The Electoral College: When Is a Savant Not a Savant?

Definition of savant

1: a person of learningespecially : one with detailed knowledge in some specialized field (as of science or literature)

Marilyn Savant has been writing a little column for years in Parade magazine and she answered a question, arguing for the Electoral College: 

"We are the United States of America, and our states--starting with the original 13 colonies--are separate entities.

It is understandably unacceptable to states with smaller populations to have their affairs decided by other states simply because more people live there. Suppose there were a United Countries of Earth. Would we like the idea of China (population 1, 439 billion) and India (1,380 billion) running the show? (The U.S. has 331 million people.) Or would we want a leveling factor?"

It is a daunting task to dispute a woman savant, one whose IQ is reportedly higher than anyone on the planet, or, at least is quite high, but let Mad Dog take a stab.

Ms. Savant begins at the beginning, which is probably a good idea. 

Where, after all, did the Electoral College come from?

This explanation is necessary because Americans have the odd, some would say revolutionary idea that we live in a free country which has a government of the people, by the people and for the people, which is to say, a democracy, where the government represents the will of the people.

Our form of democracy is not a direct democracy, where all the people vote daily on every issue, but rather, a Republic, and that is fragile enough, as Benjamin Franklin famously suggested when a woman outside the Constitutional Convention asked him, "What sort of government have you given us?" and he replied, "A Republic, madam, if you can keep it."

This was, of course, a departure from the rule of a king, where only one man's opinion mattered. Truth be told, King George III did not really rule quite as autocratically as all that--he had a Parliament, but even there you had a group of white men of property making the rules. What mattered was the vast estates, the land they owned and the wealth they controlled, when it came to being granted a voice in the affairs of government.

In the 18th century, when our Constitution was signed, the Southern delegates were aristocrats who owned vast estates, run with slave labor. And those states were huge: Virginia included what is now West Virginia and geographically was larger than Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont and Delaware combined. And it was expected the population of Virginia would grow bigger than that of those 4 states combined.

And the states were more like nation states at the time, separated by distance, by economy and not much united at all. New England considered seceding from the union over tariffs and many Virginians considered themselves unblushingly to be Virginians first and Americans second. 

But then we fought a Civil War for "The Union" and the United States of America "is" replaced The United States" "are."

There is still much which divides regions of the country.  A look at the election day maps with that huge coherent mass of the states of the old Confederacy joined by the Mountain states of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho-- all in Republican Red --and the coasts usually solidly Blue with the Midwest in deep purple, confirms there remain division among the states. 

But the divisions are not simply state by state any more.

The fact is, Mad Dog has less in common with the resident of the North Country in New Hampshire than he has with a resident in a suburb living Maryland or New York. 

That popular description of  Pennsylvania--Pittsburgh and Philadelphia and Alabama in between--applies to many, if not most states now. What we have is a rural/urban divide, which is why talk of the Northeast and the Northwest seceding from the union is fanciful. They fly Rebel flags in rural New Hampshire now. New Hampshire!

So what makes us a country at all?

Mad Dog would submit, it's no longer shared values. If the last 4 years has taught us anything, it's that Americans no longer share an identifiable core of shared values. 

There is precious little the Proud Boys would cherish that Mad Dog embraces. Even the very idea of pluralism--the idea that more than one idea about a subject is acceptabe--is no longer a commonly held value. The idea that our society should be multiracial is no longer acceptable as even debatable by the Proud Boys.

That old bromide about "I disagree with what you say, but I will fight to the death your right to say it," is, for me, at least, no more.

The Proud Boys/Trumpists are now the American Taliban: They do not believe in my right to say anything; they reject the right of anyone other than white guys like themselves having any rights.

Should the country be run by whites rather than a multiracial government?

Should the country have a government which can tax its citizens?

Can the nation restrict the right of individuals to own and brandish firearms? 

Should the nation allow women to have abortions?

These are just a few of the questions which divide neighbor against neighbor, even in my New Hampshire town. 

It is true the answers  coalesce in the Southern part of our country but the answer of intolerance, unwillingness to believe in an obligation to a community has morphed into an impenetrable divide. 

So, on what basis do we have a country? And what sort of Republic makes sense here?

Mad Dog would submit America today is like a bad marriage which should continue. We may not love each other any more. We may not be able to even stand in the same room together, but we are so inextricably tied by economy, finance and ownership we cannot extricate ourselves.  

Obadiah Youngblood

While it is true a Blue Country consisting of the East Coast north of the Potomac and the West Coast could function happily enough and would thrive economically, likely prosper more richly than now, freed of the burden of supporting the dirt poor South, even with its Texas and Gulf oil wealth, the fact is that New America would be weaker without the Old Confederacy than with. And people like the idea of having an entire continent where you can travel freely, without internal passports, invest in business, own property in other parts of the country. Having the geography of a continent is liberating.

But, the fact is, when it comes to representation in a government and taxation, it's people, not sage brush, who pay taxes. And the idea rankles that those empty states like North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho get 8 senators to represent less than 4 million people where California gets only 2 senators to represent 10 times that number, nearly 40 million.

Why should a US Senate, where Senators representing less than 40% of the nation thwart the will of senators representing more than 60% of the people?

The original swindle was who got counted as being represented, so those bewigged 18th century gentlemen got to count 2/3 of all the slaves in the state for representation, while the farmers of New Hampshire did not get to count 2/3 of their cattle, goats and chickens. 

Ms. Savant's argument is that we would not want to be governed by the will of other people who don't speak or language, share our values or have economic or land or property interests in common with us. 

It's that old question asked of the Swede who is appalled that Americans do not care enough for each other to provide for a common health care system which cares for every American.  But when you ask the Swede if he is happy to pay for the health care of the Spaniard, he recoils and says, "Of course not!"

Who we are willing to spend money on, who is in our national family defines what a nation is.  To say the citizen of North Dakota would not want the citizen of Maryland deciding about a common health care system is to deny the Union of our country.

And, Mad Dog would submit, if we are going to be a country, the country IS the people, not the rivers or the streams and the citizen of the United States in New Orleans cares just as much about the Mississippi River as the guy in Minnesota or Missouri who may dump his waste into it.

Republicans have won the popular vote only once in the last 20 years and yet have controlled the presidency for 12 of those 20 years. GOP 53 Senators represent 40% of the population. "A Republic, madam, if you can keep it." No we have not kept it.

The argument about China and India is a better argument for maintaining immigration control of our borders than it is about the Electoral College. If we are a country distinct from China and India, we had better develop some internal cohesion and recognize what makes our Union preferable to our dissolution. 

We may have wanted an Electoral College as a prenuptial agreement back in 1789, but the time has long since passed when we can pull apart and unless we are willing to go through the expense of a messy divorce, we had better give the people what they want. 

Lessons from Denmark: Borgen Blows West Wing Out of the Water

 For the first half of "Borgen" I watched not because the story lines grabbed me all that much, but the faces of the characters were interesting and the glimpses of life in Denmark were tantalizing. The story lines of family life were prosaic, but set in the Danish model of actually providing for families they were exotic enough to keep me in the game.

Figuring out the Danish parliamentary system, and accommodating to the accommodative style of Danish mores took a while. Watching "West Wing" on my morning treadmill and "Borgen" at night, the counterpoint became positively psychedelic. Ye Gads, these Danes know what they are doing.

Denmark is roughly the size of Maryland and has roughly the same population--around 5 million souls. But the Danes are far whiter than Maryland and have no predominantly Black city. They do have a problem dealing with immigrants, given their location. Trump talks about the "threat" from the Mexican border. Denmark is looking at the Middle East and Africa the way Sarah Palin looked out her window at Russia.

About halfway through the first season, this smooth ride along an asphalt road in a Volvo station wagon suddenly explodes into a moon shot on Apollo 13. The show which had been a sister to the tale of a Danish school teacher "Rita" suddenly opened a door to something more akin to "The Wire" meets Aaron Sorkin. 

Now in the third season, our heroine (and a fine piece of work she is) Birgitte (pronounced somewhere down below your vocal cords, BAWR-ga) founds a new party.  Her own Middle Party has not just drifted to the right, but has set full sail toward deporting immigrants for crimes like littering. On the left, there are wackos enough to make Toby Ziegler start searching for a flame thrower.

Birgitte opens an office, at no small personal financial risk and the space fills with enthusiasts of every persuasion, who see in  the advent of a new political party their own personal Nirvana. "We are not a mass movement," Birgitte's friend tells her "We are movement of masses."  She has her acolytes post on a bulletin board their most beloved policies and some are anti abortion, some pro choice; some want to see taxes raised; some want them lowered; some want immigrants to be welcomed and assimilated; some want them deported.

Brigid needs dues paying party members and she is desperate for money. But when a party founder finds a wealthy banker to donate 1.5 million kroner, solving the cash flow problem, she balks because it means money men will control the policies of the party. The banker tells her he wanted a 7% reduction in corporate taxes but the party man agreed to only 5% and that was okay. Politics is about compromise and negotiation he says, a very Danish sentiment. But not for Birgitte. She gives the money back and calls a meeting.

Birgette founded the new party, "The New Democrats" and she insists she will shape its ideals: She looks right at a woman in the crowd who is anti abortion and says, "We will not deny women abortions," and she looks to a man who has written a manifesto for the party which would nationalize most industries and says "We will not make war on capitalism, but only guide it and restrain its anti social excesses."  And so forth. 

And she  watches people walk out, as each sees his or her most important issue dismissed or diluted.  But Nyborg is willing to be rejected. She knows what Trump knew: Better a cohesive, dedicated army than an aimless mass of disparate dreamers.

Of course, I sat there watching, saying, this is what we face in America: The old Democratic party is a movement of masses, an unstable nucleus with protons and neutrons which cannot stay attached. We need a New Democrats party here, but if we get that, we will likely lose a lot of folks. We have staunchly pro Israel folk who are appalled by Muslim Congresswomen in head scarfs who rail about the Israeli lobby spending "Benjamins" to buy votes for Israel.  We have people who want to defund police, whatever that means, alongside folks who fear crime in the suburbs.

There is a wonderful scene in West Wing when Toby has to talk to street demonstrators who shout him down calling him a tool of big pharma and big oil and corporate kleptocracy and he notes these are kids on Spring break who will go back to the dorm rooms their parents have paid for at the end of the week and he loathes these phony privileged children who do not have to function in the real world. Brigitte is faced with all that. 

What is not in Borgen which is so prominent and pernicious in West Wing is elitism. Birgitte is denounced for elitism when she puts her daughter into a private psychiatric hospital having championed a law to reduce the deduction for private health insurance. An especially vile Rush Limbaugh type reads the lunch menu at the private hospital which includes items the average Dane cannot afford. That is elitism in Denmark. Brigitte's wonderful, savy "spin master" Katrine, makes her remove her expensive watch before going on TV.  Flashing swag is very un Danish.

But, if Denmark has a caste system, it is nowhere near as pervasive or obvious as America's castes. We get a glimpse of it in "Rita" where a mayor wants her son to get accepted at a more competitive university, but there is none of the name dropping of Ivy League colleges, SAT scores, National Merit finalist awards that flash up every thirty seconds in West Wing.  The Danes do not wave that sort of "meritocracy" in your face the way Americans do, at least if these TV shows reflect the real world.

But tiny Denmark leads the world in wind turbines, wind power and green energy. Somehow, without the graduates of an Ivy League, they succeed where America fails.

And, oh, of course, their mastery of languages: Birgitte (the actress and the character) flips in and out of fluent Danish, French and English effortlessly. I can attest from brief forays into Denmark, most people there speak English, or at least their English is way better than my Danish. 

There is some chatter about David Simon, who did "The Wire" doing an American version of "Borgen." I cannot imagine Simon being able to comprehend the Danes and their delicate dance between wanting to succeed but not being seen as being more successful than their countrymen. 

Borgen is not to be missed. It holds wisdom for us, here in America, if we are only smart enough to comprehend it.