by Selwyn Duke
So much for the leftist plaint that small states have too much influence in the Electoral College.
Democrats
have lamented how the Electoral College gives smaller states outsized
influence over presidential elections. But consider what they’ve done
via illegal means: given a handful of Democrat-run, major cities far
greater influence over the current election.
That
is, with vote-fraud being mainly a Democrat-big-city phenomenon, we now
face the prospect that shenanigans in Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee,
Atlanta and some other leftist metropolises will be the deciding factor
in who takes the White House next year.
(If you doubt this, know that ex-Democrat governor Rod Blagojevich just called such vote fraud a “time-honored” Democrat tradition. All connected Democrats know this, by the way.)
Such
corruption has made some wonder how it is that we have state- and
locally-controlled elections for federal offices when these contests
affect the whole nation. It’s a good question, and the answer is that
this is part of the wide-ranging powers states are constitutionally
granted.
So
this is definitely part of the Founders’ vision. Yet there’s a problem:
A much larger part of their vision — a federal government so small and
non-intrusive that who controls it is of little consequence to the
states — has been scrapped. So where presidential elections were once
merely a matter of who’d run the federal government, they now can be a
matter of who’ll run Americans’ lives.
As
to the Founders's vision, consider that the acknowledged “Father of the
Constitution,” James Madison, said that the “powers delegated by the
proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined.
Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and
indefinite.”
Do
you think we’d have a battle over the election so intense that some are
talking of civil war if the above were still status quo?
Just
to cement the point, know that the federal powers were meant to “be
exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation
and foreign commerce,” Madison explained. “The powers reserved to the
several States will extend to all the objects which in the ordinary
course of affairs, concern the lives and liberties, and properties of
the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the
State.”
People
today aren’t frantic and scared about who’ll control the central
government because they’re worried about “external objects,” such as
war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce. They’re frightened because
the feds’ assumed powers are becoming numerous and indefinite.
It
was unthinkable in the young United States that the central government
would create an income tax, issue a national “mask mandate,” determine
what your kids would be taught in school, impose “transgender”
privileges masquerading as “rights,” tell businessmen whom they may hire
and fire, or foist socialism or a “Green New Deal” upon the nation. Yet
all these things and far more have either already been done or have
been proposed.
In
fact, Professor Walter E. Williams estimated many years ago that
two-thirds of what the federal government was involved in amounted to
unconstitutional endeavors. Moreover, that proportion is surely higher
today.
So
what now exists is a dangerous incongruence: States still have the
freedom to run their own elections and possibly, via corruption, swing a
presidential contest toward a demagogue.
But
they don’t have the freedom from federal control that would make that
demagogue relatively insignificant in people’s lives. For the feds’
domain is no longer limited to “external objects,” but ever-burgeoning
internal objects.
Put
differently, founding principles are now detached from one another,
creating an imbalance in which authority over elections is localized
while the consequences of elections are federalized.
In
a way, this issue is reminiscent of why we also now have society
rending battles over Supreme Court nominees. Kamala Harris had her
history wrong when she claimed at the vice-presidential debate that
Abraham Lincoln waited until after an election to choose a SCOTUS
candidate because he wanted to let the people “make the decision.” In
reality, Lincoln refrained only because the Senate was out of session at
the time.
The very day it resumed, he presented his nominee and that man was immediately confirmed.
It was routine and uncontroversial for the same reason such nominees
always were until later in our history: The courts at the time adhered
far more closely to the founding principle that they should rule based
only on the Constitution.
But
once they began arrogating greater power to themselves and judicially
imposing faux law that affected average Americans’ lives, their
nomination contests became like our current presidential elections:
knock-down, drag-out, winner-take-all affairs.
It’s only getting worse, too, with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez talking about
compiling a hit list of Trump supporters to be targeted for punishment.
So now a handful of corrupt major cities could give us a federal
government that will persecute Americans nationwide.
If
you think I’ll now propose federalizing elections, you’ll either be
disappointed or relieved. While this might minimize locally instigated
corruption, it would introduce the prospect of federally instigated
corruption as soon as Philly local-machine types (e.g., Biden and
Harris) won a national election.
If
we’re going to entertain changes requiring constitutional amendments, a
better idea would be to give each locality a certain number of votes
akin to electoral ones, whose number would correspond to the
jurisdiction’s population. This would determine, along with the other
localities’ votes, what candidate wins its state and receives the latter’s electoral votes.
This
would eliminate rampant presidential-election vote fraud in big cities
that support Democrats by wide margins. Stealing another 100,000 votes
doesn’t help when your “electoral vote” count can’t be increased. (This
would be beneficial for gubernatorial elections, too.)
At
the end of the day, though, a better remedy still is one far more
difficult to effect: constitutionalism and its prerequisite, morality in
the people. As Founding Father John Witherspoon warned, a “republic
once equally poised, must either preserve its virtue or lose its
liberty, and by some tumultuous revolution, either return to its first
principles, or assume a more unhappy form.”
We’ve
long been losing our liberties, and some conclude that a tumultuous
revolution is the only recourse. But we should remember that unless we
first have a revolution in hearts and minds and return to virtue, an
unhappy form will ultimately be our lot.
Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Gab or Parler (preferably) or Twitter, or log on to SelwynDuke.com.
Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/11/with_locallyrun_elections_a_handful_of_big_dem_cities_now_can_control_entire_us.html
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