“…Yet We May Safely Pronounce….”

George Conway opines:

Also, they didn’t intend that we vote to elect presidents. They created the electoral college on the express theory that a small but wise group of people chosen from all of the states would exercise better judgment than the voting public. See Federalist No. 68 (Hamilton).

 Or was it never going to work in the first place?

It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.

It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.

It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief. 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. And as the electors, chosen in each State, are to assemble and vote in the State in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place.

...

All these advantages will happily combine in the plan devised by the convention; which is, that the people of each State shall choose a number of persons as electors, equal to the number of senators and representatives of such State in the national government, who shall assemble within the State, and vote for some fit person as President. Their votes, thus given, are to be transmitted to the seat of the national government, and the person who may happen to have a majority of the whole number of votes will be the President. But as a majority of the votes might not always happen to centre in one man, and as it might be unsafe to permit less than a majority to be conclusive, it is provided that, in such a contingency, the House of Representatives shall select out of the candidates who shall have the five highest number of votes, the man who in their opinion may be best qualified for the office.

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. 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. It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue. And this will be thought no inconsiderable recommendation of the Constitution, by those who are able to estimate the share which the executive in every government must necessarily have in its good or ill administration. Though we cannot acquiesce in the political heresy of the poet who says: "For forms of government let fools contest That which is best administered is best,'' yet we may safely pronounce, that the true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration.  

Yeah. Whatever happened to that? 

It’s pretty clear this answer isn’t right:

In their defense, the authors of the Constitution could never have predicted that American voters would be this stupid.

Mind, I’ve never been a fan of a Platonic Republic, either.  

But in response to Mr. Hamilton, even our

...men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice

have not proven themselves. For one, no one expects electors to be solons. I don’t know when they ever did. For another, political parties did a fair job keeping the criminally incompetent away from the White House. Sure, there were several vying for “worst ever” before Trump came along, rather like brooks and streams, did a fair job of filtering out the water ways until the pollution overwhelmed them. I’d argue (probably on weak historical grounds) that FDR was the first president to control his party more than the party controlled him. And FDR had the Great Depression and WWII providing him an opportunity he took at the full (along with his capable leadership) to an unprecedented 4 consecutive terms with which to cement his authority. Which led Reinhold Niebuhr to warn his adult daughter that she’d never lived under a Republican presidency when Eisenhower was elected. He feared for the results.

I think the blue dog Democrats v the anti-war Democrats in the’60’s started the cracks in the party system. Certainly younger voters resented the power of the “smoke-filled rooms;” and there party control and cohesion began to fall away with primaries slowly replacing them. That “democritization” of the process was not exactly what Hamilton had in mind. Not to be discounted were the Goldwaterites and Birchers who took Barry’s’64 defeat as grounds to develop an alternative structure that eventually supplanted the GOP structure via the Tea Party. Political consultants were already selling the President in 1968, and I remember the “shock” when Nixon’s script for the celebration of his nomination in ‘72 (“Spontaneous Applause”) leaked. Political conventions had been seen as raucous affairs. Already by ‘72 they were being scripted. Now, we take that for granted, and even judge the quality of the production. Panem et circenses has replaced the wisdom of a few good men. But then, conventions sold the “wisdom of the crowd” which “wisdom” is how we got Trump, twice. So…

But the party doesn’t really control anything anymore. If Trump tried to run again in ‘28, does anybody think the GOP would stand up for the 22nd amendment? When Mr. Smith went to Washington, Sen. Claude Rains is told, in a minor scene, that the President wants something done (it doesn’t matter what). Rains derisively replies along the lines of “Who does he think he is?” The Congress, the story is telling us, is the source of power in D.C. And the Senate sits at that apex.

How times have changed. Sen. Claude Rains would have sneered at opposition. I can remember Blue Dog Representatives sneering publicly at anti.-war protesters. Now sitting Senators publicly confess at town halls to being scared to show any opposition to Trump. There is no GOP, there is only Trump. And you are either with him, or you are outcast. Of course Republicans have always been more single-minded than Democrats, but Republican Senators reigned in Nixon and convinced him to resign. The best Mitch McConnell could do in the immediate aftermath of J6 was to trust the electorate would never vote for Trump again. And now Mitch is just going home at the end of his term.

It’s worth noting Hamilton didn’t expect the Constitution to save us from ourselves, much less the “design” of the “Founding Fathers.” He put his trust in “men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.” And how has that worked out? For one thing, can you imagine the “constitutional crisis” (silly term) if the electoral college last December had said: “Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!??!!??”, and elected Kamala Harris instead? Lin-Manuel Miranda might have written an approving rap song about it, but that would have been the least controversial response.

Of course, that’s not quite what Hamilton says:

All these advantages will happily combine in the plan devised by the convention; which is, that the people of each State shall choose a number of persons as electors, equal to the number of senators and representatives of such State in the national government, who shall assemble within the State, and vote for some fit person as President.

He makes it sound like there's an election by the people, and another by the electors. And then if the electors happen not to all agree, it goes to the House of Representatives.  Yeah, that’s not the way it works.

But if the electors don’t protect us, who does?

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. 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. It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue.

Ummmm…

So it all does depend on we, the people.  I’ve gotta say, on closer examination, Federalist 68 is a bunch of gobbledygook. The kind of sales pitch Trump and Musk employ, in fact.

Maybe that’s why we fall back on the mythology of the “Founding Fathers.” Besides, this is just depressing:

…yet we may safely pronounce, that the true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration.