Atharv Dua Q2 Blog 1 - Yet another controversial college
Have you met a senior recently? Well, you probably haven’t seen their faces because they’re usually either buried deep behind the common app on their computer or grasping their hair in anger at the sheer amount of essays they’re forced to write. College is daunting, but at least it’s not as controversial as the electoral college (probably).
The electoral college is what we as Americans use to elect the president of the United States, the person who represents the face of the country, the person who’s responsible for leading the military, the person who’s responsible for handling affairs both domestically and internationally - for four years straight. It then follows logically that under the Enlightenment principle of self-government (world history is really getting to me), we as a country should get to elect this person, and a majority should evaluate them as capable of leading such an influential nation.
Majority?
That was the question raised by many democrats after Trump’s surprising victory against Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election: newspapers had for days before predicted that Clinton would win, and the popular vote did come out to be in her favor, but Trump won the electoral vote (where a certain number of votes is assigned to each state in a winner-take-all system which means even if someone wins the popular vote, they, like Clinton, may not win the presidency due to the electoral college). My old AP gov teacher went as far as to say that every time an election happens, the same conversation pops up again, kind of like Whac-a-mole (fine he didn’t say that, I did, but it adds so much character!). Critics say that the electoral college misrepresents the wishes of the people, and leads to unfair elections. However, proponents of it say that the electoral college was established by our founding fathers, and it helps get attention from politicians in remote places like the Dakotas or Wyoming, where they wouldn’t otherwise go because the population is so low that it barely affects the popular vote, thus allowing the candidate to represent the entire country, not just populous areas like New York or LA.
Both of these arguments may have merit, but it is imperative to understand that the electoral college represents democracy in America: whichever one one chooses, it must be the absolute best choice because that is how we elect the people that represent us not just domestically, not just nationally, but on the global stage. The founding fathers felt that it was the best choice, given the context of their time period, which is why it is in place today as a controversial pillar of American democracy.
Whether the electoral college is a revolting imperfection or an astounding embodiment of perfection itself, it exists in place as a reflection of American democracy to the outside world. Unlike many modern colleges with <10% acceptance rates, this college aims to take in as input everyone’s opinion and produce as output a coherent majority opinion of the United States. By perfecting it based on the opinions of the people and our representatives in Congress this system could be, if enough of the nation wants it, changed or kept the same to ensure that democracy prevails not just in the fact that we vote, but also in the way that we vote.
Hi Atharv, I do really hope you are taking AP U.S History and if you aren't I feel you missed out on a subject you are clearly passionate about. Safe to say, I appreciate the flexing of your literary skills, or more specifically, I appreciated the use of anaphoras in the third paragraph as well as ur introduction. Originally, I thought you would be discussing college again (like the one that makes all of our heart rates speed up not the governmental one) but I enjoyed the change in topics as I feel the one I mentioned is rather overdone. However, your passionate understanding of the electoral college and popular vote is clear, and I admire that you can appreciate the system (though it does have its flaws I'll admit). Off topic, but I was incredibly surprised to read your mention of AP Gov, how on earth did you take that class?? My questions aside, I enjoyed your blog this week. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteHello, Atharv! I love how for every blog of yours I’ve read, you manage to link the seemingly most unrelated topics together. I also appreciate the single-word paragraph, it adds so much more variety to your paragraph structure, and makes it much easier to read. As controversial as the electoral college is (I still think college applications are more controversial, have you seen how many people complain about them?) I think it is indeed outdated. I had to search up the origins of the electoral college (I wasn’t anticipating to do so, but here I am), and apparently the founding fathers created the electoral college because they had communication issues at the time and they had to deal with the issue slavery. While I do understand that it is a representation of American democracy, don’t you think it’s time that that representation changed? That is, after all, why the founding fathers allowed for Amendments to be added to the Constitution: they anticipated that they would not be able to create laws for situations decades or centuries into the future. The reasons for the electoral college are so archaic, that it just seems foolish to continue using it.
ReplyDeleteAtharv, I almost had a heart attack when I read your title. I thought you were going to be talking about four year colleges again and it was a very happy surprise to see you talking about the electoral college. I remember asking my dad the same question after the 2016 college, “Why didn’t Hillary Clinton win the election if she won the electoral college?” The electoral college is one of the most confusing yet clear ideas in American politics. After the 2016 election I’ve learned to take everything that political pundits say with a grain of salt. I realized that they may have all the ideas in the world and evidence and trends to back it up, but nobody really knows how it's gonna end up. I love how you explored both sides of the argument and in my opinion I think that the electoral college does hold merit and it does have a purpose, but I would be open for some changes so that popular vote does hold a bit more of a weight in the elections. What about you? What do you think is the course of action that is most viable for the future of American politics and elections?
ReplyDeleteHi Arthav! I was really interested in your blog post this week! I myself have a secret hyperfixation on the Electoral College (Thanksgiving last year was definitely interesting due to this fact), and I am not a fan of it.
ReplyDeleteI’m sure you know that this has happened before! In the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore lost to George W. Bush, and I, for one, think that the Electoral College does not represent the “popular vote.” Gore won, but Bush got the presidency?
I think that your writing on this topic, however, was very nuanced. I appreciated how you balanced both sides of the argument with your writing.
I also really enjoyed your comparison of college institutions and the Electoral College. When I first saw your post, my initial thought was that this post was going to be about the Varsity Blues scandal a couple of years back!