Fetishism? E.J. Dionne, The Washington Post, and the Constitution

Last week, E.J. Dionne, one of the liberal stars of the Washington Post op-ed team, still smarting from an election loss he never saw coming, once again advanced his new cause, namely the abolition of the electoral college, and the substitution of the presidential election on the basis of a straight popular vote. Granted, other liberals, similarly bewildered by the events of November 8th, have sounded the clarion call as well. The New York Times and a number of other organs of the prestige media have jumped on this bandwagon, which will undoubtedly fuel conservative suspicions that the liberal media do conspire together to advance their agenda. Be that as it may, the liberal echo chamber is in full operation, as we read and hear liberals fulminate against the wisdom of the American founders, and lead increasingly strident cheers for a simplistic solution to the “problem” of the 2016 election, not to mention the elections of 2000, 1888, 1876, and 1824. So, Mr. Dionne’s column of last week may be an example of a sore loser determined to have the last word in this matter, but we conservatives should not allow Dionne and his liberal brethren to throw a temper tantrum without fully answering his charges.

In his column last week Dionne took his Washington Post colleague George F. Will to task for commenting that the electoral college system has served the country well, and that the electoral count overruling the “winner” of the 2000 and 2016 elections was only a scandal to those who made a “fetish of simpleminded majoritarianism.” Dionne, showing Will proper respect for having opposed Trump during the primary and general election season, nevertheless called the electoral college outdated, and in fact, a major impediment toward governance by the will of the people. He got to the heart of the matter in his next paragraph when he complains that “…majoritarianism …is the way we run just about every other election in our country.” He went on to ask, rhetorically, why we choose our State Treasurer or County Recorder of Deeds by popular vote, but do not choose the president of the United States in similar fashion.

This is the point where E. J. Dionne and his majoritarian gang need an elementary lesson in U.S. Constitution 101. A reading of that venerable document reveals, in Article II, Section 1, Clause 3, that election to the presidency will be the business of the states with “electors” meeting in their respective states. This is a constitutional provision, which “trumps,” if you’ll pardon the pun, the wishes of the deep thinkers like E. J. Dionne. The mere fact that the Washington-New York I-95 corridor liberals do not like the outcome of the election means nothing in terms of legitimacy, any more that it would have meant if Donald Trump had gotten 2.9 million more votes than his opponent, but lost because she eked out a bare electoral majority. Those constitutional provisions can be changed, but only through the amendment process. On Dionne’s second point, that being the fact that we choose our state and county officials largely by popular vote, he should, again, consult the Constitution. The Tenth Amendment reserves all powers not assigned to the federal government to the several states, and that includes the power of local elections. Most of our states have chosen to require candidates for state and county offices to stand before the voters in direct elections. That is the right of each state to determine, but it is a very different matter to run for a specific county office and to run for the presidency. Our liberals know that, but will not admit as much when their anointed Fairchild has been beaten.

Dionne, at this point, has lost the argument, but digs himself in deeper when he criticizes the idea that the current system requires a candidate to show electoral strength throughout the country, not only in large metropolitan areas. He plaintively remarks, “…the winner is picked not by the law of election but by the luck of a casino. If you hit the right numbers narrowly…, you can override your opponent’s margins in the big states.” Yes, but seen in another way, the current system forces candidates to possess some appeal in rural and sparsely populated areas, even if Dionne & Co. would prefer to allow voting only by the coastal states, with a couple of liberal bastions like Minnesota and Illinois thrown in for good measure. The scenario Dionne sketched out was the 2016 election in a nutshell. Hillary Clinton ran up huge numbers in California, New York, and New England but lost everywhere else. Does regionalism count for nothing? Did the Democrats not see this as a problem during the primary season?

Dionne doubles down on his criticism of the current system, although he does concede that Lincoln won the 1860 election with 39.8% of the vote, but he was the leader in terms of actual votes among the four candidates. He might also have noted that Rutherford B. Hayes, the minority winner in 1876, turned out to be an excellent president in terms of ability and honesty. Benjamin Harrison, the minority winner in 1888, is not rated as highly as Hayes, but was no failure, either. Dionne, however, sticks to his majoritarian guns, and gives away the game, by admitting that the Democrats have supported open borders as a way of creating new liberal voters, and that a winner-take-all presidential election would be a sure win for the Democrats if they can simply get rid of the old and antiquated electoral college.

Finally, Mr. Dionne finishes his missive with a lyrical phrase, saying that “…the question of how a democratic republic should work is not a game.” He argues that we must “evolve” toward a system in which the winner of the most votes prevails. In point of fact, the USA is not a democratic republic. We are a constitutional republic, with democratic elements. Dionne and his friends on the left are fond of calling Donald Trump and others they dislike fascists. However, the modern liberal who wishes to sweep away the states, counties, and regions in order to subsume the nation in anonymous majoritarianism will lead us down that path quicker than we thought possible.

What if we had an answer on the “democracy/republic” question from an original source who actually lived through the Revolutionary Period? What if that source also provided the Framers’ rationale for the underlying principle and the reason for Benjamin Franklin’s purported response to the question?

John Adams’ son, John Quincy, was 9 when the Declaration of Independence was written, 20 when the Constitution was framed, and from his teen years, served in various capacities in both the Legislative and Executive branches of the government, including as President. His words on this subject should be instructive on the subject at hand.

In 1839, JQA was invited by the New York Historical Society to deliver the “Jubilee” Address honoring the 50th Anniversary of the Inauguration of George Washington. He delivered that lengthy discourse which should be read by all who love liberty, for it traced the history of the development of the ideas underlying and the actions leading to the establishment of the Constitution which structured the United States government. His 50th-year summation seems to be a better source for understanding the kind of government the Founders formed than those of recent historians and politicians. He addresses the ideas of “democracy” and “republic” throughout, but here are some of his concluding remarks:

“Every change of a President of the United States, has exhibited some variety of policy from that of his predecessor. In more than one case, the change has extended to political and even to moral principle; but the policy of the country has been fashioned far more by the influences of public opinion, and the prevailing humors in the two Houses of Congress, than by the judgment, the will, or the principles of the President of the United States. The President himself is no more than a representative of public opinion at the time of his election; and as public opinion is subject to great and frequent fluctuations, he must accommodate his policy to them; or the people will speedily give him a successor; or either House of Congress will effectually control his power. It is thus, and in no other sense that the Constitution of the United States is democratic - for the government of our country, instead of a Democracy the most simple, is the most complicated government on the face of the globe. From the immense extent of our territory, the difference of manners, habits, opinions, and above all, the clashing interests of the North, South, East, and West, public opinion formed by the combination of numerous aggregates, becomes itself a problem of compound arithmetic, which nothing but the result of the popular elections can solve.

“It has been my purpose, Fellow-Citizens, in this discourse to show:-

“1. That this Union was formed by a spontaneous movement of the people of thirteen English Colonies; all subjects of the King of Great Britain - bound to him in allegiance, and to the British empire as their country. That the first object of this Union,was united resistance against oppression, and to obtain from the government of their country redress of their wrongs.

“2. That failing in this object, their petitions having been spurned, and the oppressions of which they complained, aggravated beyond endurance, their Delegates in Congress, in their name and by their authority, issued the Declaration of Independence - proclaiming them to the world as one people, absolving them from their ties and oaths of allegiance to their king and country - renouncing that country; declared the UNITED Colonies, Independent States, and announcing that this ONE PEOPLE of thirteen united independent states, by that act, assumed among the powers of the earth, that separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitled them.

“3. That in justification of themselves for this act of transcendent power, they proclaimed the principles upon which they held all lawful government upon earth to be founded - which principles were, the natural, unalienable, imprescriptible rights of man, specifying among them, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - that the institution of government is to secure to men in society the possession of those rights: that the institution, dissolution, and reinstitution of government, belong exclusively to THE PEOPLE under a moral responsibility to the Supreme Ruler of the universe; and that all the just powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed.

“4. That under this proclamation of principles, the dissolution of allegiance to the British king, and the compatriot connection with the people of the British empire, were accomplished; and the one people of the United States of America, became one separate sovereign independent power, assuming an equal station among the nations of the earth.

“5. That this one people did not immediately institute a government for themselves. But instead of it, their delegates in Congress, by authority from their separate state legislatures, without voice or consultation of the people, instituted a mere confederacy.

“6. That this confederacy totally departed from the principles of the Declaration of independence, and substituted instead of the constituent power of the people, an assumed sovereignty of each separate state, as the source of all its authority.

“7. That as a primitive source of power, this separate state sovereignty,was not only a departure from the principles of the Declaration of Independence, but directly contrary to, and utterly incompatible with them.

“8. That the tree was made known by its fruits. That after five years wasted in its preparation, the confederation dragged out a miserable existence of eight years more, and expired like a candle in the socket, having brought the union itself to the verge of dissolution.

“9. That the Constitution of the United States was a return to the principles of the Declaration of independence, and the exclusive constituent power of the people. That it was the work of the ONE PEOPLE of the United States; and that those United States, though doubled in numbers, still constitute as a nation, but ONE PEOPLE.

“10. That this Constitution, making due allowance for the imperfections and errors incident to all human affairs, has under all the vicissitudes and changes of war and peace, been administered upon those same principles, during a career of fifty years.

“11. That its fruits have been, still making allowance for human imperfection, a more perfect union, established justice, domestic tranquility, provision for the common defence, promotion of the general welfare, and the enjoyment of the blessings of liberty by the constituent people, and their posterity to the present day.

“And now the future is all before us, and Providence our guide.”

In an earlier paragraph, he had stated:
“But this institution was republican, and even democratic. And here not to be misunderstood, I mean by democratic, a government, the administration of which must always be rendered comfortable to that predominating public opinion . . . and by republican I mean a government reposing, not upon the virtues or the powers of any one man - not upon that honor, which Montesquieu lays down as the fundamental principle of monarchy - far less upon that fear which he pronounces the basis of despotism; but upon that virtue which he, a noble of aristocratic peerage, and the subject of an absolute monarch, boldly proclaims as a fundamental principle of republican government. The Constitution of the United States was republican and democratic - but the experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived; and it was obvious that if virtue - the virtue of the people, was the foundation of republican government, the stability and duration of the government must depend upon the stability and duration of the virtue by which it is sustained.” </div>

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