# I pit the useless fucking Electoral College **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 19, 2016, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-useless-fucking-electoral-college/775186 "2016-12-19T22:03:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2016, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-useless-fucking-electoral-college/775186/81 "2016-12-20T17:07:52Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > You cannot usefully craft rules that start with the proposition that they only apply when they help you. > > If nothing else, what shall we do when you die? Who shall we turn to to tell us which rules to apply and which to ignore in each circumstance? As you are a fellow non-trump voter, a different result for the EC may have been in your benefit as well. Now, I am sure there are some who thought the EC should go ahead and vote for Clinton. I do not agree with that. I wish she has won, sure, but that was not my desire with the EC vote yesterday. I would have been content enough if they had just skipped Trump and went with Pence. I would have found it interesting if they had gone with a different republican, like Kasich. These people I disagree with politically, and I do think will cause harm to many people, but they are “wrong within normal parameters.” I do not say that the purpose of the EC is to thwart the will of the people. According to the rules, the republican candidate gets more votes than the democratic, I accept that. The specific purpose of the EC, the entire reason it was set up, was to prevent an unqualified populist demagogue from riding into the presidency on a mob rule, exactly what Trump has done. Now, while I disagree with what establishment republicans will do, they are a known quantity. They are going to be looking to advance the interest of their party, and to move the country in the direction that their part informs them. They are going to try to maintain some level of stability and order in the country, world and economy. I don’t think they will do as good a job as the people I voted for (which is why I voted for them), but I have no doubt that their intent is mostly benign from their perspective. I do not feel this way about trump. I do not believe you do either. He will do what is good for him and his family, maybe his friends, but we both know that he has absolutely no care about the well being of the 320 million other people over which he will now preside. Tell me, if the EC had gone with Pence or another establishment republican, would you have really objected, or would you be praising the founding fathers for their foresight in giving us this last check to avoid this situation? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2016, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-useless-fucking-electoral-college/775186/82 "2016-12-20T17:30:10Z")
My ideal outcome under the heading of ‘Trump electors voting for other Republicans’ would have been if the ‘faithless’ GOP electors had arranged a multi-way tie for third, giving the House of Representatives a metric ton of non-Trump options. If they’d given five votes each to Cruz, Rubio, Kasich, Romney, Ryan, and maybe Tom Cotton and Scott Walker, and tossed it to the House, the House GOP caucus would have owned its near-certain choice of Trump in a very direct manner. They couldn’t have ever pretended that there was nothing they could have done about his Presidency, other than put the country in the hands of the evil Killary. ---
**Author:** ![MindsEye\_Watering](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mindseye_watering/32/3619_2.png) [@MindsEye\_Watering](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MindsEye_Watering)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2016, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-useless-fucking-electoral-college/775186/83 "2016-12-20T17:35:00Z")
> [@Tread](#): > > Well… he’s only been in office for -31 days **How’s that “Drain-y Swamp-y” thing going for you goobers? Doesn’t look too good, does it?** [**Trump assembles a team of billionaires**](http://money.cnn.com/2016/11/30/news/trump-cabinet-conflicts/) _“President-elect Donald Trump, who raged against the elite as a candidate, is populating his administration with the ultra-rich.”_ **How about “Lock Her Up!” Think that’s going to happen?** [**Trump on ‘lock her up’ chant: ‘Now we don’t care’**](http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/09/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-lock-her-up-chant/) _"Donald Trump said Friday he doesn’t care about prosecuting Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, after attendees at his rally chanted “lock her up.”_ **What about that Wall? Seen any plans yet? No? Why not?** [**Can Donald Trump build a wall?**](http://www.aljazeera.com/blogs/americas/2016/11/election-donald-trump-president-161111055920724.html) \*"If Trump wants to build a wall along the entire southern border he is going to have to ask the US Congress for tens of billions of dollars. He can’t do it without their sign-off. There has been some bipartisan talk in the past of doing more to secure the border but with a $20 trillion debt that is only going up, spending the amount it would take to build on the entire border seems like a tough sell, even with a Republican-led Congress. He cannot - repeat - cannot make Mexico pay for it."\* ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2016, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-useless-fucking-electoral-college/775186/84 "2016-12-20T17:36:31Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > This. I hate Trump and am proud to identify as a moderate liberal, but there’s no way in hell I wanted the results overturned here. You think the us vs them mentality is bad now, just imagine what would have happened had the EC overturned the results. Well, what would have happened? I remember 2000 quite well. There was every reason to have a recount of Florida to make sure we knew which way the citizens of Florida had really voted. But when various actors on the right monkeywrenched the recount, we liberals did what, exactly? I would hope that those on the other side of our political divide, who yammer about how horrible we liberals are, would show similar restraint. And if they didn’t, AFAIAC, it’s on their heads. This notion that we can’t do the right thing because people will get mad…well, fuck that shit. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2016, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-useless-fucking-electoral-college/775186/85 "2016-12-20T17:53:37Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > This notion that we can’t do the right thing because people will get mad…well, fuck that shit. Well, it depends on what you think “the right thing” is. I think respecting the state results that gave Trump the win the right thing to do, regardless of my politics. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2016, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-useless-fucking-electoral-college/775186/86 "2016-12-20T18:30:20Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Absolutely. Abolish Obamacare, Abolish Medicare, Abolish the EPA… For the win! ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2016, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-useless-fucking-electoral-college/775186/87 "2016-12-20T21:09:12Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > You cannot usefully craft rules that start with the proposition that they only apply when they help you. Romney or Powell or even Mike "let’s Pence would not be “helping me” (or rather, “helping the democrats”, which is a much more reasonable assessment of the issues here). And yet, _any_ of those three would have been a superior outcome to Donald Trump, an extremist demagogue who knows nothing, shows no interest in learning, and may very well be the puppet of a hostile foreign regime (or at least a useful idiot). Every sane, rational person in America would have breathed a sign of relief, and that despite the fact that we’d still have to deal with the legislative agenda of the Republican party. > [@Bricker](#): > > I want Justices like Antonin Scalia. > > You see him as “anti-gay,” because he failed to support expanding the Constitution to include gay rights. In Loving, he rejected the right to privacy. This right is not explicitly enumerated, but it’s modern jurisprudence that you can derive it from the existing amendments, and I am not hesitant to think less of a judge who would reject this right, in no small part because the right to privacy is _pretty important_, particularly in this day and age of increasing surveillance and documentation. In doing so, he also made a case based on anti-LGBT bigotry, but hey, y’know, I guess that shouldn’t matter at all because at least he was interpreting the constitution; who cares that he’s a fucking awful bigot. > [@](#): > > But the correct way to expand the Constitution (in my view) is to amend it. > > Repeat after me: the courts should not make substantive changes to the law. That job is for the legislature. The courts should not make substantive changes to the law. That job is for the legislature. The courts should not make substantive changes to the law. That job is for the legislature. And, I think you’ll find, there was no new legislature drafted in, say, Obergfell. Rather, the existing legislature was interpreted in an entirely reasonable way based on the actual text of the amendment. This isn’t a simple matter of court overreach; this is whether you want to interpret the amendment to interpret this: No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. To include marriage, and are willing to consider marriage as something other than one man and one woman. The supreme court had ruled on the former question numerous times - yes, marriage is a fundamental right. The latter question was pretty much resolved - there’s no legal definition of “marriage”, and the colloquial definition had _already_ shifted. I find the majority’s argument persuasive and _not_ overreach. And the argument that this isn’t what the authors of the 14th amendment intended is irrelevant. We don’t know that, we don’t know that they would still think that way had they lived today, and what we have to go on is the text of the law. So, in other words: > [@](#): > > Get it? > > Now, you may not agree. That’s fine – certainly another view can be that the courts should indeed help shape the law and change it when the legislature does not. I don’t agree, but that’s just my opinion, absolutely correct though it may be. > > But it’s not anti-gay. It’s pro-judicial restraint. I disagree. I don’t see this as a simple matter of judicial restraint. And beyond that, I don’t think Scalia did either, despite his bloviations to the contrary. I’m sorry, but if you think Scalia’s reasoning was based first and foremost on “judicial restraint”, then I don’t think you know Antonin Scalia very well. [The man was a disgusting bigot both on and off the bench](http://www.towleroad.com/2016/02/302540/). Could his decisions have genuinely been based on a worry of court overreach? Maybe. But I’m not going to give him the benefit of the doubt when he can’t point out a reasonable distinction between homosexuality and _murder or child abuse_. Given the power he held in his position, I’m glad he’s dead. I wish he had died decades earlier. > [@](#): > > You view every decision through the lens of, “Does it advance my goals?” I suggest the correct lens is, “Does it follow from the text of the law?” How about “does it make life better for people”? Now _there_ is a principle I’m sure Scalia would scoff at. It’s also a really good way to make decisions in government. There’s a reason the german courts uphold human dignity as the highest right in their constitution. But as said, I’m not in support of judicial overreach. I reject that Obergfell (and Loving, obviously) are cases of judicial overreach. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2016, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-useless-fucking-electoral-college/775186/88 "2016-12-20T21:11:54Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > In which case it’s better to get rid of all electors than to split hairs and bar faithless ones. I think there’s an argument to be made for an electoral college points system which basically keeps the electoral college math but without actual voting electors who are free to ignore their state’s election results. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-useless-fucking-electoral-college/775186/89 "2016-12-21T10:04:56Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > I think there’s an argument to be made for an electoral college points system which basically keeps the electoral college math but without actual voting electors who are free to ignore their state’s election results. There is, and it’s the standard balancing of the views of voters in small (population) states against the likes of New York and California. But the President isn’t President of any particular state; he’s President of all of them and I personally think the stronger argument is for the popular vote to determine the result. Smaller states already have undue influence in the Senate and I’m not proposing to change that. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-useless-fucking-electoral-college/775186/90 "2016-12-21T13:27:14Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Well, it depends on what you think “the right thing” is. I think respecting the state results that gave Trump the win the right thing to do, regardless of my politics. Yeah, and when global warming is out of control, when Medicare has been replaced by a voucher program, when Social Security has been massively cut, and who knows what else, we’ll all be relieved that the worst didn’t happen. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-useless-fucking-electoral-college/775186/91 "2016-12-21T14:41:03Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I want Justices like Antonin Scalia. > > You see him as “anti-gay,” because he failed to support expanding the Constitution to include gay rights. Maybe, but a better reason to call him “anti-gay” would have included him refusing to recognize that 14th Amendment protections should extend to homosexuals because there’s no reason for them _not_ to. It’s not even a “gay rights” thing, really, just an “equal treatment” thing. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-useless-fucking-electoral-college/775186/92 "2016-12-21T15:21:12Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > Putin is sitting back in his office, feet on his desk, smiling the biggest smile he has ever smiled, knowing full well he got his useful idiot in the White house. Now he’ll get the NATO nukes out of those areas surrounding Russia, weaken NATO, destroy the US confidence in their election process and stand by while a trade war develops between the US and China. Putin’s already won the opening battle of the cyber war. That’s how I see it. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-useless-fucking-electoral-college/775186/93 "2016-12-21T15:26:05Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > No, they will never win. Now that they have control of the government the Republicans will ramp up their voter suppression to Jim Crow levels or worse. The Democrats will never be allowed to win a major election again, much less the Presidency. Look to North Carolina for a view of the future. Seriously. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-useless-fucking-electoral-college/775186/94 "2016-12-21T15:33:01Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Trump: I will give everyone a free unicorn. > > Clinton: Nobody is stupid enough to believe that you… > > Trump voters: Waaah! She called us stupid! We want our unicorns! > > So yeah. Remind me again who the “butthurt” people are here, and good luck with those coal and manufacturing jobs and that wall and keeping all the Muslims out and the whole “making America great” thing. Yeah, Get back to us in a few years. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-useless-fucking-electoral-college/775186/95 "2016-12-21T15:41:39Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > Originally Posted by septimus View Post > A question for Hillaryists: What would your feelings be if Trump had won the popular vote but Hillary had won the electoral vote? > > A more relevant question would be how the trumplodytes would be feeling. Judging by comments I’ve seen elsewhere they would be far less accepting of the results than the “Hillaryists” are, and that’s saying something. Especially since they were already prepared to reject the election if Trump lost, and to hell with the EC, popular vote, and anything else. Remember? \* The election is crooked. It’s rigged.\* Etc etc etc. > **[Trump says 'this whole election is being rigged'](https://www.nj.com/politics/2016/10/watch_trump_says_this_whole_election_is_being_rigg.html)** > > Donald Trump said the allegations against him are part of an effort to rig the election. “The process is rigged,” Trump told a cheering crowd Friday in Greensboro, N.C. “This whole election is being rigged. These lies spread by the media without witnesses, without backup or anything else, are poisoning the minds of the electorate.” Trump has issued earlier warnings that that election would be rigged against him, and has defended voter identification laws that federal courts have said prevent blacks and other minorities from casting ballots. “I’ve been saying this for a long time: The whole thing is one big fix,” Trump said in Greensboro. “It’s one big ugly lie. It’s one big fix.” ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-useless-fucking-electoral-college/775186/96 "2016-12-21T17:49:53Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Yeah, and when global warming is out of control, when Medicare has been replaced by a voucher program, when Social Security has been massively cut, and who knows what else, we’ll all be relieved that the worst didn’t happen. If all that happens, and everyone’s pissed, then the Democrats should be able to run the election table for years to come. Let’s see what happens. If this election had been overturned, I fear the Republicans would be right back at it in 2020 with even eviler candidates like a Ted Cruz type. I far prefer a Trump to a Cruz. Long run game theory, I think this is the best result from a bad situation. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-useless-fucking-electoral-college/775186/97 "2016-12-21T20:50:46Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Maybe, but a better reason to call him “anti-gay” would have included him refusing to recognize that 14th Amendment protections should extend to homosexuals because there’s no reason for them _not_ to. It’s not even a “gay rights” thing, really, just an “equal treatment” thing. I know this is a highjack, so I’ll just drop this and drop out… But Scalia (and **Bricker** ) argued that gay rights requires “expanding the constitution.” It doesn’t! Gay rights (all rights!) are the default, and the government needs to defend itself if it chooses to abridge those rights. The idea that we have to prove that our rights are valid before they are recognized is exactly the opposite of what the constitution says. This is why Scalia was a crawling piece of shit, and **Bricker** is…what he is. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2016, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-useless-fucking-electoral-college/775186/98 "2016-12-22T16:32:44Z")
Oh it’s not entirely useless. It provided much laughter and general amusement over this last month watching Democrats desperately scrabbling to overturn Trump’s victory. Without its existence we should have been deprived of such harmless merriment. ---
**Author:** ![jbolty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7c8e57/32.png) [@jbolty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jbolty)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2016, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-useless-fucking-electoral-college/775186/99 "2016-12-22T16:38:54Z")
The latest liberal wet dream is for California to leave the union. If that happens and take away those several million votes and 55 EC votes and there will not be another democrat elected president ever. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2016, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-useless-fucking-electoral-college/775186/100 "2016-12-22T17:48:15Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Oh it’s not entirely useless. It provided much laughter and general amusement over this last month watching Democrats desperately scrabbling to overturn Trump’s victory. Without its existence we should have been deprived of such harmless merriment. To be fair, most of us progressives have been meeting behind your backs, and laughing at you. It’s just chuckles now, but as your eyes slowly open, and it slowly dawns on you what a mistake you have made, how you have been lied to and manipulated, and how you even were drawn into working towards your own destruction, the chuckles will give way to guffaws, then outright gales of laughter. It’s gonna be bit of gallows humor, sure, as we are in the same boat as you, but we are largely better equipped to handle the storm that will absolutely devastate those with the intellectual rigor to think that Trump was actually gonna bring back those jobs or lock her up, or build the wall, or whatever particular lie it was that drew you in to his confidence game. And when you come begging for help, when you realize what a hole you have dug yourself into, we are not going to be there for you. There are others who are going to be harmed by your actions who are not deserving of it, and those will be the people to whom we will extend a hand. Once they are safe, we very well may delight in watching you drown in your own bile. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-useless-fucking-electoral-college/775186.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-useless-fucking-electoral-college/775186.md?page=6)