Letter to the Editor: "Make America a Democracy Once and For All"

(The following Letter to the Editor has been submitted by Steve McCargar of Decorah):

It turns out that Richard Nixon wasn't the only one with a "Southern Strategy".  The so-called Founding Fathers had one, too.  About two dozen of the 55 white men who wrote the Constitution were slave owners.  To placate them and to make adoption of the document more likely by southern states, the Framers baked racism into the pie.  As a result we have the Electoral College, a vestigial tail of our slave-owning roots and the reason that Donald Trump will become our next president in January (despite receiving 2.8 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton).

The Electoral College is fundamentally undemocratic and gives more power to sparsely populated states at the expense of bigger states with more urban (and racially diverse) citizens.  The "College" is really a mechanism for electing a president of the states--not a president of the people.  Conveniently, it is virtually impossible to amend the Constitution to repeal the Electoral College because amendments must be approved by 3/4ths of the states.  So we are stuck with it unless the people of this country organize to do something about it.

Is the Electoral College sacred because a collection of dead white men trying to corral the support of slave states wrote it into the Constitution?   Of course not.  Is it an institution that should be changed to reflect the will of a majority (or at least a plurality) of our voting citizens?  If you put that question to Americans today, I am confident that the overwhelming majority would say "yes."  If you asked only white men the same question, the instinct to protect white male dominance might still prevail.  But we're a diverse country and it's time our electoral system gave every vote the same weight when we elect a president.

"March Where You Live" will sponsor a march and rally in Decorah on Monday, December 19th, the day the Electoral College meets across the country.  The march will begin at 1:30 p.m. in the 48 hour parking lot across from City Hall and will end up at the Winneshiek County courthouse for speeches and petitioning for redress of grievances.  If you are ready to change our electoral system to Make America a Democracy Once and for All, please join your neighbors to begin that process.