Between 1:14:00 and 1:30:00, Limbaugh spews a lot of nonsense about the Electoral College. Examples:
1. He says “If the popular vote elected the president today, two states, CA & NY would be all you would need.” Nonsense. CA+NY population is 58.9 million people, while total US population is 321 million. CA+NY make up 18% of the national population. How is winning 18% or less of the vote going to guarantee anybody an election? Even if you add Texas, you’re only at 27%. His argument is bogus.
2. Rush pretends to be an expert on the founding fathers’ intent with the Electoral College (EC), but he never mentions that the Constitution says nothing about how states pick electors. It was states, not the founding fathers, who decided around 1820 to use winner-take-all, not legislative picks or districts, when choosing electors. He says the EC exists to guarantee sovereignty of the states, but the founding fathers never said that. He’s spouting nonsense.
3. Rush fails to mention that accommodation for slavery was an important reason the founding fathers chose to create the Electoral College.
4. He says replacing winner-take-all with proportional elector assignment would be bad because it would “dilute the power of the states”. False. Texas and California currently have almost no voting power in presidential elections because they are consistently “red” and “blue”, respectively. If they switched to proportional electors, they would become contenders for campaign attention overnight. Rush is ignoring reality.
5. Limbaugh said “The reason more people aren’t complaining [that Hillary got more votes yet Trump won] is ’cause they instinctively know the EC is justified and right”, That’s some first-class BS, right there. This is like arguing that “the reason more women don’t report rape is that they know they deserved it”. There’s no great outcry, therefore we have justice. Yeah, right.
Between 1:14:00 and 1:30:00, Limbaugh spews a lot of nonsense about the Electoral College. Examples:
ReplyDelete1. He says “If the popular vote elected the president today, two states, CA & NY would be all you would need.” Nonsense. CA+NY population is 58.9 million people, while total US population is 321 million. CA+NY make up 18% of the national population. How is winning 18% or less of the vote going to guarantee anybody an election? Even if you add Texas, you’re only at 27%. His argument is bogus.
2. Rush pretends to be an expert on the founding fathers’ intent with the Electoral College (EC), but he never mentions that the Constitution says nothing about how states pick electors. It was states, not the founding fathers, who decided around 1820 to use winner-take-all, not legislative picks or districts, when choosing electors. He says the EC exists to guarantee sovereignty of the states, but the founding fathers never said that. He’s spouting nonsense.
3. Rush fails to mention that accommodation for slavery was an important reason the founding fathers chose to create the Electoral College.
4. He says replacing winner-take-all with proportional elector assignment would be bad because it would “dilute the power of the states”. False. Texas and California currently have almost no voting power in presidential elections because they are consistently “red” and “blue”, respectively. If they switched to proportional electors, they would become contenders for campaign attention overnight. Rush is ignoring reality.
5. Limbaugh said “The reason more people aren’t complaining [that Hillary got more votes yet Trump won] is ’cause they instinctively know the EC is justified and right”, That’s some first-class BS, right there. This is like arguing that “the reason more women don’t report rape is that they know they deserved it”. There’s no great outcry, therefore we have justice. Yeah, right.