Lmao literally the constitution was designed to be undemocratic in theory and has functioned as the safeguard for capitalist oligarchy in practice. It’s just getting more honest in some ways
literally the constitution was designed to be undemocratic in theory
Ehh, I'm not sure this is really the right way to look at it. This makes it sound like the only reason the founding fathers opposed a direct popular election for the presidency was elitist resentment of the masses, which isn't true.
Part of their opposition to a direct popular election was more reasonable than that, having to do with the logistical problems of conducting a popular election in a country that was so agrarian & spread out. It would have been extremely hard to deliver adequate information about the candidates to every reach of the country, and it also would have been hard to assemble all the vote tallies from every little village in a timely fashion. It's important to keep in mind, the country was still very rural & agrarian at that time, and the only type of media that existed was print media, and the fastest type of ground transportation that existed was the horse-drawn carriage.
So they decided that it would be better to have a system of geographical intermediaries, basically. Each local district of the country would pick an "elector" who was a good representative of the interests of the people in that district, and then each state would assemble the electors from the districts within that state, and then all the states would send their collections of electors to the "Electoral College", which would deliberate together for a few days and pick a president.
So it wasn't really that they were trying to shut the masses out of power, rather it was more like "since a popular vote for the president isn't really feasible, this is the next best thing".
Of course, this has all been massively screwed up & made obsolete since then by the rise of political parties, presidential campaigns, pledged electors associated with a specific party & presidential candidate, election of electors at the state level instead of at the district level, and faster transportation & communication systems.
Okay yeah, the restrictive voting criteria was for shutting people out from power, but that was also a separate policy decision from the electoral college. The electoral college really was just a logistical decision imo.
Having said that, I admittedly just noticed that plov_mix was talking about the constitution overall, and not the Electoral College specifically, so yeah I guess my comment was kind of off-track.
The electoral college really was just a logistical decision imo.
It wasn't, though. It was carefully crafted to artificially inflate the representation of the slave states (since each state gets 1 vote per House rep, with House reps being apportioned according to the Three Fifths Compromise). A popular vote for landowners only would probably have been feasible, but that would have ensured that the non-slave states would take and hold the presidency immediately.
Lmao literally the constitution was designed to be undemocratic in theory and has functioned as the safeguard for capitalist oligarchy in practice. It’s just getting more honest in some ways
Ehh, I'm not sure this is really the right way to look at it. This makes it sound like the only reason the founding fathers opposed a direct popular election for the presidency was elitist resentment of the masses, which isn't true.
Part of their opposition to a direct popular election was more reasonable than that, having to do with the logistical problems of conducting a popular election in a country that was so agrarian & spread out. It would have been extremely hard to deliver adequate information about the candidates to every reach of the country, and it also would have been hard to assemble all the vote tallies from every little village in a timely fashion. It's important to keep in mind, the country was still very rural & agrarian at that time, and the only type of media that existed was print media, and the fastest type of ground transportation that existed was the horse-drawn carriage.
So they decided that it would be better to have a system of geographical intermediaries, basically. Each local district of the country would pick an "elector" who was a good representative of the interests of the people in that district, and then each state would assemble the electors from the districts within that state, and then all the states would send their collections of electors to the "Electoral College", which would deliberate together for a few days and pick a president.
So it wasn't really that they were trying to shut the masses out of power, rather it was more like "since a popular vote for the president isn't really feasible, this is the next best thing".
Of course, this has all been massively screwed up & made obsolete since then by the rise of political parties, presidential campaigns, pledged electors associated with a specific party & presidential candidate, election of electors at the state level instead of at the district level, and faster transportation & communication systems.
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Okay yeah, the restrictive voting criteria was for shutting people out from power, but that was also a separate policy decision from the electoral college. The electoral college really was just a logistical decision imo.
Having said that, I admittedly just noticed that plov_mix was talking about the constitution overall, and not the Electoral College specifically, so yeah I guess my comment was kind of off-track.
It wasn't, though. It was carefully crafted to artificially inflate the representation of the slave states (since each state gets 1 vote per House rep, with House reps being apportioned according to the Three Fifths Compromise). A popular vote for landowners only would probably have been feasible, but that would have ensured that the non-slave states would take and hold the presidency immediately.
:this: