Direct Democracy Sounds Good, But . . .

There's been murmuring lately among the Democrats about the need to abolish the Electoral College. 

Here's what Elizabeth Warren said the other day at a Town Hall: "“In a general election, presidential candidates don’t come to places like Mississippi. They come to places like California and Massachusetts, because we’re not the battleground states. My view is that every vote matters, and the way we can make that happen is have national voting, and that means getting rid of the Electoral College … every vote counts.”

She seems to be contradicting herself. By acknowledging that presidential candidates wouldn't go to areas that are less populated, she was essentially arguing for the electoral college. As a Wall Street Journal editorial put it: "The Electoral College helps check polarization by forcing presidential candidates to campaign in competitive states across the country, instead of spending all their time trying to motivate turnout in populous partisan strongholds."

Warren's "every vote counts" mantra sounds good in theory until you pull back the curtain and examine the implications. The Founders’ reasoning for setting up a “mediated representative government” as opposed to “direct democracy” makes sense when you recognize that a direct democracy inevitably leads to the tyranny of the majority (see On Liberty, by John Stuart Mill, for instance). 

The Federalist (linked below) clarifies:

“Pure democracy” is just another phrase for “mob rule.” Dictatorship of the majority means 51 percent of the citizenry rule the other 49 percent. That minority has no rights except those the condescending majority grants. It works well for those in the 51 percent, not so much for those in the 49. Plato knew it, and James Madison, who knew his Plato, did too. Plato and Madison both recognized that justice and liberty for the minority is possible only when power is shared between groups in society.

I think people like Elizabeth Warren and others on the political left like the idea of "every vote counts" understand demography and ideology are connected. Large, urban, coastal states (like California) have a denser population and tend to vote Democratic. The reason Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College was because these left-leaning states pulled the lever for her. As Senator Warren put it. "presidential candidates  don't come to places like Mississippi. The come to places like California."

Exactly. Why would Hillary waste her time trying to gin up votes from smaller states who lean right when she can scoop up the majority in Democratic-leaning states? Answer: she wouldn't. Hence, the wisdom inherent in the Electoral College.

Sources:

"The Electoral College Still Makes Sense Because We're Not a Democracy," by Donna Carol Voss

"Targeting the Electoral College" (Wall Street Journal editorial, March 20, 2019)