Did you hear that senators who voted to convict the president represent 12 million more people than senators who voted to acquit?
“In case you missed it, majority doesn’t always rule in this country,” whined MSNBC anchor Katy Tur. “Forty-eight senators voted to remove the president from office. Fifty-two voted to acquit. But the 48 actually represent 12 million more voters than the senators who decided to keep Donald Trump in the White House.”
What’s the relevance? To you, me, and others with gray matter between their ears, none at all. Tur is actually using a false and dishonest analogy to make an idiotic point. Fewer than 50 percent of voters in the states represented by senators who voted to convict Trump bothered to vote at all in 2016. In some of those states, Trump lost by a small margin. The bottom line is that the number 12 million assumes that every single resident of the state of California would have wanted to convict Trump. This is as ignorant as saying that every single resident of Texas wanted him acquitted.
Further proof that Tur needs some kind of Krell mind boost came when she casually wondered what could be done to prevent Republicans from winning statewide elections. From NewsBusters:
Minutes later, Tur wondered what could be done to prevent Republicans from winning statewide elections for U.S. Senate seats across the country: “So what’s the resolution to that? Is gerrymandering something that would help improve the situation? Is – how does that sort of divide promote consensus in the Senate or even in the House?”
Bump was forced to awkwardly correct her and explain the obvious: “Well, I mean, the only resolution – gerrymandering is not going to do anything because in the Senate we’re talking about states, right? You can’t gerrymander states.” He then delivered more tough news: “The only solution is for Democrats to appeal to voters in those states.”
In other words, Democrats have to actually win elections in order to gain power – how unfair!
Katy Tur Fears ‘Gerrymandering’ Helping Republicans Win Senate Seats https://t.co/lPVI00LEQL pic.twitter.com/7Mg4Z6zDy3
— RAY BAEZ (@raybae689) February 7, 2020
In recent years, liberals have been agitating for ditching the Electoral College and abolishing the Senate. These institutions are more than just anachronistic holdovers from some bygone era in history, however. Their creation — and continued existence — are vital to the maintenance of our federal republic.
Both institutions were born from compromise. Little states vs. big states doesn’t seem so important now, but at the time of the birth of America, it was the ballgame. Big states got the Electoral College, giving them more say in who should be president while little states got the Senate, where they could be on equal footing with big states.
Over the centuries, both institutions have evolved, with the Senate carving out its own distinctive role in the workings of government. Much of that role is archaic, but if a legislative body doesn’t have traditions to fall back on, what’s left?
We just spent the last several weeks listening to Democrats drone on about “checks and balances.” What do these jamokes think that “checks and balances” are? They like the sound of the words but they hate the meaning. Because at bottom, the “checks and balances” are on power and its dangerous concentration. And one big way that power is diffused is through the states and local governments.
Both Barack Obama and Donald Trump exercised too much power. They prefer to bypass Congress and rule by decree, but the constitutional federal republic set up more than 230 years ago worked. A partisan effort to overturn an election failed.
And Democrats appear desperate to change the rules to make their drive for power less onerous.
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