Habitual Election Denier Rep. Jamie Raskin Calls Electoral College a ‘Danger’ to Democracy, American People
“The truth is that we need to be continually renovating and improving our institutions”
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), a member of the January 6th Committee in the House, is now claiming that the Electoral College is a threat to democracy. Remember when liberals claimed that Trump was a threat to our cherished norms? Good times.
Have you noticed that anything Democrats don’t like is a threat to our democracy?
CNN reports this without a hint of irony:
January 6 panelist points to Electoral College reform as next priority to safeguard democracy
Rep. Jamie Raskin, a member of the House January 6 select committee, said reforming the Electoral College to ensure the presidential winner reflects the outcome of the popular vote would be the next step to safeguard democracy.
“The Electoral College now – which has given us five popular-vote losers as president in our history, twice in this century alone – has become a danger, not just to democracy, but to the American people. It was a danger on January 6,” the Maryland Democrat said in an interview with Margaret Brennan on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that aired Sunday. “There are so many curving byways and nooks and crannies in the Electoral College, that there are opportunities for a lot of strategic mischief. We should elect the president the way we elect governors, senators, mayors, representatives, everybody else. Whoever gets the most votes wins.”
“The truth is that we need to be continually renovating and improving our institutions,” Raskin said, later noting that he supports the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which represents a pledge made by certain states and the District of Columbia to award their electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the popular vote nationwide.
Remember, this is the same man who objected to the Electoral College count when Trump won. Is this insurrection?
Pelosi committee member Jamie Raskin objected to the electoral college count after the 2016 election. pic.twitter.com/N0Tp70qFpg
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 12, 2022
He also objected to Bush’s win in 2000.
Here is January 6 Committee member Jamie Raskin denying the results of the 2000 presidential election and calling George W. Bush a "court-appointed president." pic.twitter.com/BIAIPeLukj
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 19, 2022
Nick Arama of RedState notes the hypocrisy:
Members of Congress swear to uphold the Constitution.
As part of the Jan. 6 Committee, Democratic members of Congress called the riot an “attack on democracy” and sought to smear any Republicans who dared to raise questions about the 2020 election as also “attacking democracy.”
Now, of course, trying to smear Republicans who raised questions or objected to electors was ridiculous, given that is provided for within the Constitution. But it was beyond hypocritical given Committee members like Raskin had themselves objected to accepting electors in the past.
Here are a few more reactions:
Raskin is a socialist hiding behind the mask of progressivism. He and his fellow progressives are the real risks to democracy and the American people.
— Vaughn Cordle, CFA (@vaughnCordle) December 26, 2022
The Electoral College is one of the most brilliant mechanisms of our system of government.
Calling to end it is a transparent play at trying to game the system for a permanent uniparty rule, which would be fascism.
— SWCCEM (@SWCCEM) December 26, 2022
Our Founders foresaw cynical elected leaders like Rep @jamie_raskin, how they would attempt to manipulate the election system, and set up the Electoral College to assure the Raskins are unable to subvert the Republic.
Raskin knows this. He’s subversive as Hell but he’s no dummy.
— #BillsMafia Caputo (@MichaelRCaputo) December 26, 2022
The lectures from these Democrats have become so tiresome.
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to amend the constitution. Nobody claims the constitution is perfect; that’s why it includes a mechanism for amending it, which has been used 27 times.
The oath to support the constitution does not and has never meant rhetorical support; one taking that oath does not have to think it’s good, or not in need of amendment. All the oath means is that one will oppose attempts to overthrow or subvert it.
So if he thinks the electoral college is no longer suited to the USA’s needs, or that it never was, he’s free to propose an amendment. If it passes, then that will be the constitution; in that event, will you support it? Should Republicans support such an amended constitution? Again, rhetorically no. They would be free to denounce the amendment and call for its repeal, just as opponents of prohibition did. But they would be bound to oppose any attempt to restore the electoral college by force.
Democrats have no intention of passing anything as an amendment. They are full on committed to taking power through any means possible BUT that does not include working through the Constitution.
And yet enough voters actually believe it when Democrats take the Article VI to support the Constitution, the very document which restrains them and for that reason they hate it. Democrats don’t mean a word of the oath.
There is only one known alternative to limited/restrained government and that is unlimited government. Which is exactly what the Democrat Party wants. Yet they don’t like it when told they act as Hitler and Stalin.
Reading a book on post WWII USSR. The definition of “totalitarian” came up and by definition has at least 5 attributes: dominant ideology, one party rule, control of the press, secret police, and planned economy. Which party is closest to these and which party is moving to seize these 5 attributes with functionally already achieved in many?
That is just not true. The only means of taking power are through the constitution or by forcibly overthrowing it, and the Democrats (as opposed to groups like Antifa) are still committed to the constitution. They would like to amend it, not overthrow it.
There is no possible interpretation of the constitution as written that gets rid of the electoral college. Therefore their only choice is to try to amend it, which they are free to do. We are equally free to oppose them; and if they succeed we will be free to try to amend it back, if we want that.
Milhouse, Your point is moot. What makes you think that Democrats are “opposed to groups like Antifa”?
Did I say they are? If I say that Mussolini, as opposed to Hitler, was a genuine intellectual, does that imply that Mussolini was not Hitler’s ally?!
The only means of taking power are through the constitution or by forcibly overthrowing it, and the Democrats (as opposed to groups like Antifa) are still committed to the constitution. They would like to amend it, not overthrow it.
___________________________________________________________
you’ve left out circumventing / ignoring it, either by ignoring it entirely or circumventing it via eos / judicial activism
if you think the only means of seizing power are by the two methods you cite, you’re dreaming
This is all predicated on the Left actually obeying the Constitution as written….. not interpreted as they wish. They won’t have the votes and will use this “failure” for “needed reform” as another political point. Most people are ignorant of what it takes to approve a change in the Constitution and that is exploited. Much of this political posturing would be laughed at if people were taught civics.
one minor quibble:
“Should Republicans support such an amended constitution?” I think the wording should read “Should Americans support…” America is a Republic, not a Democracy which is the purpose of Raskin’s treasonous/traitorous subversion.
Paraphrasing your argument: ” How about an amendment whereby anyone critical of the government is shot on sight, alongside their entire family? Should Republicans support such an amended constitution? Again, rhetorically no. They would be free to denounce the amendment and call for its repeal, just as opponents of prohibition did. But they would be bound to oppose any attempt to interfere with the death sentence of any critics by force.”
According to the Democrats everything is a threat to our “Democracy”. We are NOT a Democracy. We are a Constitutional Republic. Raskin, you are a member of Congress and you don’t even know what type of government we have.
Oh, please. This “We are a republic not a democracy” line is pure high-octane bullshit. We are a republic and we are a democracy. The people who founded the USA referred to it both ways. See here for more.
What is high octane bullshit, Milhouse, is to pretend that the words Democracy and Republic can be used interchangeably. They are two entirely different forms of governments. Some so-called conservatives make the mistake that they are interchangeable to the detriment of us all. Yes, some founders thought that was the case, that they were the same thing. But they lost the argument to those knew better.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-0178
“The Federalist Number 10, [22 November] 1787
The Federalist Number 10
[22 November 1787]
Among the numerous advantages promised by a well constructed union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction.1 The friend of popular governments, never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice. He will not fail therefore to set a due value on any plan which, without violating the principles to which he is attached, provides a proper cure for it…
…There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: The one by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.
It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it is worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction, what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be a less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.
The second expedient is as impracticable, as the first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves. The diversity in the faculties of men from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to an uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results: And from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties.
The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them every where brought into different degrees of activity…
…If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote: It may clog the administration, it may convulse the society; but it will be unable to execute and mask its violence under the forms of the constitution. When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government on the other hand enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest, both the public good and the rights of other citizens. To secure the public good, and private rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government, is then the great object to which our enquiries are directed. Let me add that it is the great desideratum, by which alone this form of government can be rescued from the opprobrium under which it has so long labored, and be recommended to the esteem and adoption of mankind.
By what means is this object attainable? Evidently by one of two only. Either the existence of the same passion or interest in a majority at the same time, must be prevented; or the majority, having such co-existent passion or interest, must be rendered, by their number and local situation, unable to concert and carry into effect schemes of oppression. If the impulse and the opportunity be suffered to coincide, we well know that neither moral nor religious motives can be relied on as an adequate control. They are not found to be such on the injustice and violence of individuals, and lose their efficacy in proportion to the number combined together; that is, in proportion as their efficacy becomes needful.2
From this view of the subject, it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society, consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert results from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party, or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is, that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives, as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed, that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized, and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions…”
A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking. Let us examine the points in which it varies from pure democracy, and we shall comprehend both the nature of the cure, and the efficacy which it must derive from the union…”
The founders who won the argument characterized democracy as perhaps the worst form of government; nothing more than mob rule. When leftists of all stripes march through neighborhoods throwing rocks into apartment windows, shining flashlights into the broken windows demanding the residents join them (as they did during some of the “summer of love” riots following the death of St. George Floyd of the Fentanyl Overdose) they were chanting “No borders, no walls, no USA at all” (but it was the Jan 6 idiots who were the insurrectionists, not the leftists who actually seceded from the Union at places such as Seattle’s Capitol Hill; remember CHAZ?) they chanted another thing.
“This is what Democracy looks like!”
They were right, Milhouse. Screw your head on straight.
I emphasized this portion for an important reason but I forgot to make the point:
“…Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed, that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized, and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions…”
The founders were such visionary thinkers that they described perfectly both what the modern left means by “equity,” a word that hadn’t been invented at the time, and why they would need to seize control of social media.
“Misinformation” and “disinformation” now means nothing more than a truth that counters leftist lies. No one can be allowed to think that any opinions, and therefore the thoughts that enable those opinions to be spoken, are anything more than heresy that go against leftist orthodoxy.
Man, those guys were good!
Arminius, you’re full of crap, as usual. Republic and democracy are NOT different forms of government. They are completely compatible with each other and the USA is both. People pretending there is a significant difference are simply NUTS.
And no, Madison did NOT EVER say the US was not or should not be a democracy. Your two-page cut-and-paste speaks of “pure democracy”, which as he defines it is something that has never existed in modern times, and that nobody ever advocated for the USA. Not in his times and not since. It’s something that can’t exist except in a society with no more than a few hundred citizens, none of whom has to work for a living.
I’d actually be somewhat interested to know what anti-American, anti-Constitutional communist down voted me for quoting the founders on what a filthy awful form of government democracy has always been. Probably a Bernie bro or AOC acolyte who claims that “true communism has never been tried.”
The Lenin and Stalin’s Soviet Union, Mao and Xi’s China, the Kim family dynasty’s DPRK, and Castro’s Cuba are what true communism looks like. Murderous, inhuman, and anti-human.
You amuse me, Milhouse. According to the leading lights of the Democrat party we need to get rid of whole swaths of our Constitution to achieve “Our Duhm-ocracy” (TM). The Supreme Court is anti-democratic. The Senate isn’t democratic. The electoral college isn’t democratic. And by extension the bill of rights isn’t democratic. Because the majority can’t vote on what rights an irritating minority shouldn’t be allowed to have.
You continue in your delusions, Milhouse. But I’ll believe the ravening wolves when they howl out who they are.
Seriously Milhouse? When the mob led by Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi et al tell you to your face that “our (precious, undefined) Duhm-ocracy” {TM}requires throwing the Constitution into the shredder you actually think you’re persuasive when you call me names and argue that, no, we’re really talking about the same form of government as stated in Article 4 Section 4 of the Constitution?
I prefer to take them at their word. Whatever their undefined “Our Duhm-ocracy” consists of, it conflicts with the Constitution. Therefore, the Constitutioon must go. Or rather, be ignored as a dead letter.
Of course if their precious “Our Duhm-ocracy” (TM) conflicts with the Constitution the obvious reason is that it’s unconstitutional. But you be you, Milhouse.
The existence of the electoral college is an impediment to the socialist goal of ‘one man, one vote, one time’. They rely upon the tribal groups they emphasize and empower within the mob for votes and not individual Citizens.
“Have you noticed that anything Democrats don’t like is a threat to our democracy?”
Actually, listen closer. They always claim it’s a threat to THEIR democracy.
It is a threat to a democracy.? So what? Our country is a republic. I would like it to remain a republic.
^^^ THIS ^^^
For God’s sake, call it what it is: fascism.
Raskin ooes not get it-we are a constituirional republic which has a Electoral College to prevent a tyranny by the majority
He and his Democrat ilk get it. They just don’t like it and do everything they can to undermine the Framers’ system. Their Article VI oath to support the Constitutions as written is worthless. That they are in office is a testament to the fact that the people don’t know their Constitution whose overarching theses is to limit fedgov so that individual freedom will be dominant. = “to secure these rights governments are instituted among men.” That’s the sole purpose of government in the Americanist system.
Suggest a viewing of the 30-minute video Overview of America.
Only a poorly educated representative would fail to learn that unbridled democracy in itself is the greatest threat to democracy. Both Aristotle and Publius laid out the case in clear language that would escape the ken of the Raskins of the world.
“Only a poorly educated representative would fail to learn that unbridled democracy in itself is the greatest threat to democracy…:”
Who says their ‘pooly educated’??? Man, don’t give these monsters such deference.
There is no nation wide popular vote for president there is only the cumulative state votes. There are many people on both side that do not bother to vote since the outcome in their state is a forgone conclusion.
“The truth is that we need to be continually renovating and improving our institutions”
Agree. We can start by running commie lib bastards like him out of them.
“…the Electoral College is a threat to democracy.”
Good. That’s entirely its point this marxist meat puppet fails to grasp.
****insert obligitory ‘the usa is not a democracy, but a republic’ here****
The Electoral College is doing exactly what it was designed to do, prevent tyranny of the majority.
AOC says she is afraid that the electrical college is short circuiting the people’s rights where every volt should count.
E.g. AZ CA PA IL among others where voting errs occurred
I know we count the “popular vote’ as the candidate that earned the most votes, But if you look at the total votes cast, I don’t believe the “popular vote” candidate ever received more than 50% of the total votes cast – kinda indicates that they weren’t all that popular overall. But We aren’t supposed to talk about elections in those terms though. It hurts the Narrative.
Except Reagan.
Raskin is Marxist clown, a really UGLY one at that.
Anti-Americanism.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
…
Article 4 – The States
Section 4 – Republican Government
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.
The federal government is in contempt of The Constitution, “the People”, and “our [unPlanned] Posterity”.
The electoral college has been severing America longer than you have been a brian dead politician. It’s the only reason some people get a voice at all.
Bear in mind that the electoral college we have now bears very little resemblance to what the framers had in mind. They expected that electors would exercise their own judgment; the supreme court just killed that notion dead a few years ago, with most of you applauding.
Irrespective, a priority of the Founders was NOT to elect the president by popular vote, unlike what Raskin advocates, and that priority remains unchanged.
Sigh. Of course this guy is a Democrat Politician. It’s so ingrained, they don’t even notice the totalitarian assumption behind their preferences and policies: Everytihng is their business, for theiir benefit not the governed’s, for as litle as a moment’s feel good.
The electoral college, like the the Senate, is disproportionate to the head count, exactly to prevent, local, idiosyncratic “popular” majorities from imposing thier preferences on others, far away. The point is Manhattanites might have to convince Montanna sheep herders of range laws and wolf management, vs. impose policies from their lofts.
Unlimited direct democracy looks a lot like unfettered mob rule in the event, at least until the mob find themselves to have been useful idiots for the authoritah their excitement installed. Don’t let yourselff get wee-wee’d up n stampeded into something. Somebody said that, while providing simultaneous examples, so you’d think people whould get this.
The problem, and solution are illustrated by the story of two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner. There are, in fact, different local insterests. Giving those some traction in government is broadly called “Federalism.”
Another brake on imposition from afar is enumerated negative rights. There’s some stuff explicitly your business to muck up as you like though indeeed the feds may be better at mucking stuff up, being professionals.
The Screaming D’s hate all this because they want to “govern” -= meaning “rule” — especially people who aren’t like them, mostly because they get off on telling people they hate what to do.
Long ago, in The Before Times when MTV played music, SNL was funny, and Prince (RIP) was the weird one (vs. MJ), there was an article in The Atlantic on The Electoral College.
Yes, Virginia, there was once an Atlantic that didn’t suck.
As memory seves, a Smart Guy(tm) got curious about the consequences, and likely motivations of this odd arrangement, if you assume the crafters had a method to their madness, if only intuitively.
In the event, Smart Guy(tm) developed a novel corner of discrete mathematics, which also acounts for odd scoring n play structures of football and tennis matches.
Chunking results means every event counts, even when someone is alrady, othrwise ahead.
In politics, he declared this voting arrangement meant “support must be broad, as well as deep.” of particular interest for a shared, federal executive, and named one consequence that with this arrangement national candidates must campaign and appeal broadly to many states, nut just narrowly, deeply, in a few.
In NY State, like Cali, Illinois, and others, distant, different people are casually ruled against their interest by duely majority “elected” overlords. What would happen if counties got a vote on stufff opposed on them from above?
This is exactly what The Screaming D’s object to. And it’s of a piece with their endless drive to federalize, then eventually internationalize, everydamnthing; one-vote, one time racheting; popular vote eveyrthing; onlne hot take like American Idol; movement of operations and increasingly policy to authoritah vs the elected administration; facts by consensus; and … well, everything they do.
If you look, every D-party anti-electoral college production, from rant to article to hot take, comes down to exactly “in the way of anything goes, 50% plus 1 vote, off my hot take” seasoned with a few “historical problems we no longer have” straw men.
The article is worth reading. Then ask yourself how you’d rather voting work, where you live.
History tells us that one of the reasons the current United States even exists, and came together under one constitution is because of things like the electoral college. Much time and debate revolved around the fine line of “democracy” in it’s pure form and a “representative democracy” a not so subtle distinction. Smaller, agrarian states balked at joining a union that would be ruled by large, industrial states.
Decrying a deliberately anti-democratic feature of our republic’s constitution as a ‘threat to democracy’ seems too be missing the point.
Our Founders knew what they were doing, yes?
To them, the Athenian Democracy was the example of what must be avoided at all costs.
Let me check my NewSp3ak Dictionary:
“Democracy” = Permanent One Party Totalitarian Rule by the Democrat Party.
Whenever anyone on the Left uses the word “Democracy”, particularly as part of the phrases “danger to our Democracy”, or “…protect our Democracy”, what they really care about is abolishing our REPUBLIC and implementing their Fascist Dictatorship.
Don’t ever let them dupe you into thinking they care AT ALL about “democracy”. There is not now, never has been, anything Democratic about the Democrat Party.
Benjamin Franklin “a republic if you can keep it.”
The only actual threat to democracy comes from those attempting to go around the Constitution by legislation, refusing to enforce laws they don’t like. The underlying reason is voters who don’t understand the Constitution and fail to conduct the necessary research to have an informed opinion before they cast a vote.
And now he’s got cancer.
Well, if they can’t be term limited, primaried, or voted out of office, eventually nature runs its course.
Again.
IIRC, he had some form of colon cancer back in 2010 or thereabouts.
Unfortunately the voters of his district would simply elect someone nearly identical to him if he can’t kick this one.
None of the NPV states will make good on their pledge in the unlikely event the Republican wins despite election fortification efforts.
I used to think that, but that was before the supreme court ruled that states can compel electors to abide by their pledges. If a state has made a law before the election that its electors must vote for whoever gets the most votes in that state, it seems the electors would be bound by that and couldn’t vote otherwise unless the legislature changes the law after the election. I suppose it could do that, but that would lose them the safe harbor of the Electoral Count Act (at least before the latest changes, which I haven’t kept up with). And they’d have only a small window in which to change the law, and might not find it so easy to do. So now I’m not so sure. It was different before; no official change in law would be needed, they could just tell the electors to vote the other way. “For the sake of democracy” or some such thing. Now that became harder.