Letter 127: the manic panic of Election 2016

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself"

--President Roosevelt, 1933

"Holy sh*t!"

--Bluto, 1978

Introduction. This is not an analysis of what happened on Tuesday, the eighth of November. Truthfully, I have no idea why Mr Trump won the election any more than I have an idea of how he will act. Though not altogether surprised by the outcome, I am disappointed and, with breaking news reports, increasingly concerned less with Mr Trump than with his supporters.

After all, most demagogues are self-serving pragmatists and I believe Mr Trump will be the same. Nevertheless, one should prepare for the contingency of his usurping power at the expense of others or to lock in a permanency of power. That citizen preparedness gives Mr Trump the opportunity to try to “Make America Great Again” but reminds him that he exercises power on behalf of and granted by the people.

Is the Electoral College another Laureate Education or Trump University? One consequence of the results of which I remain certain is that the Electoral College will come under intense scrutiny. Though my preferred candidates won the popular vote in 2000 and 2016, each lost in the Electoral College. In 2000, the far better man, for whom I did not vote, went on to be a great President. While those incongruent outcomes were inconvenient to many at the time, the Electoral College deserves our support for two reasons.

• The Electoral College embodies the logic of our Federalist Republic.
• The Electoral College assures a wider base of governance.

The Federalist Logic. In this case, at least as I view it from past readings, the Electoral College represents the second key set of stake-holders (i.e., the individual states). The Constitution integrates two agreements: a unitary social contract across the citizenry to delegate enumerated powers to its elected government as well as a compact among the participating states.

The Federalist Protection. This discussion is a little longer. Although Mr Trump lost the popular vote, if one casually surveys the blue-versus-red map, Senator / Secretary Clinton carried only nineteen states, largely arrayed along the West Coast and the Boston-D.C. corridor. Arguably, this was the same base for President Obama in 2008 and 2012 with a few more states carried by the outgoing Chief Executive.

Aside from the racism I believe President Obama faced, one might conclude that much of the static that he received and the reason for the widespread repudiation of his policies lay in the fact that too narrow a demographic of the country agreed with them. In most years, a broader base would serve the wider interests in a more balanced manner. Obviously, 2016 was not one of those ‘other’ years.

My personal support for Electoral College reflects my upbringing, my neighbourhood growing up and the students with whom I went to high school. That is a ‘never forget’ attitude about the holocaust and, thanks to urbane high school teachers and very thoughtful parents, a concern that such a mass-murder might occur anywhere (as it has in Rwanda, Cambodia, Syria, Bosnia and elsewhere).

This other safeguard is one I wrote about in college when the anti-Mexican nativist rhetoric was frothing over for the first time. Back then (i.e., in the late 1970s) I argued that a demagogue theoretically could whip up an anti-immigrant frenzy, piling up super majorities in Texas, California, New York (due to a prejudice against Puerto Ricans), Arizona, New Mexico and Florida to carry the popular vote. 

That could happen with, according to the 1970 census, only one available to me at the time, if the demagogue carried 60% in those six states but, due to other proposals (infrastructure; re-industrializing) appealing to other voters less concerned about Mexicans, a respectable 47.5% in all the others. If only the popular voted sufficed, he would win with 51% of the popular vote and could then try to usurp the power to kill off the Mexicans. 

In the Electoral College, however, that demagogue would only get 139 Electoral College votes (about 25% of the number of Electors per state in 1976). So, to quote that great mid-century American philosopher, Dick Martin, 'You bet your sweet bippee' I want to keep the Electoral College! 

The galling irony of 2016 remains the fact that this protective mechanism has landed a demagogue into office who has made Mexico his private political piñata. A quick check of the above-detailed scenario with 2016 statistics would yield a popular vote majority – in line with that of the Secretary / Senator on Tuesday evening – with 55% of the seditious-six and 48% of the other forty-four states and D.C. voting for the demagogue.

One could argue that the slight up-tick in the ‘etc.’ states would reflect the diffusion of undocumented Latinos and, therefore, additional friction in states like Colorado, Nevada, New Jersey or Illinois. In the Electoral College, that demagogue would gain only 167 votes (as opposed to 368 for the opponent who lost the popular vote).

Graduating Class of 2016 of the Electoral College. Barring the unlikely scenario of at least forty-two electors ‘pledged’ to Mr Trump deciding to switch to the Secretary / Senator, the President-elect will be inaugurated in roughly two months on the twentieth of January 2017. This prospect is understandably engendering anxiety among minority segments who have received open protection from the Administration of President Obama.

While the future appears to be darkening, people are not powerless. The sense of doom descending upon so many people is warranted but disproportionate. I am reminded of two things a brilliant German diplomat said to a room full of Pashtun Elders in Afghanistan. That this urbane and soft-spoken man had the courage to walk into that room, without armed guards, instantly earned the respect of his armed audience.

1. “We do not need to like each other, trust each other or even respect each other. We merely have to work together.”
2. “Please give me your pencils.” The Elders, mystified, coughed up a dozen or more. “You say you can do nothing to stop the Taliban?” The audience nodded upon hearing the translation. “Well, I bet I can break all these pencils and the strongest among you can not.” The Pashtuns almost laughed, looking at the diplomat’s diminutive stature. “Come on, the strongest amongst you come up here and try to break these pencils.” A tall, burly fellow, who could lay waste to the short pudgy European proceeded to the front of the room and took the pencils; try as he might, he could not break the pencils. Finally the diplomat held out his hand and collected the pencils from the sweating Afghan. “Now, I will break these pencils that this gentleman could not.”

There was suppressed laughter and evident disbelief across the room. The diplomat took the pencils and proceeded to break one at a time. By the third pencil, the Elders were laughing and cheering. They were empowered. Since most Afghans are ‘less educated’ (i.e., illiterate), lasting eloquence comes through imagery.

The point was taken: one-off, scattered resistance would do little to stop Taliban infiltration. A concerted effort by standing together might not keep the militants out of the village, due to ancient customs, but it would keep the guests quiet. In the case of a Trump Administration, networks of potentially targeted groups can integrate peacefully to deter unfair treatment.

Conclusion. This election may be the opportunity American governance has been awaiting to split the voting electorate up into three general parties: liberal (i.e., traditional Democrats); conservative (i.e., traditional Republicans); and, Centrists (i.e., moderates of both parties). In many cases, the presidential election would end up with the members of the Electoral College negotiating who becomes President.

Since they would hold the balance of power, the Centrists would side with the Democrats, with a moderating influence of course, during periods of progressive growth or change. They would side with the Republicans, with that moderating influence, when the mood called for consolidating changes to make them sustainable or, in rarer cases, to scrap ill-advised innovations and start over.

This dream scenario is workable but is a long way’s off, if ever, from fruition. In the here-and-now, certain groups have reason to be worried. Personally, I believe that nothing terrible is going to happen thanks to our institutional constraints laid out under the Constitution, chiefly the weak Executive and the implicit right to revolution against tyranny. 

What is important here is not to react but to bring civil pressure pro-actively, visibly and contingently. Doing so peacefully is, I remain convinced, the most effective way to persuade Mr Trump against keeping some of his pestilent promises.

Example of the mechanics in action. Many people I know have felt that the extensions of political rights and protections to the LGBTQ community were too much, too soon. For my part, to protect our gay and transgender brethren, moderate Republicans, together with humanists and moderate people of faith, will need to seek out their more liberal counterparts. 

Together, this informal coalition can push back – through orderly protests, petitions, letter-writing campaigns to Congress and the White House – on the future President Trump not to eviscerate gains in civil rights. This group can also contest the policy assertions of the religious right, actively questioning through a national audience what would Jesus do were He standing in front of a gay married couple. 

Similar coalitions need to stand up to protect the rights of Muslims, Mexicans, women and blacks. These coalitions sound difficult to build but just look at the success of I.S.I.S. in building a bloody coalition of radical jihadists from all over the world through on-line recruitment. Such grass-roots civil resistance may seem impossible to build. One need look no further than the baby-boomers of two generations ago.  

Those ‘effete intellectual snobs’, as criticized then as millennials are today, brought down a régime waging a terrible war in Indo-China. These ‘progressive’ coalitions, though I view them more as American than as political, must take extra care not to admit violent elements (e.g., those calling for the murder of police officers) into their fold lest they lose credibility with moderates across the country and provoke Mr Trump to 'punch back'.