By the time Texas met to take its vote, hadn’t most states east of them reported their votes publicly? And weren’t all the votes up until then going as expected? They were fairly sure but most likely not positive that their one or two votes were not going to make a difference.
Indeed, Texas was next to last or thereabouts, wasn’t it?
I notice that both this thread and the pre-vote “Electoral College Revolt” thread are full of conservatives making fun of “Democrats” who had hoped the Electors would overturn the EC results. I didn’t read the other thread thoroughly, but I didn’t actually see any of the Democrats here expressing such a hope. I know a great many Democrats, and AFAIK none of them hoped for such an outcome. Nobody AFAICT has cited any Democratic party leader or elected official who called for the Electors to overrule their State’s voters.
Although some of the low-information folks who thought these campaigns might actually work are presumably Democrats (or, perhaps more likely, Greens), it would seem a lot more accurate to describe the group in question as “A small group of people who get their information from lefty fake news sites”. Anyone mind if I start using the terms “People whose primary news source is Breitbart” and “Republicans” interchangeably?
Is Podesta a “Democratic party leader”?
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/podesta-electors/510449/
… and some more info:
Fail.
I do have to walk my claim back a tiny bit, though, as obviously the faithless electors themselves qualify as Democratic elected officials. None of them are exactly high-ranking party insiders, though.
Your first cite shows that a handful of electors, most but not all Democrats, pulled a publicity stunt demanding to be briefed on Trump’s dealings with Russia. Podesta issued a one-paragraph statement supporting their efforts, which was basically just an excuse to rehash his standard talking points.* He didn’t come anywhere close to saying that he thought the Electoral College should or would actually take matters into their own hands. *Any cite that Podesta thought about this “movement” for a second longer than it took to sign the press release that some aide wrote?
Your second cite is to a tabloid newspaper, and is a heavily skewed summary of the longer Politico article which it links to. It reveals that…these electors, who were chosen to represent their party, exchanged some phone calls and e-mails with the leaders of their party! And when they told them about their plan to overturn the election results, said leaders were politely dismissive rather than rudely dismissive. Oh, the horror!
To be clear, although I think anyone who seriously got their hopes up that this would happen was foolishly naive, I absolutely think the electors SHOULD have done their patriotic duty and elected some other Republican who wasn’t grossly unqualified. That’s still a pretty sweet deal for a party that lost by three million votes. This would have not only saved the country from the imminent disaster of the Dumpster Fire Administration, but also likely paved the way for abolition of the Electoral College itself.
Well, what I can see from this scenario (which is not happening now):
[ul]
[li]The Trump Administration would still be in effect because congress would overrule those faithless votes.[/li][li]The Electoral College would be abolished, but only via heavy rioting (and civil war? Maybe.)[/li][li]The US would be forever changed. Or not- we’re too lazy.[/li][/ul]
Either way, I was hoping for the revolt to turn into a flop. The MSM (Mainstream Media) has more egg on their face now. By 2017, maybe they can clean themselves up and start being more legitimate with news- no more yellow journalism, no more agendas, just cover news.
OK, mini-rant over, back to the thread.