It just goes to show, no matter the issue, the Cult of Climastrology will find a way to insert their dogma into the mix, including the Sore Loser Symphony
The electoral college is thwarting our ability to battle global warming
Who (you might ask) is David Brearley?
Brearley plays a critical, and entirely accidental, role in climate change because of his position as the chair of the Committee on Postponed Parts within the Constitutional Convention of 1787. While drafting the U.S. Constitution, the convention left several “sticky questions†to Brearley’s Committee, such as the manner by which U.S. presidents would be elected. Brearley and the Committee were stuck between two difficult choices: election by the U.S. Congress or election by the voting public. The committee opted for a middle ground solution – an electoral college that would vote on behalf of the citizens, but which would be populated based on the number of congressional seats assigned to each State in the Union.
It is this solution, brilliant at the time, that leads us to Brearley’s legacy on climate change. Because over the course of the last 200 plus years, the electoral college, which provides for stronger voting power per person in more rural and less populated states, has elected four U.S. presidents who clearly lost the popular vote (1876, 1888, 2000 and 2016). Two of those elections have occurred during the period in which we have known about the causes and impacts of carbon dioxide emissions and climate change and in both cases, the impacts of those elections have very likely had profound impacts on our actions to address the challenge.
We are then treated to a whine about George Bush winning over Gore (the same Bush who had a smaller carbon footprint than Gore), and how he refused to engage in Warmist policy, moving on to
In contrast, Al Gore went on to fame and a Nobel Peace Prize for his work to raise awareness of climate change. We cannot, of course, rewrite history to see how a Gore presidency would have helped to curb our current climate crisis. It is possible that President Gore would have struggled to pass meaningful initiatives against a reluctant Congress for example, but it seems safe to assume that a Gore administration would have constituted a stronger response to the threat of climate change.
He lost. Get over it. Furthermore, if Gore really cares, why is his carbon footprint so huge? And why does he lie so much?
Which brings us to November, 2016. Once again, the electoral college system has elected a U.S. president in opposition to the popular vote in the form of Donald Trump. Hindsight in four years will tell us of the legacy of the Trump administration on climate change, but, despite a recent pledge to keep an “open mind†on the subject, the statements and commitments from the administration to date provide strong reasons for anticipating which way he’ll go.
It’s the same silly argument from people who fail to understand the Constitution nor the way the system of a federal republic was set up, while bringing ‘climate change’ into the mix. Eric Worrell notes
Both candidates knew the rules. Nobody would have given Trump any quarter if he won the popular vote, but lost the electoral college. Trump campaigned to win, under the rules of the system as it stood. Hillary made plenty of mistakes – she reportedly derided her husband Bill Clinton, when he warned her she needed to spend more time chasing rural voters, rural voters who ultimately swung their support behind Donald Trump.
Who knows what would have happened with a different system. What we do know is that, if we went with a popular vote system and Hillary lost, Warmists and Progressives as a whole would find a way to whine. It’s what they do.
The Washington Post noted that the Electoral College “provides for stronger voting power per person in more rural and less populated states.” Wouldn’t the people who live in more rural and less populated states be more concerned about the environment than the denizens of the concrete jungles? After all, we’re the ones who live closer to nature, the ones who hike in the woods, the ones who grow food and have farms.
Mr. Brearley had no idea that his construct would lead to an unnecessary and ill-fated invasion of Iraq costing us many thousands of our best and bravest in mortality and morbidity, trillions of dollars and our standing in the world. The dead of Iraq cry out from their graves.
Mr. Brearley had no idea that his construct could possibly lead to the destruction of a livable planet.
There was the fear that “We the People” would mistakenly elect a person unfit to lead and the EC would save us. Ironic isn’t it?
Absolute rubbish. American voters much preferred Clinton to Trump. Let that sink in. But the system is what it is and we are stuck with Trump.
The protests against Trump are because Trump is unfit to serve and places the Republic at peril. Under the same electoral result even staunch (but qualified and fit) conservative Republicans such as Pence, Kasich, Jeb, Christy would not meet with the opposition that Trump has and will continue to receive.
We’ll see how Trump does but he is off to a shaky start.
Dana typed:
One would expect that to be the case, yet, in general, they don’t seem to understand global warming. Perhaps the rural life is too insular to worry about global events. The concerns seem to be mostly local. Why is it that city slickers are the ones who put a stop to ruralites racing their ATVs up and down the pristine Ozark creeks? It might be the difference between progressivism, where individuals work together for the common good, and conservatism, where individuals work for the good of their own self-interest.
I’m a hillbilly redneck from the Missouri Ozarks – rural Americans are my people and I love them. But let’s not glamorize small-town America as idyllic. Unemployment, underemployment, lack of education, drug use, close-mindedness and bigotry are also as rampant as appreciation for the environment.
Why are college-educated Americans more inclined to accept the science behind the theory of AGW, When compared to high school educated Americans? Don’t know.
“Why are college-educated Americans more inclined to accept the science behind the theory of AGW”
Indoctrination and brainwashing.
Jeffrey wrote:
Translation: since the urbanites don’t race their ATVs up and down the pristine Ozark creeks, they’re perfectly happy banning other people from doing it.
Dana,
The pristine creeks don’t just belong to those with the ATVs. Isn’t it selfish to claim it does? What of the fishermen, the canoers, those that just want peace and quiet and DON’T damage the river? Do you really think it OK for a few to destroy the environment for everyone else? The four wheelers chew up the bed, the sandbars and dump oil in the water.
The guy hasn’t even been inaugurated.
Blow me, loser.