vote share.

Yet, there is really nothing small at all about this election outcome when one considers it within the wider context of American  political history.  The biggest political maverick among all presidential contenders, minimized, scorned and denigrated by elites as the mouthpiece of the most socially and culturally marginalized segment of the electorate – Flyover Americans – overcame a series of what were considered at the time mortal blows to win what will likely be recalled by historians as the biggest political upset in American history.

In that respect, Trump’s victory was not a small one, not by a long shot.

The only other presidential maverick/victor who comes anywhere close to this electoral upset is Andrew Jackson.  And almost two centuries since Jackson’s victory, we still recall how he completely re-sifted the American political and cultural landscape.

Donald Trump presents an immediate, perhaps even mortal, threat to the interests of the American ruling class.  And I believe it’s this existential threat that accounts for all this talk within Establishment media of Electoral College coups and popular uprisings.

One Reason Why Trump Still Trumps Clinton

13 Tuesday Dec 2016

Posted by Jim Langcuster in U.S. Politics

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

CIA, Corruption, Donald Trump, Electoral College, Jim Langcuster, John Podesta, Justice Department

donald-trump-stunnedClinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta’s endorsement of an effort to provide Electoral College members with an intelligence briefing regarding Russia’s alleged efforts to influence the presidential election a mere week ahead of official balloting aptly illustrates why I very reluctantly supported Donald Trump instead of casting a vote for Gary Johnson.  As in previous elections, I had planned to support the Libertarian Party nominee as a protest vote against the entire corrupt political and electoral system.

Yet, I ended up fearing the Democrats even more than Trump partly because of what seems like a headlong rush to politicize this nation’s law enforcement and security apparatus.

As this article contends, there has been very little concern within the Obama administration until recently about cyber terrorism. Now the CIA, very conveniently it would seem, has supplied a rationale for a thorough-going of investigation of Russian hacking only days before the electoral count occurs.

Will all of this Electoral College strategy affect the outcome of the vote? Likely not. But it will work – again, rather conveniently it would seem – to undermine the legitimacy of the 45th president.

Yes, to a degree, this sort of dirty pool must be accepted as one of the operating costs of politics in 21st century America and in an unusually acrimonious election cycle. Even so, the fact that the CIA has possibly been enlisted as an active agent in this partisanship is deeply disturbing to me as it should be to all Americans.

Last Chance to Dump Trump

08 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by Jim Langcuster in U.S. Politics

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Donald Trump, Electoral College, Jim Langcuster, U.S. Presidency

trump-gesticulating

Photo: Courtesy of Gage Skidmore.

The recount attempts in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania are not yielding any prospects for a Hillary Clinton victory, so the left is holding out the forlorn hope that enough U.S. electors will bolt to deny Trump the presidency.

The New York Times editorial writer Elizabeth Williamson reports that one Texas elector has publicly stated his intention to ignore the popular verdict of his state and cast his vote for someone else.  Apparently, this has provided some on the left with at least a faint glimmer of hope.

Honestly, I’m surprised this is even being discussed, if only halfway seriously, in a source that purports to be the newspaper of record.  If Hillary had won under similar circumstances, conservative talk of denying her the presidency through some Electoral College ploy would be (1). laughed right out of an NYT Editorial Board meeting as muddle-headed right-wing idiocy or (2). condemned as the rankest expression of right-wing hate mongering and authoritarianism.

Yet, in what will likely be remembered as one of the most remarkable rhetorical turnarounds in U.S. political history, the left seems to be indulging in a lot of “wild” talk regarding secession, even though, until recently, at least, it has characterized such talk on the right as reckless, hateful speech.

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

Archives

  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • February 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • June 2018
  • March 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • February 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016

Categories

  • Alabama History
  • American Education
  • American Federalism
  • American History
  • Brexit
  • Censorship
  • Christianity
  • Conservatism
  • Devolution
  • Federalism
  • Geo-Politics
  • Imperial Decline
  • Localism
  • Mainstream Media
  • Nullification
  • oligarchy
  • Patriotism
  • Red-State Faith
  • secession
  • Secularism
  • Southern Athletics
  • Southern History
  • The Passing Scene
  • U.S. Politics
  • Uncategorized

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in

Website Powered by WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Ruby Red Republic
    • Join 26 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Ruby Red Republic
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...