Political Memes

Problem never existed in the first place. Remember that the US was the first modern democracy, and it had to figure a bunch of stuff out. Its critics were mostly people who supported landed gentry to some degree or another. Some of them were leaning into more liberal ideas than others, but they thought full democracy was too far. Their argument was that letting the rabble vote for their government representatives would lead to a bunch of clowns in charge who could stir up popular support, but have no idea how to govern.

Which is why you get this in the Federalist Paper number 68:

The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States. It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue.

Which sure sounds like it could be talking about keeping Trump out. Wind back the clock to late 2016; if Originalists need an Originalist reason for having the electoral college break for Hillary over the rules as written, here it is.

And it's not just 2016. The electoral college has split with the popular vote four times:

• Donald Trump in 2016
• George W. Bush in 2000
• Benjamin Harrison in 1888
• Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876

Bush and Trump are easily the best arguments against it; their Administrations were disastrous. Hell, the GOP doesn't even want to claim Bush for themselves anymore, pretending that it was all Hillary's fault. Plenty of the GOP also knows exactly how terrible Trump is, but are too cowardly to do anything about it. Don't want to end up like Liz Cheney.

Harrison and Hayes are more debatable, but Hayes, in particular, was the first one to order federal troops to break up a union strike. So that's nice.

We're working with limited datapoints, here, but we have four splits in the decision over the course of 235 years since the modern US Constitution was in place. At least two of them seem to be exactly the people the electoral college should have stopped. These splits don't happen often, and it's far from guaranteed that it does any good when they do.