You’ve heard it said that “elections have consequences.”
Americans, I believe in my bleeding-liberal heart, are about to endure the consequences of the 2016 president election.
With that said, I have concluded that the presidential electors who’ll meet Monday to make their choices for president should proceed with electing Donald J. Trump as the 45th president of the United States.
Man, I don’t say that with an ounce of joy. I say it through tightly gritted teeth. My jaw hurts. I can barely type the words without getting the heebie-jeebies.
The Albany (N.Y.) Times-Union’s editorial is a compelling read. It makes a strong case for the electors to toss aside Trump because, the paper posits, the president-elect is unfit for the job. Here’s the editorial; take a look:
http://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/Electors-reject-Mr-Trump-10796574.php
That is the editors’ opinion. I respect them for stating it.
However, to toss aside the results of the election is to throw our democratic process under the bus. I understand Alexander Hamilton’s assertion that the Electoral College’s mission is to provide “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.”
Trump, though, won the requisite number of electoral votes to become president. He needed 270 of them; he received 306. It’s not the “landslide” that Trump has said of it, but it’s enough.
Do the electors, even those who cannot buck their own conscience, rescind the will of the voters? I don’t know see how they can go against the will of their states’ voters. A Texas elector — who took a pledge to support the winner of the state’s electoral votes — has decided that he cannot cast his vote for Trump, who carried Texas by 9 percentage points. A better option for him would have been to do what another elector did: quit his assignment as an elector and hand it over to someone who could cast a vote for the state’s winner.
The so-called “faithless electors” who want to throw aside the result of the election — in effect ignoring its consequences — ought to reconsider the consequences of their potential decision.
I have virtually zero faith in Donald Trump’s ability to lead the nation. My vote went to someone else. Sure, nearly 3 million more of us voted for the other major candidate than for Trump. The U.S. electoral system, though, doesn’t always work that way. Trump won the votes he needed to win.
If he messes up while serving as president — which I truly believe is a distinct probability — then there are measures that can be pursued to correct the nation’s course.
Yes, elections have consequences. It pains me to say it, but the United States is obligated to face them.
