All I am saying is that comparing the level of deplorability of electing a demagogue/racist/grifter/know-knothing/liar to a couple of click baity tweets from media types and one elector’s ill-reasoned opinion piece in the NYtimes is a false equivalency.

That doesn’t make sense. If we’re talking about average people, then they don’t have the power to grant him or deny him the presidency. If we’re talking about the electors, that’s the exact internal argument they’re having.

It’s the system we have now, but you can’t justify it’s existence because “it’s the only system everyone agrees on”. It doesn’t undermine democracy to talk about the problems in the EC. Eliminating the EC won’t start a civil war, you’re just being hyperbolic.

The electoral college is not like an institution, it’s 538 people tasked with doing a job and then disband once the job is done. The electoral college was created for the express purpose of overturning a horrible choice. If it exists simply to validate election results then it has no reason to exist, if it exists to…

“The will of the people is the popular vote. The electoral college is specifically spurning the will of the people by voting for Trump.”

Except no one’s disregarding the rules. The rules say that most points scored nets you more of your side’s voters, who then determine who wins. Actively encouraging those voters to vote for the team who gained the most yards (arguably a more impressive offensive efforts) is totally acceptable.

Isn’t this kind of what the EC is doing though?? I know we’re running in circles - but you can see how your exact argument can be used against you, no?

For all the fears of what could happen when people refuse to accept the results of an election, this is the most real. Thankfully almost every other elector will represent his or her state’s wishes, but you don’t have to stretch your imagination at all to see how the precedent of electors voting for whomever they…

The rules are the rules

A check like the electoral college, you mean?

The electoral college sucks, but it’s the only system we have that everyone agrees on.

+ 2.5 million and recounting...

It’s known as arguing in the alternative, and it’s perfectly valid.

It’s not a favor, it’s recognition that the mechanism in place—as imperfect as it is—is the best hope we have of avoiding a calamitous presidency.

“Not accepting the results” as discussed in the third debate related to the specter of Trump losing under the rules but rioting/destablizing/murdering his way to White House anyway. Defeating him by way of having more electors vote for a different candidate in the Electoral College is not losing to Trump under the…

This article means well but rests on a (all-too-familiar) false equivalence between Clinton and Trump. Both have large and small flaws as presidential candidates, but they are not equally bad, and “undemocratically” blocking one from office, had she won, is not the same as “undemocratically” blocking the other.…

As a liberal, I’m thrilled with anyone who votes for someone their state didn’t vote for, either side. Anything that calls attention to how fucking stupid the Electoral College is and maybe prompts some change.

It’s not “intellectually dishonest” to favor abolishing an institution that you also think should do the job it was created for.

“...538 people conspiring together to decide the president is about as un-democratic an electoral process as one could imagine.”

Fuck that - the electoral college was specifically designed to make sure populism couldn’t take root.