The Electoral College Will Destroy America

And no, New York and California would not dominate a popular vote.

Last week, Nate Silver, the polling analyst, tweeted a chart illustrating the chances that Joe Biden would become president if he wins the most votes in November.

The “if” is probably unnecessary. It’s hard to find anyone who disputes that Mr. Biden will win the most votes. This isn’t a liberal’s fantasy. In a recent panel discussion among four veteran Republican campaign managers, one acknowledged, “We’re going to lose the popular vote.” Another responded, “Oh, that’s a given.” The real question is will Mr. Biden win enough more votes than President Trump to overcome this year’s bias in the Electoral College.

Mr. Silver’s analysis is bracing. If Mr. Biden wins by five percentage points or more — if he beats Donald Trump by more than seven million votes — he’s a virtual shoo-in. If he wins 4.5 million more votes than the president? He’s still got a three-in-four chance to be president.

Anything less, however, and Mr. Biden’s odds drop like a rock. A mere three million-vote Biden victory? A second Trump term suddenly becomes more likely than not. If Mr. Biden’s margin drops to 1.5 million — about the populations of Rhode Island and Wyoming combined — forget about it. The chance of a Biden presidency in that scenario is less than one in 10.

I don’t know about you, but this makes me really angry. Yes, I am aware that the United States has never elected its president by a direct popular vote; I wrote a whole book about it. I still cannot fathom why, in a representative democracy based on the principle that all votes are equal, the person who wins the most votes can — and does, repeatedly — lose the most consequential election in the land.

It happened in 2016 to Hillary Clinton, who won nearly three million more votes than Donald Trump — a margin of more than two percentage points — but lost because of fewer than 80,000 votes in three states. Two months away from Election Day, the odds of something like this happening again are disconcertingly high. That’s a bad thing. The presidency is the only office whose occupant must represent all Americans equally, no matter where they live. The person who holds that office should have to win the most votes from all Americans, everywhere.

The Electoral College as it functions today is the most glaring reminder of many that our democracy is not fair, not equal and not representative. No other advanced democracy in the world uses anything like it, and for good reason. The election, as Mr. Trump would say — though not for the right reasons — is rigged.

The main problem with the Electoral College today is not, as both its supporters and detractors believe, the disproportionate power it gives smaller states. Those states do get a boost from their two Senate-based electoral votes, but that benefit pales in comparison to the real culprit: statewide winner-take-all laws. Under these laws, which states adopted to gain political advantage in the nation’s early years, even though it was never raised by the framers — states award all their electors to the candidate with the most popular votes in their state. The effect is to erase all the voters in that state who didn’t vote for the top candidate.

Today, 48 states use winner-take-all. As a result, most are considered “safe,” that is, comfortably in hand for one party or the other. No amount of campaigning will change that. The only states that matter to either party are the “battleground” states — especially bigger ones like Florida and Pennsylvania, where a swing of a few thousand or even a few hundred votes can shift the entire pot of electors from one candidate to the other.

The corrosiveness of this system isn’t only a modern concern. James Madison, known as the father of the Constitution, was very disturbed by the state winner-take-all rule, which he considered one of the central flaws of the Electoral College as it took shape in the early 19th century.

As Madison wrote in an 1823 letter, states using the winner-take-all rule “are a string of beads” and fail to reflect the true political diversity of their citizens. He disliked the practice so much he called for a constitutional amendment barring it.

It’s not only liberals who understand the problem with winner-take-all. In 1950, a Texas representative named Ed Gossett took to the floor of Congress to vent about the unfairness of a system that gave some voters more influence in the election than others, solely because of where they live. New York was at the time the nation’s largest and most important swing state, and the voters who decided which way it swung were racial and ethnic minorities in large urban areas.

“Now, please understand, I have no objection to the Negro in Harlem voting and to his vote being counted,” Gossett said, “but I do resent the fact that both parties will spend a hundred times as much money to get his vote and that his vote is worth a hundred times as much in the scale of national politics as is the vote of a white man in Texas.”

“Is it fair, is it honest, is it democratic, is it to the best interest of anyone in fact, to place such a premium on a few thousand” votes from racial and ethnic minorities, he went on, “simply because they happen to be located in two or three large, industrial pivotal states?”

Two hundred years after James Madison’s letter, the state winner-take-all rule is still crippling our politics and artificially dividing us. Every four years, tens of millions of Americans’ votes magically disappear before the real election for president happens — about six weeks after Election Day, when 538 electors convene in state capitals across the country to cast their votes for president. “Blue” states give all their electors to the Democrat, no matter how many Republicans voted for their candidate; vice versa in the “red” states.

Given that abolishing the Electoral College is not on the table at the moment, for a number of reasons, the best solution would be to do what Madison tried to do more than two centuries ago: get rid of statewide winner-take-all laws. That can be achieved through the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement among states to award their electors to the candidate who wins the most votes in the whole country, not just within their borders. When states representing a majority of electoral votes join, the compact takes effect, making all Americans’ votes relevant, and all of them equal to one another. The popular-vote winner then automatically becomes president.

If you think this is a plot by bitter Democrats who just want to win, consider this: Texas is going to turn blue. Maybe not this year, maybe not even in 2024. But it’s headed in that direction, and when it gets there, Republicans will be in for an unpleasant surprise. In 2016, Donald Trump won about 4.5 million votes in Texas. The moment the Democratic nominee wins more, all those Republican voters suddenly disappear, along with any realistic shot at winning the White House. As Ed Gossett asked, how is that fair?

Every time a new national poll on the presidential election is released, it’s followed by a chorus of responses along the lines of, Who cares? The national popular vote is meaningless. Well, I care. So do tens of millions of other Americans.

And so does Donald Trump. “The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy,” he tweeted on election night 2012. Why? Because he believed Mitt Romney would win the popular vote and lose the Electoral College. Not only has he never taken that tweet down, but he continues to claim that he won the popular vote in 2016. Why does he care so much about making that case unless he believed in his heart, like the rest of us do, that the person who gets the most votes should win?

Read more:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/opinion/electoral-college-trump-biden.html

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump tops the list of things Germans fear the most, a new survey found. But in a twist that surprised researchers, Germans reported feeling less scared overall than they've been in years.

The results surprised even the researchers.  For the past 28 years, an annual survey into the fears of people living in Germany has been carried out on behalf of R+V, Germany's largest insurance firm. And now somehow in 2020, the year of the coronavirus pandemic, Germans turn out to be less afraid than they've been in decades. 

Of course, they are wearing masks in public and are cautious, but only a few are afraid of contracting COVID-19. That's one of the reasons why this year's so-called fear index fell from 39 to 37%, the lowest value since the survey began in 1992. 

"Germans are not reacting to the pandemic by any means with panic," Brigitte Römstedt, head of the R+V Infocenter, told DW. "Many of the worries seem to be subsiding." 

People have the feeling that "we have everything under control and we can handle this," Römstedt explained. That attitude is different to what it was a few years ago when war, terrorism, immigration, and extremism were among the Germans' biggest fears. 

For the study, some 2,400 men and women in Germany aged 14 years and older were surveyed. Between the beginning of June until the end of July this year, researchers asked people about their greatest political, economic, personal, and environmental fears.  

What they found was that Germans are relatively unafraid of the current pandemic. Only 32% (the year before it was 35%) said they were afraid of falling sick with a serious illness, despite this coronavirus-dominated year. 

"Similarly, only around one in three of those who were surveyed fear that they or others in their social circle could be infected with the coronavirus," Römstedt said. A similar finding was made at the beginning of this month by the Deutschlandtrend survey.  

Despite the rising number of infections and the awareness of the dangers of the coronavirus, people in Germany are staying fairly relaxed. Only 42% of those surveyed fear that globalization could lead to more frequent pandemics in the future. 

"Given the rapid spread of the virus worldwide, we had expected higher figures. According to our findings, people are much more afraid that the virus could threaten their economic well-being rather than their health," Römstedt said. 

The economic forecasts for 2020 appear to be gloomy. An economic downturn is on the way, with some even talking of a deep recession. According to German government estimates, the country's gross domestic product will shrink by around 6% this year. This will of course have an impact on the overall mood in Germany. 

Economic fears and possible job losses are again at the top of this year's fear index. Concerns about the rising cost of living came in at second place with 51%. 

Read more: Germany's economic slump not as bad as first feared

The results did not come as a surprise for Professor Manfred G. Schmidt, a political scientist at the Ruprecht-Karls University in Heidelberg. He has been advising the R+V insurance company for years and helping with the evaluation of the annual study. 

According to Schmidt, one uncertainty continues to hover in the minds of many in Germany: "The fear that a second coronavirus infection wave could lead to a further and even deeper economic slump contributes to the widespread uncertainty of the future of the economy." 

There's also concern about unemployment. Although this fear "only" ranks 13th out of 20 on the list, around 40% of Germans fear unemployment could spike — and increase of 12% from the previous year. 

On November 3, US voters will head to the polls to elect a new president or re-elect the old one. For many Germans, a second term for US President Donald Trump would probably be a nightmare. 

Trump ranks number one this year on Germans' list of fears at 53%. The US president has topped the R+V fear scale as early as 2018. 

Schmidt sees these concerns as "justified," pointing to the trade war with China or verbal attacks on even allied countries like Germany.  

"Trump's foreign policy has repeatedly caused serious international entanglements," the political scientist said, adding that Washington also continues to withdraw from international cooperation. 

Political topics, which have caused great anxiety among Germans in the past, are losing importance, according to the survey. 

Read more: Germans expect better EU-US relations if Biden wins

Worries about the topic of immigration have dropped the most, falling by more than 10% to their lowest level in five years. In 2020, 43% of the people surveyed said they worried that a continued influx of foreigners could lead to tensions between Germans and the new arrivals. The year before, that figure was 55%. 

The number of people concerned that the German state could be overwhelmed by the number of refugees also dropped from 56% to 43%. 

The results also revealed another surprising twist: Germans have more confidence in politics and politicians again. Only around 40% of Germans said they currently worried that politicians are not up to their job — the lowest number recorded in this millennium.  

According to the authors of the study, this has to do with general satisfaction with the German government's crisis management during the coronavirus pandemic.  

Römstedt put it this way: Politicians are "still not star pupils, but they're moving up." 

Read more:

https://www.dw.com/en/germans-fear-donald-trump-more-than-coronavirus/a-...

Read from top.

US President Donald Trump has announced he will designate the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan group and the far-left Antifa network as terrorist organisations.

Mr Trump’s policy is part of slate of proposals unveiled on Friday (local time) in an attempt to sway black voters ahead of the November election.

The President has for months been saying he plans to declare Antifa – a loose network of people that often promotes far-left militancy – as a terrorist organisation.

There is no domestic terrorism statute in the US that would allow for such a designation.

Attorney General William Barr has claimed groups using “Antifa-like tactics” fueled violent clashes in Minneapolis after the killing of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white police officer pressed a knee into his neck for nearly nine minutes.

However FBI Director Christopher Wray told a congressional panel last Thursday that Antifa is more of an ideology or a movement than an organisation, comments that did not please Mr Trump.

“I did not like his answers … I’m not sure he liked them either. I’m sure that he probably would agree with me,” Mr Trump said last week.

As part of the plans aimed at black Americans, who have historically voted overwhelmingly for the Democratic party, Mr Trump is promising to direct billions of dollars in federal money to black communities.

He is also promising to declare Juneteenth a national holiday. The day on June 19 celebrates the eradication of slavery, in what Americans see as the nation’s “second independence day.”

Read more:

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/world/us-news/2020/09/26/donald-trump-kkk-antifa/

Read from top. Read also: