“The Rules of the Game”
by Maury Jones
Some are complaining that Donald Trump didn’t win the popular vote, only the Electoral College, so he is an illegitimate President. They say his win doesn’t really count. They say most of the people voted for Hillary so Trump isn’t really the President. They complain the rules of the game are unfair. When you play a game, you know the rules ahead of time. You either win or lose by those rules.
In the 1960 World Series the New York Yankees outscored the Pittsburg Pirates 55–27, outhit them 91 to 60, outbatted them .338 to .256, hit 10 home runs to Pittsburgh’s 4, and held them scoreless in two games. The Yankees overwhelmed the Pirates in the stats, but they lost.
The 1960 World Series’ rules were not how many runs you score, not how many hits you get, not how many home runs you hit, and not your batting average. The rules say it is the first team to win four games. That alone determines the winner.
The rules say that to win the Presidency of the United States you must get at least 270 Electoral College (hereafter EC) votes. It doesn’t matter how many states you win or how many popular votes you get. Under the rules of the Constitution the EC delegates are appointed by each state and are equal to the congressional delegation of that state. For instance, Wyoming has 3 EC votes while California has 55.
Under the general election rules, candidate Donald Trump won 306 EC votes while candidate Hillary Clinton won 232. A huge propaganda campaign ensued, including ads by celebrities, trying to get EC delegates to change their votes away from apparent winner Donald Trump. The eventual official EC vote was 304 for Donald Trump and 227 for Hillary Clinton. Two Trump EC delegates abandoned him while five EC delegates defected from Clinton, the most defectors since 1872. Trump won. Game over.
The main reason for the EC is that 50 states are voting for the President of the “Union of 50 States”. It is not 320 million people voting for a President of the people. If you remove only the votes of New York City and Los Angeles, Donald Trump would have won the popular vote by 499,614. If the election was changed to a popular vote, the candidates would concentrate their efforts in the dozen or so major cities. Small population states, which comprise most of the land mass of the USA, would be virtually ignored.
The Democrats complain about the rules of the Electoral College and want to change to a popular vote. They don’t accept the outcome of the series, even though they blasted Donald Trump prior to the election for saying he would look at any anomalies before conceding. Hypocrites! “We scored more runs,” the Democrats whine.
This current attempt to delegitimize Trump’s win would be like the 60 Yankees complaining loudly about the unfairness of the rules in an attempt to disparage the Pirates’ win because the Pirates didn’t win the statistics.
Whether baseball or politics such a course of action is ridiculous in the extreme. It is time for such nonsense to cease.
Jonesy
