Hamilton Could Save Us From Trump

If our founding fathers could only see us now. What would they think?

We should be leery of anyone who thinks they can speak for the people who created America. And we should be even more cautious to place too much stock in anything they said. After all, these were men who wrote slavery into our Constitution.

But some of their ideas, at least, were pretty good. And often, the intentions behind their decisions were quite clear, spelled out in detailed essays that they wrote like … well, like they were running out of time.

Not since the election of 1800 has the Electoral College been so prominent in the public eye. And lately that attention has meant controversy, not least because the College decided two of our last five elections against the will of the popular vote.

If more citizens vote for a candidate, why should some shadowy organization of electors decide otherwise? As many have asked, why does the Electoral College even exist?

Forty-four out of forty-five times, I would agree with them. Yet the thing that saves us from a Trump Presidency could be … wait for it … the Electoral College.

Some states have laws that compel their electors to vote with the people from that state. But many do not, including many states that voted Trump. For the College to act in this way would be unprecedented in American history. But then, Trump’s entire rise is unprecedented.

And it seems clear that this was the College’s explicit purpose in the first place.

Alexander Hamilton wrote an essay explaining the reasoning behind the Electoral College.

You should read the whole thing, but a few key quotes seem increasingly relatable to our present situation, and the looming Presidency of one Donald J. Trump:

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.

It’s undeniable that Trump is the least-qualified candidate in American history. He has no experience with government or military experience. Yet he will now command our guns and ships. He will have the final say on when our soldiers go to die.

As someone with friends in active military service, this terrifies me.

On the flip side of the coin, no one argues Clinton’s qualifications. Even the most virulent misogynists don’t deny that she knows government inside and out. She’s a policy hound and has proven she can work across the aisle.

She also plays fair, which Hamilton also spoke on.

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.

Low intrigue and the little arts of popularity. Sound like anybody we know?

In the text of the essay, Hamilton seems to be speaking rather stridently against the rise of a populist demagogue who appeals to the baser instincts of the citizenry. That’s the exact scenario we find ourselves in now.

It can be argued that this has happened before. Since and before the Southern Strategy there has been racist and sexist dog-whistling designed to appeal to those who fear the non-white, the non-cishet male.

But let us for just one moment be as magnanimous as the Trump supporters want us to be (and as magnanimous as they claim to have been when Obama was elected, though that’s a clear lie).

Let’s make allowances for ignorance. Let’s say that most people who voted for past candidates were swayed by calls for fiscal responsibility and small government. Let’s imagine the listeners were too-pure cinnamon rolls who couldn’t hear the bigoted undertones.

That excuse no longer applies. Trump and his right hand man Pence could hardly have been more blatant.

Mexicans are rapists. Punish women for abortions. No more Muslims. Grab them by the pussy.

We all heard it. Thanks to the media, we almost couldn’t escape it.

Never have low intrigue and the little arts of popularity been on more brazen display.

It requires a different kind of merit to be a good President.

The choice of SEVERAL, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements, than the choice of ONE who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes.

We have seen an extraordinary and violent movement rippling through our country for the last year and a half, and I don’t know about you, but my community is convulsing. The story of the election was one of crushed hope. The story of tonight is one of racist violence being perpetrated across the country in the name of the one who did the crushing.

Would that violence increase if the College overturned the presumed results of our election? I think it’s inevitable. But I have news for you, particularly for the white people out there: violence is part of this country, and it always has been.

People of color are being murdered in the streets. The LGBT community is fighting just to exist. Millions will die without the healthcare Trump has promised to take away from them.

The Electoral College, flawed though it may be, is the only government institution that can still say no to this. It was created to safeguard Americans from their own ability to rise up in a collective but baseless fear.

It might set a dangerous precedent. Or it could set a precedent that means no one like Trump will ever rise again, and come so close to the highest office in the nation.

On December 19th, our electors will cast their vote. The candidate they choose will become our next President.

Will they save 75% of the country from the 25% who voted for Trump? Or are we helpless?