I was saddened to learn that Republican members of Congress, en masse, did not attend any of the ceremonies or remembrances at the Capitol on the anniversary of the riots of Jan. 6. With all of the animosity shown by Republicans toward Democrats, it would have been an excellent opportunity to bury the hatchet so the two parties can begin down the path toward working collaboratively again as they did back when America was great.
There has to be a reason the Republicans would be in lockstep like this. Thinking back over the past several elections, when we were selecting our president, a line of reasoning occurs to me. George W. Bush won his first term as president in no small way by the state of Florida denying the vote to many of its citizens of color who tend to vote for Democrats. With the Florida electors voting for Bush, he won in the Electoral College, without benefit of the popular vote. For his second term, he did eke out a slim popular vote victory to go with the majority of the electoral college electors.
Democrat Barack Obama won two terms with decisive popular votes.
Republican Donald Trump, like Bush, failed to win the popular vote and became the president only because of our system of using the electoral college to actually determine who becomes the president.President Joe Biden, like Obama, won both the popular vote and the majority of the electors.
So there is a trend that must be disturbing to members of the Republican Party. If the electoral college were to disappear, they might be hard pressed to win another presidency. Since the Constitution dictates the use of the electoral college, it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. This means Republicans can continue to win the presidency without the popular vote, a form of minority rule.
The insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, was supposedly all about the election of the president being rigged against the incumbent. To maintain one’s position on the “Big Lie,” one must consider the attack on the Capitol and its occupants as a patriotic act designed to preserve our system of transferring power. As absurd as that sounds, if one believes that line, then one would not want to be seen at any event that cast doubt on the motives of the attacking mob.
— Mark Lovegreen
Anchorage
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