Have a question for Matt Labash? Ask him at [email protected] or click here.
Dear Matt,
Is there really a chance that the Electoral College can (or will) change the [election] outcome? The media is scaring us into thinking it can.
Susan Cuchiara,
Scottsdale, AZ
So now you believe the media. And when you need someone to weigh the veracity of the media, who do you turn to? That’s right, to more media. Maybe you should be asking me fewer questions about the Electoral College, more questions about how to treat your twisted media obsession. Though fortunately for you, I try not to judge people I don’t know, as it takes valuable time away from judging the people I do know. So I’ll answer your question as best I can: The Electoral College situation is fluid, as we media types say when we have no idea what we’re talking about, other than what we’ve read in the papers. (Trade secret: This is how 95 percent of all punditry is conducted.)
Can electors go their own way on December 19, when they cast their ballots in their state capitals? According to the Los Angeles Times, even though 99 percent of electors throughout history have voted as pledged, the Constitution is silent on the matter, the Supreme Court has never ruled, and though just 29 states bind their electors to honor the people’s vote, the price of going “faithless”/apostate is typically a fine of a few hundred bucks. So in just under half of all states, nothing is stopping you from copping a squat on your state’s voters. And in the aforementioned 29 states, if you’re an elector with a mind of his or her own, for less than half the cost of an iPhone 7, you too can invalidate an election. Ain’t representative democracy a peach? After 240 years of it, it might finally allow us to realize our highest ambition: becoming Venezuela.
Then, of course, if you’re an elector who is planning to vote for Trump, in accordance with your state’s voting results, there are the death threats from angry Hillary voters that might persuade you otherwise. (“Love Trumps hate,” as the bumper stickers say.) According to reports, her followers are so intolerant of Trump’s intolerance that some will threaten to put a slug in your brain if you don’t vote as instructed. Just as the founders envisioned. As Aldous Huxley wrote, “Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead.”
Though Huxley clearly never met Hillary Clinton. She is remarkably consistent. In a quarter-century of Clinton-watching, I have never known a Clinton to voluntarily step away from money or power. The only way Hillary would is if she were dead, and if she died, that’d probably just encourage her to run again, since her negatives would hit an all-time low without the albatross of her personality to overcome. While I initially gave her credit for her gracious words in conceding to Trump and accepting the results of this election, she’s apparently decided that graciousness fits her like a slim-fit pantsuit—she may like the concept, but it’s a bit confining. While she was seemingly returning, just a few weeks ago, to a quiet life of playing with her grandchildren and shaking down kleptocracies for more Clinton Foundation donations, she is now making noise that she’ll be joining Jill Stein’s recount effort in Wisconsin. (Stay tuned in Michigan and Pennsylvania, the results of which she’d also need to overturn to win the Electoral College.)
Trump, also, has alleged massive (and unsubstantiated) voter fraud that would have won him the popular vote otherwise. And so both conspiracy theorists seem to have arrived at the same destination by different routes: Every vote should count, unless you don’t like the way it was counted. As Hillary’s own personal Alex Jones/campaign lawyer, Marc Elias, declared on Medium, the medium of choice for those who have whiny declarations to make: “Over the last few days, officials in the Clinton campaign have received hundreds of messages, emails, and calls urging us to do something, anything, to investigate claims that the election results were hacked and altered in a way to disadvantage Secretary Clinton.”
Never mind that that’s about how many emails I get when I write about how overrated “Hamilton” is. And never mind that Chelsea probably sent about four-fifths of those e-protests, afraid that she’ll have to find gainful employment if mom doesn’t become POTUS, since there’s not much glory in being the former filial ambassador for a failed presidential candidate (we haven’t seen much of Tagg Romney or the Gore Girls, lately). But accepting the results of the election is out of the Clinton campaign’s hands. The people have spoken. Or at least a couple hundred out of a nation of 324 million have.
The Hillary campaign admits they’ve unearthed no evidence to suggest malfeasance. But they still hold out hope that Hillary lost the election due to her imaginary friends, the Russians. And all this recounting will come at a price. Wisconsin alone, some estimates have it, could cost upwards of $1 million. In Real People dollars, that’s nearly 20 years worth of median household income for an average American family. Or to put it in Fake People dollars, that’s about four Goldman Sachs speeches for Hillary Clinton. (Though graciously figuring it’s the Green party’s time to shine, Hillary is letting Jill Stein pick up the tab.)
But who needs a stable country? As long as Hillary’s ambitions are fully realized, that’s what’s important. Do I think she will actually win the election in her re-litigation or as a result of Electoral College funny business? If I were a betting man, I’d bet no. It’s highly unlikely. Though if I were Donald Trump, I might hit the pause button on measuring the Oval Office for gold lamé drapes, just to be safe. Because the one thing we’ve learned, over the course of this crazy-ass election, is not to bet on anything related to this election. Up has been down, black has been white, and everybody has been wrong about everything. Just recall that the president-elect of the United States is a guy whose qualification for the job was firing Meat Loaf on a third-rate reality show. So literally anything can happen. And anyone who alleges that God doesn’t have a sense of humor might want to quit encouraging Him to prove otherwise.
Dear Matt,
If we had made a bet on November 9 over which North American leader most noteworthy for being an academically undistinguished scion of wealth and privilege who’d also dabbled in the entertainment industry would be first to be publicly ridiculed for ignorant, ham-handed risibly out-of-touch remarks, what kind of odds would you have given me on Justin Trudeau?
Curious in Cornwall
Ahh, keep your shirt on, even if Justin Trudeau can’t seem to do the same with his. What’s a few encomiums between friends? Even if one of those friends strangled their nation for the better part of a half century. You are speaking of course, about Trudeau’s loving tribute to everyone’s favorite commie cuddle-bear, the dearly departed Fidel Castro, whom Trudeau called “a larger than life leader who served his people” and a “legendary revolutionary and orator” who “made significant improvements to the education and healthcare of his island nation.” It’s unclear if Castro could hear Trudeau’s generous remarks over the roaring fires of hell.
I’ve always thought of Canada as a more libertine place than America—their government, did, after all sponsor heroin-shooting galleries when we were still Mickey-Mouse-ing around with legalizing medical marijuana. But I didn’t know they condoned necrophilia. To get that thorough of a reach-around when he was living, Castro would’ve had to go to a Havana cathouse, or to at least have had Sean Penn over for dinner.
But I would’ve given you even odds on Trudeau. I’ve always suspected him to be a dictator-loving throne-sniffer. Why? Because Trudeau does yoga, self-identifies as a feminist, and has been a lifelong champion of multiculturalism. Castro jailed dissidents, buttoned-up journalists who called foul on his police state, and kept an entire nation under house arrest. So, you know, opposites attract. Progressives/Canadians (often one and the same) are commonly considered a passive people. But like many passive people, they tend to fetishize exertions of strength, so long as that strength isn’t American.
I see what you’re trying to do, here, however. You’re trying to get me to dump on Canada. Well I’m not going to. Not because I’m above it. But because I just did a whole column dumping on Canada a few weeks ago. (When readers go low, I often go lower.) And now, more than ever, I need to get back in Canada’s good graces. Because you just never know if I’ll need to relocate there if/when Hillary steals the Electoral College.
Have a question for Matt Labash? Ask him at [email protected] or click here.
