Tag Archives: Election 2016

Safe Spaces Aren’t Just for SJWs

spAs much as I despise Donald Trump, on some level I understand why he has die hard supporters. The most popular reason for this phenomenon is he seems to be the answer to the political correctness of our time. Trump may be many, many, horrible things, but being politically correct isn’t one of them.

Indeed, political correctness is a significant problem in our culture. Participation trophies, zero tolerance, and the very Orwellian PC language in which the Social Justice Warriors (SJWs) insist we use in our public discourse are doing great harm to the Millennials. The concept of ‘safe spaces’ on college campuses wraps all of the above (and more) in one tidy bow which infantilizes young adults. Not too long ago, college campuses were once considered the place to debate and explore controversial ideas, now have spaces to protect the precious Millennial snowflakes from debate and controversial ideas.

Yes, the SJWs certainly do suck. I’m sure that SJWs who read the above two paragraphs are angry I didn’t include a trigger warning before challenging their world view but here’s the thing: it’s not just SJWs who retreat into safe spaces nor just the generation raised in this very PC culture. As it turns out, some of the very people who are most critical of political correctness, Millennials, and safe spaces don’t want their worldviews challenged either!

I can’t speak for anyone else’s social media feed other than my own but I have seen people leave controversial comments followed by something to the effect of ‘I’m not going to debate this, if you post something that disagrees with me on my wall it will be deleted.’ Or s/he will simply delete the post without explanation (I’ve seen this behavior from conservatives and progressives alike).

Of course, having different opinions and refusing to debate opinions is one thing; being upset that someone shares an inconvenient fact completely destroying the basis of an opinion is another. Around Memorial Day Weekend, someone posted on my FaceBook wall about how awful it was that President Obama went to Hiroshima, Japan on Memorial Day instead of the traditional laying the wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. There was just one problem with this person’s complaint: it wasn’t true. All it took to see if this person had a legitimate beef with Obama was a five second Google search (in the age of information, ignorance is a choice). In fact Obama visited Hiroshima on Friday, May 27, 2016 and visited the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Monday, May 30, 2016 (AKA Memorial Day).

In response to my posting readily available news articles reporting that Obama attended both of these ceremonies, I received a private message asking me: ‘Why are you always defending Obama?’ I don’t remember my exact response but it would have went something like ‘I’m not always defending Obama but the truth matters.’

The same sort of thing happened when someone blamed Obama for pulling the troops out of Iraq too soon and I dutifully pointed out that Obama was carrying out the troop withdrawal signed by President Bush.

These were just two examples off the top of my head; there are certainly other examples I could have used. As we are getting mercifully closer to the end of the 2016 campaign, conservatives, progressives, and yes, even some libertarians are retreating to their safe spaces refusing to be challenged at all.

The worst offenders IMO are the Trump supporters who are oh so critical of safe spaces on college campuses and Trump himself. The Trumpster divers tell us that all of Bill Clinton’s sexual assault accusers are to be believed while Trump’s accusers are all liars. Why did they all wait to come forward until a month before election day? Surely, they are all either opportunists and/or working directly for Hillary!

This is entirely possible. It’s possible that some if not all of them are lying. It’s also possible that because the world has now been exposed to Trump being Trump, these women now feel like the public will listen when prior to the leak the public otherwise would not.

Then there’s the issue of Trump’s poll numbers. As I look at my FaceBook feed, I see several Trump supporters posting articles from Trump friendly sites claiming that Trump is polling at 67% to Hillary’s 19%. In contrast, Real Clear Politics, averaging the leading scientific polls show Hillary leading Trump 44.7% to 39.4%.

Of course in terms of the election itself, it’s the electoral college map that matters not the popular vote. How are the candidates fairing on the electoral map? The Real Clear Politics Map is showing 262 electoral votes for Clinton, 164 for Trump, and another 112 are considered toss ups. The candidate who receives a minimum of 270 electoral votes becomes the next POTUS. By my math, that means that HRC is within 8 electoral votes of the magic number in this projection. This doesn’t provide much room for error for Mr. Trump. In order for Trump to win based on the above, he would have to win just about every one of the toss up states and not lose a single state projected to be in his column. If he wins all of the toss up states except for Florida, Trump still loses.

Clearly, either Real Clear Politics with its scientific polling or Trump biased Arizona Freedom Alliance will be proven wrong on Election Day, safe spaces be damned. One would think that but with Trump openly saying he won’t necessarily accept the election results (whatever that means!), he and his supporters will remain in their safe spaces for a bit longer.

It’s not too difficult to see how damaging the safe space phenomenon will be to our culture. Verifiable facts are ignored while rumors and provable falsehoods are considered truth when it aligns with an agenda.

As a people, we need to realize that being skeptical isn’t a bad thing. We must be careful of confirmation bias. We should read articles we disagree with and have friends we can argue important issues with (and remain friends at the end of the day).

And if you want to take a short break in your safe space (we all do, don’t kid yourself), then do so. Just don’t make it your permanent address. One can deny reality but cannot escape its consequences.

“That Libertarian” Dr. Marc Feldman R.I.P.

I just received the news that Libertarian Party activist Dr. Marc Feldman died earlier today. The LP posted the following press release:

2016 candidate for the Libertarian Party’s nomination for president and newly re-elected at-large member of the Libertarian National Committee passed away on Tuesday. The cause of death is not known at the time of this writing.

Nicholas Sarwark, LP Chair, released the following statement:

“Members of the Libertarian Party are deeply saddened to learn of Dr. Feldman’s passing. He grew up cynical about politics and politicians, but found in the Libertarian Party a politics of empowering individuals that he could believe in. We will miss his dedication as? a member of the national committee and candidate for public office,? but most of all, I will miss a good friend. He was a delightful,? spirited, and dedicated Libertarian who inspired and won the hearts of? many. Our deepest condolences to his family on their loss.”

Fellow presidential candidates, with whom he shared the debate stage at numerous Libertarian conventions, expressed their condolences.

Libertarian presidential nominee Gov. Gary Johnson said, “I am saddened to hear of the loss of Marc Feldman. He was a true champion of liberty and a friend to many of us. His humor and wit will be missed.”

“God speed, Dr. Feldman,” said software entrepreneur John McAfee. “You were a gentleman and a scholar. Rest easy now. We’ll take it from here.”

“I got to know Marc over the last seven months in the campaign trail,” said radio host Darryl Perry. “We became friends and I respected his opinions. I send my condolences to his family and other friends. Shalom.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that Dr. Marc Feldman passed away,” said Libertarian Republic founder Austin Petersen. “He was a good man. He was very entertaining. He could have been a fantastic host of a Libertarian television show.”

To be honest, I don’t know who many of the players are within the Libertarian Party. Marc Feldman is not really a name that rings a bell. But then I saw his picture and I wondered: “Wait, is he that libertarian?” (Dr. Feldman has ‘one of those faces’ you remember).

The libertarian that gave that speech at the 2016 National Libertarian Party Convention before the delegates began voting for their party’s nominee?

I’m sad to report that yes, that libertarian is no longer with us.

Here is that speech:

That speech puts a smile on my face whenever I hear it. There’s something about that speech that makes me want to do a fist pump because we’ve all been that libertarian at one time or another (it seems Austin Petersen felt the same way).

Thank you Dr. Feldman for your efforts to make the world a freer place. Rest in Peace.

Should Libertarians Worry About Political Refugees Seeking Asylum in the LP?

With the primary phase of the 2016 campaign coming to an end, there’s little doubt that many rank and file Republicans and Democrats are not very pleased with their party’s presumptive nominee. For Republicans who actually care about principle, Donald Trump is a non-starter. Many if not most will ultimately decide to vote for him anyway because of the idea that Donald Trump is the lesser evil when compared to Hillary Clinton. Other primary voters who were serious when they said #NeverTrump meant it before May 3rd and mean it now after May 3rd. They have reached the conclusion that Hillary is actually the lesser evil when compared to Trump or at best see them as equally evil.

What are the anti-Trump Republicans to do? Join a third party? Register as independent?

Die hard supporters of Bernie Sanders find themselves in a similar situation. While I haven’t followed the Democrat race for the White House as closely, there does seem to be some angst about Hillary Clinton. Will they decide that from their point-of-view that Hillary is the lesser evil compared to Trump? I’m thinking most will but at least a fraction of the Bernie Sanders voters will make a different choice.

What are pro-Sanders, anti-Hillary Democrats to do? Join a third party? Register as independent?

Less than a month ago, a press release was posted on the Libertarian Party home page inviting political refugees from the Republican and Democrat parties to join the LP. Here’s an excerpt:

Here in the Libertarian Party, we are friends of refugees…those fleeing war torn countries, those fleeing desperate poverty, and also those fleeing despotic candidates such as Mr. Trump and Sec. Clinton.

We welcome former Republicans and Democrats who value “liberty and justice for all” to find a new home in the Libertarian Party.

Libertarianism is the idea that you should be free to make your own decisions in all aspects of your life as long as you don’t infringe upon the rights of others.

I find the idea of a flood of political asylum seekers coming to the LP both exciting and terrifying.

If the LP were a nation, it would be a small nation of immigrants. Sure, there are indigenous Libertarians but they are surely the minority. Most Americans grew up in Republican and Democrat households – to the extent Americans are politically active at all. Most Libertarians came to either the party or the philosophy over time and after realizing the party they thought represented them didn’t. I too am a political refugee. The leading candidate for the LP presidential nomination and 2012 nominee, Gary Johnson was a refugee and he’s hardly the first.

The real question is, what do these refugees want?

If they simply want a temporary visa and support the LP nominee for president, even if simply as a “protest vote” most native Libertarians would welcome and encourage that. For those who want citizenship, more would be expected.

What specifically am I talking about? Allow me to address any would-be asylum seekers:

Chris Byrne explains this in some detail in his post that there’s more to libertarians than conservatives who want to legalize pot. If everything you have learned about libertarian philosophy comes from Salon, Slate,The Young Turks or other left wing outlets (and some right wing outlets as well) which deliberately misrepresent what libertarians stand for…you need to forget all of that. Familiarize yourself with actual libertarian institutions/projects such as The CATO Institute, The Reason Foundation, The Mises Institute, The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, The Free State Project, The Tenth Amendment Center, The Institute for Justice and of course the Libertarian Party (especially the party platform). I should point out that among these groups, there are disagreements.

Some of these groups don’t even like each other. Its also quite possible that some of my fellow Liberty Papers contributors might object to listing some of these groups and/or failing to mention another. The point is there is a great deal of philosophical diversity within the broader libertarian movement and, therefore; cannot be pigeonholed into the caricature of libertarians Salon wants you to believe. One thing libertarians of all stripes believe (whether its called the Non Aggression Principle or something else is a debate in and of itself) are the individual rights of life, liberty, and property. Explained another way: Don’t hurt people and don’t take their stuff.

As Tom Petty likes to say, you don't have to live like a refugee.

As Tom Petty likes to say, you don’t have to live like a refugee.

Refugees who actually value the individual rights as described above – having them join the LP would be a great help. For those who want to come in yet hold on to the customs of the party they just left, they need to find asylum elsewhere.

Pivoting back to the original question, should libertarians worry about a bunch of posers coming in and transforming the LP into another Republican Party?*

I believe this would only be a problem if the LP actually started achieving significant electoral success. The reason the LP has been able to stay true (for the most part) to its founding principles since 1971 is because LP candidates haven’t been elected and, therefore; haven’t had to govern. For 45 years, voting/running for the LP has meant never having to say you’re sorry. “Don’t blame me, I voted Libertarian!” Once Libertarians are elected, then we find out how principled they really are.

Until that time comes, I’m very confident that libertarians will expose the frauds. In the LP and/or the greater liberty movement there’s no such thing as “The 11th Commandment.” If you have called yourself a libertarian and another person who calls himself/herself libertarian hasn’t questioned your street cred, you haven’t been a libertarian very long. The intramural battles between Team Cruz and Team Trump or Team Sanders and Team Hillary are mere child’s play by comparison.

In the final analysis, its my belief that the LP will continue to be the LP as we know it only larger. The refugees who want to bring Sharia Law** to the party platform will lose patience dealing with people who actually have principles and self deport.
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TLP Roundtable – Contributors React to Trump as the GOP Presumptive Nominee

Donald Trump is the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party. Needless to say, the TLP contributors have a great deal written on this development. Go ahead and take a study break from your Trump University homework or your Trump Magazine and pour yourself a glass of Trump Vodka to go with your Trump Steak. Or maybe you are reading this while flying on Trump Airlines. Either way, settle in for our thoughts on a Trump candidacy that will meet the same fate of all of the aforementioned Trump business ventures.

Albert Northrup:

At the beginning of this election cycle, the Republican Party had a broad field of candidates, which was arguably the best field of candidates the GOP has had in decades. They had successful governors, passionate senators, and the momentum heading into the election cycle. At the same time, the Democrats’ presumptive nominee was arguably the worst candidate they have run since Dukakis. She has been embroiled in scandal, has high unfavorable ratings, and is highly unliked by members of both parties. Enter Donald Trump. If there is anyone with higher unfavorable ratings, it is Donald Trump. While some Republicans showed they could defeat Hillary in a head to head race, Trump consistently loses to her in the polls. Barring anything drastic happening, Donald Trump is the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party. But make no mistake about this. Despite claims that “the people have spoken,” this is no sort of mandate of the people. Through the Indiana primary, Trump garnered 40.2% of the vote. This is not a mandate yet.

Principles matter more than any political party. Donald Trump has ran on a platform that is riddled with empty rhetoric and the same narcissism that his supporters found unacceptable in Obama. His speeches are filled with foul language and he insults his opponents and detractors by calling them losers, idiots, and even p***ies. His followers are no better by calling people the same names and even making death threats. They’re angry at the current political structure. We get it. A lot of us are angry. Electing Donald Trump will not solve our problems. In many cases, it will make things worse.

After becoming the presumptive nominee, Trump announced that he loves debt and threatened to raise our national debt, which currently trying stands at $19 trillion. He claims that an option would be to default on the debt then renegotiate the terms. This may work in the business world but national economies work much differently. A default on this level could cause a global economic collapse, which makes a Trump presidency very dangerous. This alone should be enough to never vote for Trump.

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Brad Warbiany:

Okay, so it’s not like I consider myself even a libertarian Republican any longer… And in CA, you won’t exactly see me holding my nose and voting R just to spite Hillary, because she’s going to win this state easily. So I’m not particularly interested in Trump, except as his rise portends much more interesting changes to politics in general.

So why do we have a #nevertrump movement? Why do we see what appears to be a wholesale fracturing of the Republican Party coalition, where we will honestly see many voters refuse to line up behind their party’s nominee? Why is the same thing happening on the Democrat side, where Bernie supporters will likely stay home on Election Day instead of voting for Hillary? How did each lunatic fringe become emboldened to blow up their party coalition instead of falling in line behind the establishment?

Simple: the internet and the explosion of alternative media has forced the Balkanization of the constituent groups in the political party coalition. The various constituent groups used to be party-first, and group second. Thus libertarian Republicans considered themselves Republican first and libertarian second. I don’t remember the words “I’m a Conservative, not a Republican” 20 years ago. But today libertarians confer with other libertarians online. Conservatives read conservative media. Donald Trump’s core constituency can read Stormfront. And as we’ve found more “people like us”, we’ve realized that the rest of our coalition isn’t really on our side.

Where might this go? I think this is the end of the Republican Party as we know it. I see the likelihood that the parties will re-form around two new coalitions:

  1. “Conservatives” and mainstream Democrats will fuse. This will include law & order conservatives, military hawks, union backers, etc. The sort of people who value the predictability and stability of strong institutions like government and religion will coalesce into a single group. This may seem like a bold prediction, but I think mainstream conservatives and mainstream Democrats have a lot in common.
  2. Libertarians and the far left will fuse. They’ll fuse around individual freedom and liberty, distrust of a strong surveillance state, overactive policing, and interventionist foreign policy. They’ll find that they have more in common on social issues than they are opposed to each other on economic issues. Because anarcho-capitalism and anarcho-socialism aren’t really incompatible–both require breaking off the yolk of government.

Trump is the beginning of the end. #nevertrump is a sign that the political coalition we call “Republican” is broken, never to return in its current form.

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Christopher Bowen:

I can come up with no rational reason – at least one that makes sense – for why a plurality of primary voters – into the >50% territory in the final few primaries – decided that Donald Trump was the best standard bearer for the Republican party. How does this happen? Anger at the system? Betrayal by politicians? A desire to watch the world burn? A population that, despite the ubiquity of information that the internet provides, will believe just about anything they’re told by a walking hairpiece? A moral quandry that lying, cheating and abusing systems, and bullying the weak are OK so long as the victims are Other People™, whoever they may be? Or are Americans just swayed by celebrity? Hell, that’s not even an America-only problem; Italy was led by Silvio Berlusconi for nine years.

If anything, the actions of the Republican Party over the past week have exemplified why we’re getting Trump as the Republican nominee. Person after person in political leadership has been against Trump, but when it came time for a put up or shut up moment… they folded. “The will of the voters”, they say. “We’ll support the nominee”, many others whimper. Donald Trump is the Presidential nominee because many politicians – especially on the right – will tolerate totalitarian scumbags so long as they think they can get something out of it. They have, once again, put their political futures in front of the needs of the country. They should be treated accordingly.

In fact, I find it interesting just how many people had to suppress their gag reflexes on this front. Trump won the evangelical vote, despite being a serial philander that makes Bill Clinton look like Mister Rogers. He won a section of people that celebrate the business acumen of a man who’s been bankrupt four times. They highlight frankness of a man who hasn’t actually put forth a serious proposal for just about anything that didn’t involve either building walls or locking out an entire religion. “At least he’s not Hillary!”, say others about a man who donated to her and her husband. For every argument that is meant to make Donald Trump look good, there are five that prove it fallacy, and that’s before I get to the racists, sexists, and “alt-right” scumbags that his careless words have allowed to crawl out of the recesses of 4chan and Reddit.

There is no good reason to vote for Donald Trump, no matter your political persuasion. This isn’t a political wind that’s changing and should be heeded. It’s an insurrection, and it should be responded to in kind.

OKAY
Chris Byrne:

So… Trump:
… Admits there isn’t going to be a wall “it was just a negotiation point”
… Renounces his own tax plan “it was just a negotiation point”
… Affirms that he’s totally gung ho for single payer health care
… Admits that he would raise the minimum wage
… Admits he isn’t self financing his campaign, and hires a hollywood democrat who worked for George Soros and Goldman Sachs as his finance chair…
…Oh and he says that he’s considering a democrat for his vice presidential pick… Or not… or Ted Cruz… who he calls “lyin Ted”… or not…

… Oh and he’s going to default on the national debt… Or maybe he’s not…

… did I miss anything?

… Oh yeah… except the next day, he says exactly the opposite…
… And then the next day, he says both… at the same time…

So… yeah… Trump supporters… It’s gonna be fun seeing how you rationalize all this.

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Kevin Boyd:

What a disgrace for starters. The Republican Party has nominated a man who is likely the most anti-libertarian presidential nominee for a major political party in recent American history. It compounded that error by picking in the same man a thin-skinned, amoral lunatic who peddles conspiracy theories from The National Enquirer as if they’re facts.

Now let’s get to how terrible Trump would be. Trump’s economic policies would cause a worldwide economic depression, his foreign policies (I’ll let others go more in depth) would cause trade wars with nearly everyone and make the world a much more dangerous place, and his domestic policies would result in the largest assault on the Rule of Law and civil liberties in recent American history. Trump is a vulgar demagogue who pits Americans against each other based on race and religion. He’s a campus Social Justice Warrior except for old white guys.

One of the biggest mistakes that’s being made is giving Trump supporters a pass, morally. “Being angry at the establishment” is no excuse for supporting a neo-fascist who clearly does not grasp the basic responsibilities of the job. Nor does a nihilistic desire to “burn the system down” give the right to install to power a tempermental demagogue to threaten the liberties of all. This is not a serious choice. This was a temper tantrum.

Finally, a thought about libertarians and Trump. I’m proud to say many of the most hardcore #NeverTrump members are libertarian Republicans and Millennial libertarians. Hopefully, this is the future of libertarianism. Unfortunately, many Trump supporters though call themselves libertarians and got into politics to support Ron Paul. The truth is, they’ve outed themselves as reactionary populists, regardless of what they call themselves. This has been a very clarifying exercise.

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Sarah Baker:

I am one of the #NeverTrump. His economic policies and broad view of executive power (among other things) are antithetical to my principles.  I don’t have the same vitriol for him as others, however, as I don’t grant him sufficient agency to merit it. He puts me in mind of the clueless nerd being elected prom queen just so the cool kids can point and make fun—not the jokester, but the butt of the joke.

The sources of Trump’s popularity have been analyzed ad nauseam. Tribalism and xenophobia. Social order authoritarianism. Anger at the establishment. Anti-PC backlash. A yen for creative destruction. I even have some sympathy for that last one. Over and over and over again, the GOP has failed to deliver on its promise of limited government. I can see why a significant faction of betrayed voters have decided to light a Trump-match, let it all burn down, and see what rises from the ashes.

But the more interesting—and in my view, under-analyzed—faction of Trump supporters are those among the 47% of U.S. citizens who could not come up with $400 to pay for an emergency. These voters understand on a certain gut level that they are getting screwed by big government—that over-regulation, barriers to entry, excessive government spending, crony capitalism, and welfare for the rich are conspiring to keep working class people poorer than they need to be.

At least Trump pays lip service to their struggles. I know he won’t deliver. He has nothing to deliver. But voters have given other Republicans a chance—and they keep telling us to wait while they focus on getting reelected.

Trump mocking reporter
Stephen Littau:

Five years ago, I warned Liberty Papers’ readers that Trump was in no way a conservative, much less a libertarian. I will not rehash that argument now other than to say that someone who has that much disregard for private property rights should not be the Republican Party nominee for president.

Beyond the property rights issue, in this very campaign Trump trotted out several positions that are progressive rather than conservative. Anti-free trade, a single payer healthcare plan to the left of Obamacare, raising taxes and spending…

Then he made a disparaging comment about John McCain being a POW. A man who never served, who could have served himself was being critical of the service record of a POW? I thought for sure his goose was cooked right there. He was done.

But Trump wasn’t done.

Then came the misogynistic comments Trump directed at any woman who he thought didn’t sufficiently think he was great. And comments about the hair styles, makeup, or general appearance of other candidates. And making fun of a journalist with disabilities (then he lied about it).

None of that mattered. Many Republican candidates have lost primaries for doing far less.

What I learned from this campaign, more than anything is that I completely misunderstood what is most important to Republicans (at least 50% when he gets the nomination). I actually believed that when grass roots Republicans stood against Obama and formed the Tea Party, they were opposing him on principle. Now I see some of the very same people supporting Trump who could not be further from these principles (other than the illegal immigration issue).

I defended these people against charges that they were xenophobes, racists, and misogynists. Now I have come to realize that at least for a significant percentage of the GOP, maybe the people who made these charges were right and I was wrong. This is what pisses me off the most.

How to Fix the Nomination Process

Whether you are a Trump supporter, Cruz supporter, Kasich supporter, Sanders supporter, Hillary supporter, or a disinterested observer fed up with the whole thing like myself, we can all agree that the nomination process is a complete disaster. Not that any of this is new to this particular election; the 2016 campaign has only exposed the flaws in the process that have existed since the earliest days of the leading political parties.

No, neither Trump nor Sanders are having the nomination ‘stolen’ from them, at least not in a sense where actual ‘cheating’ is happening (best I can tell from afar anyway). The fact that Trump doesn’t understand how the process works does not mean Cruz is doing something wrong. And the irony of ironies where some of Sanders’s delegates are being redistributed…well, Hillary Clinton would never cheat right?

If the argument is that the game is rigged at worst or just a little screwy at best then I can certainly agree with that. The rules and process as was set up long before the 2016 campaign is really what is causing confusion leaving many primary voters angry and disillusioned. While it may be too late to cure what ails the nomination process for 2016, I believe I have a few ideas that would vastly improve the process and I would encourage any political party to at least give this a try.

A National Primary Day

This incredibly long drawn out byzantine primary system has outlived its usefulness. There is no reason to have a few states vote early while other vote later. If it’s good enough to have the general election on one day than the primary should be no different. My proposal is to have every state and territory vote on the same day, say 40-60 days before the party’s convention. If the states want to follow roughly the same calendar as the traditional primaries holding town halls, debates, or even non-binding straw polls then by all means, do so. The days of a handful of states determining who emerges should be done away with forever.

Allocation of Delegates

In the 2016 South Carolina Primary Donald Trump “won” the election with a whopping 32.5% of the vote. To put this another way, 67.5% of South Carolina voters voted for someone other than Donald Trump *but* because South Carolina is winner take all, Trump will be awarded all 50 of the state’s delegates! While I’m not one of these people who think that “majority rule” is a good thing in and of itself (actually it’s often terrible), it seems that in a primary or caucus which purports to reflect the “will of the people” should at a minimum, require that the winning candidate actually earned the majority of the vote.

If the goal of the nomination process is to nominate an individual who represents the “will of the people” in the party then the parties are not doing a very good job in achieving that goal. My proposal to improve this aspect of the process is as follows:

Each state/territory is to have one delegate for each congressional district and two at large delegates. Each would-be delegate is bound to a particular candidate and can only become a delegate if his/her candidate wins 50%+1 of the vote in the congressional district or, in the case of the at large would-be delegates, 50%+1 of the entire state, commonwealth, or territory. The candidates would keep every delegate s/he won (i.e. no winner take all states). The 50%+1 threshold would be easily achieved by implementing instant runoff voting (this is key). This way every vote actually would matter and the “spoiler effect” would be minimized if not eliminated.

Rather than explain how instant runoff voting (a.k.a. alternative voting) works for those who are not familiar, here’s a short video:

The Nominating Convention

The convention would operate more or less like it does now. The delegates would then go about choosing the nominee by either multiple rounds of voting or using the instant runoff method as described above. Because all the delegates would be bound to their candidate (at least to start with) in the former method s/he must vote for the candidate in the first round, in the latter s/he must rank the bound candidate #1 and the candidate of his or her choice for #2, #3, and so on. Whichever way the convention decided to go, the important thing is no winner would be selected without a majority recorded vote (i.e. no voice votes where the Chairperson decides which way the vote went based on his/her opinion).

Oh yeah, one other thing: no other candidates could be nominated who was not running on National Primary Day.

Would this process be perfect? Of course not. There is no system I can think of which will prevent a truly terrible person from being nominated or even elected. If there’s a better way, I would certainly would love to hear it. That being said, I believe this process is much superior than the one either party is using now.

All this makes me wonder though: if the parties are having this much trouble determining the will of the majority of their party members (assuming that’s really what they are trying to do), how can they be trusted to solve the more complex problems they want us to believe they can solve?
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One Point of Clarification

If you read carefully, you will notice that everything I wrote is just a suggestion about how any political party can improve its nomination process. None of this in any way is meant to advocate that the law should be changed to comply with my opinion. Its free advice and the parties can take it or leave it (and they probably will leave it…who am I to advise them right?).

I’ve come across some individuals who are upset about how some state parties have gone about choosing delegates (which I can sympathize with; I hate how the Colorado Republican Party chooses delegates). What everyone needs to understand though is that regardless of what they think they know about how the system works, the U.S. is not a democracy. It never was and never was intended to be. Some misguided individuals believe that the shenanigans (as they see it anyway) taking place in some of these state conventions is tantamount to treason against the U.S. Constitution.

For those who think this way, I’m about to drop a giant atomic truth bomb so here it goes…

There is no constitutional right for the average citizen to vote in a presidential election (neither in the party primaries nor in the general election). No, really there’s not.

For those who don’t believe me, the part of the U.S. Constitution that addresses how the POTUS is to be elected is located in Article II, Section 1, Paragraphs 2 through 4. I’ll share the most relevant part (paragraph 2):

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

As stated from the excerpt above, each state determines how Electors are picked to vote for POTUS. This means that if the state legislature wants to choose Electors by drawing names out of a hat or by roshambo, the state legislature may do so. As it happens, every state legislature has decided that the people have a right to vote for the Electors provided they are eligible to vote (as determined by that state’s laws).

Did you notice something else? What about all the explaining about the nomination process of delegates of a particular political party?

Read the excerpt again, no actually read Article II in its entirety because I know some people reading this think that I cherry picked one small part from the U.S. Constitution to make my point.

Did you notice that there wasn’t a single word about political parties, much less how they go about choosing a nominee for president?

Themoreyouknow

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