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Is this the New Feudalism? Or since that analogy is kinda lame (as pointed out by the first commenter)... Is this the new Colonialsim? Will we bite the hands that feed us?
If the Electoral College is somehow Abolished or Obviated what is the net effect?
Why exactly did the Founding Fathers in their gathered wisdom set up the Electoral College?
And why is their reasoning no longer valid? (I mean other than the fact that Democrats lost the last election.)

Different regions of the United States were and are engaged in different Industries... geography and climate dictate this. And the differences of the various regions is greater than in the time of our founding... if for no other reason than that our union has grown far beyond the original 13 states.

Different regions have different needs and deserve a unique voice in government. That's kind of the reason we have States. The Senate is predicated on the same concept.

Empirically large cities tend to vote differently than rural areas.
Agricultural areas have different needs than dense Population Centers. Agriculture requires space... lots of land not given to housing but set aside for the essential purpose of providing sustenance to feed our nation, and moreover the world.

In my estimation those areas that produce food and energy should have at least an equal voice in government.

So as to effects, those known and perhaps unintended consequences. With no Electoral College... the megaopolises carry elections. Without the especially dense population of the big cities of California, Hilary would not have won the popular vote.

So if the mega-cities carry national elections... the rural areas, those that produce food, energy, and materials... The residents thereof are allowed to vote, but their vote counts less and less, their voice diminished, drowned out by the sheer volume of the cities...

Wouldn't that make them in a way, Serfs who labor at the direction and for the benefit of their Feudal Urban Overlords?

Again, bad metaphor as exposed by the first commenter. Are these rural areas then like the Colonies who were taxed but not given a voice in the government of England.
The spark that ignited our Revolution was lack of representation. Did we learn nothing from that?

The largest cities have local governments that rival that of some smaller states. That's why when mayors of cities like New York have presidential aspirations... they are taken seriously. So the megalopolises have their own governance, which addresses the wants of their citizenry... and the power granted by those numbers often sways their entire state. Why is that electoral power not sufficient? Why should the largest cities dictate the will of the nation?

The House of Representatives is weighted by population... giving the population centers a stronger voice. So the Founders did acknowledge the gathered masses. But they did not neglect the scattered Americans.
Seems like an ingenious solution to me. Why should we change that?

An_Ominous 7 Apr 19
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I am certain that in the near future not only the electoral college, but the entire constitution shall be done away with. A Constitution Convention will be called soon, in a few years not days; something like 3/4 of the states need to call one have already signed off on the idea. It will be Katy bar the door, the new one will be nothing like the old that is long dead because of court decisions. People must get it through their heads that the Republic is gone, Anarchy is beginning, and totalitarianism is coming shortly. Not only the country dweller will be serfs but all but the ruling class will be serfs. The world is an evil place, and by world I do not mean this old globe, but the systems, the PTB. We do live in interesting time, dangerous times and I for one am not enjoying the ride. But fortunately for me I am an old man, ready to l;eave this veil of tears before long, God knows the day and hour, meanwhile I watch, study, think, and warn. Try your best to have a good day and God bless.

I agree with you. I wish I didn't but I think your assessment is correct.
If we don't stop this "woke" wave I fear Don McClean will have to come out of retirement (or death or whatever) to write a song with the refrain "The Day the Freedom Died."

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Abolish it and you abolish the country as founded. Exactly what the leftist communist want.

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Another issue that the folks that want to abolish the EC don't like to talk about is security. Right now it is nearly impossible to rig an election. You would have to hack multiple states elections successfully. If you go to a straight up popular vote..... suddenly Chicago turn out might explode. Of course it is due to Chicago chicanery with people voting early and often..... even the dead are amazingly voting for Democrats. Add in that they will make sure illigle immigrants are voting, felons are voting, people's cats are voting. If all you have to do is swing the popular vote than you only would have to affect the vote in one place strong enough.

I agree...
Photo ID laws are not voter suppression.
Fear the Voting Dead 🙂
I posted something a while ago called something like, Would Abolishing the Electoral College Incentivize Voter Fraud.

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Here's my take on rural areas needing at least an equal vote.

Good take.

But you know Critical Mass Ocasio will call us all out on bovine flatulence. Since she spreads so much bs, you would think she would know what she was talking about for once... but alas Ocasio.

I vote that we make every cow three fifths of a person.

@Marta-Amance
Let's name those 3/5 cows Alexandria O-cow-sio Cortez to really get her goat.
I wonder if she has some stats on ovine flatulence.

@An_Ominous Let's just say that she's been cowed....maybe she is suffering from hoof and mouth disease.

@Marta-Amance Sooner or later she'll get Mad Cow Disease... or perhaps Mad Donkey Disease, because the Left eats its own.

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Btw... we now have at our disposal the means to enact a Pure Democracy.
With Internet technology we would not even need to elect representatives. Everyone could electronically vote on every single freaking issue.
Now there's a really bad science fiction story.
Rule by Internet Chat Room.

It kind of points out by way of hyperbolic exaggeration the flaws of pure democracy... and why we don't want to move in that direction. I don't think we need to move away from where the Founder's put us in either direction. I think they found the "sweet spot."

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There's a reason that the Founders have an aversion to Pure Democracies.
Their reasons still hold water. Abolishing the Electoral College is a step towards pure democracy.

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If you're going to invoke feudalism, you should recognize that when the Constitution was written, the most feudal parts of the country were the slave plantations in the rural South. Many a compromise were made to appease them. People in rural areas also tend to own more land--a quality typical of feudal lords. Regardless, growing food doesn't do much good if you don't have factories to process it and markets to trade it. Never mind the fact that we import food from all over the world. Let's keep it simple: one person, one vote.

I think many of the founders called pure democracy the ‘tyranny of the majority’ for the reasons given by ominous. If the five or six most populous cities/states can control a purely majority vote then they will get all the attention during the election is well as all of the money and resources that their elected officials can give them in order to get reelected. America never was a pure democracy and Our founders wisely made it that way.

You're right, Feudalism may not be a perfect analogy or perhaps one that is too inflammatory. Then again, I said new feudalism.
And if I stick with the flawed analogy... the plantation owners were appeased at the expense of the slaves. If the cities own all the political power... then they would be the equivalent of the plantation owners.
Still it was kind of a crappy analogy... and I edited it into the headline so that it wasn't buried 4 paragraphs down.

So later in the post I made a brief allusion to another analogy. I may edit this to say Is this the New Colonialism... The colonies rebelled against England because of taxation without Representation. That's kinda what happens if you take away a segment of the population's voice.

Producing the raw materials is of prime importance. Some of those are processed in the rural regions. Some aren't.

Still, distractions or ill fitting metaphors aside, the heart of the argument is that large regions of the country will find themselves without a voice.

If you abolish the Electoral College you might as well do away with the Senate as well.
One person one vote is too simple. It's a move towards pure democracy. So far that has never worked out very well.

@Clammypollack It still wouldn't be a pure democracy if you got rid of the electoral college.

The word Serf was a bit too tempting... colonist isn't as catchy, but it's more apt.
So I added the colonization metaphor... which doesn't change the thrust of my post at all.
Thanks for pointing out the flaws in the metaphor. I of course disagree with you as to the main point of the post... disenfranchising rural regions in favor of city-states.

@wilyRickWiles People in rural areas also tend to own more land--a quality typical of feudal lords. Regardless, growing food doesn't do much good if you don't have factories to process it and markets to trade it.
Maybe so, but they certainly can sustain them selves with the fruits of their labors. Unlike those who need to suck on the tit of the government, waiting for the magic hamburgers to drop from the magical chute.

@purdyday Is farming the only labor that counts for anything?

Clammypollack mentioned tyranny of the majority. That is a true worry. What does a resident of any large city know about the plight of a rancher in Wyoming? At the time the constitution was adopted there were vast differences in some of the states. There still are. I have little doubt that without things like the Electoral College and the Senate, we would have had a lot more civil wars and I seriously doubt we'd be the same country.

Personally, I think it was a wise decision to allow regions not just people to have a say. If you go with a straight popular vote only 4 states matter: California, Texas, New York and Illinois. That's a recipe for civil unrest.

@WilyRickWiles of course not, but I think this question drifts from your overalll premise, that one person one vote would be a better system than the electoral one, where states are represented. Then you justify this by saying, there has to be factories to process the food and markets to distribute it You are correct, rural farms re large swaths of land and factories/markets are a larger groups of people, (am trying to condense my answer, so not using your exact sentences this time) one person one vote. But in order to have those food processing jobs, farms must grow food for the rest of society. So in order for all Americans to be fairly represented, no matter how spread out the population, ot densely packed the EC is a more balanced system. What would be unfair to everyone, would be allowing densley populated cities to decide what policies to enact for everyone. China is currently forcing all of its farmers to relocate to cities in order to bolster the country's GDP through consumerism. A major problem with that is that China needs to import foodstuffs from other countries, and have lost in large part the ability to sustain its own population. But there's communism for you, failing every day in every way. Here are sources for last part "Global News Share"
Some facinating stuff from secretive China.

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