"It's a Christmas miracle!" If you're familiar with American TV, you've no doubt heard this phrase numerous times in your life. Typically in the plots around Christmas time, something has got the protagonist down. Maybe it is a loss of faith or hope. But by the end of the show, something unexpected and improbable happens that lifts everyone's spirits, and restores hope to the protagonist.
Judging from my social media feeds, many of my liberal friends expected the Electoral College to deliver such a Christmas miracle.
It started with the so-called "Hamilton Electors." Several news articles proclaimed that there were Electors ready to cast a ballot for some reasonable candidate other than Donald Trump. I remember at least one of my friends on Facebook expressing excitement in November that this rumor was an actual thing, as an article reached the mainstream press.
Then there was the call for intelligence briefings for Electors in the wake of accusations of hacking by the Russians from the CIA. Electors have a right to know if a foreign power influenced our electoral system, was the rallying cry. Again, many of my liberal friends in social media expressed real hope that the Electoral College would "do the right thing."
And then December 19th, the day appointed for the Electors to meet in their respective state capitals, came and Trump received enough votes to be elected President of the United States. Indeed, while those wishing for an "Electoral College miracle" needed more than thirty Electors pledged to Trump to defect, only two actually did.
And thus, many of my liberal friends took to social media and expressed disappointment; some using the harshest of profanity over the result.
The fact is that they, along with anyone else who expected a more dramatic result, were played. They were played by a propaganda gambit from their very own party, the Democrats, assisted by willing accomplices in the press.
The fact is that stories of possible Electoral College defectors were drummed up by Democratic political operatives. The press then reported the stories in a way that hid the political leanings of the perpetrators as well their true intentions.
Let's first consider the so-called "Hamilton Electors." These were Electors supposedly ready to vote for any reasonable candidate other than Trump. News stories trumpeted the fact that there had been "faithless Electors" in the past; Electors who voted for someone other than the candidate who vote the popular vote in their particular state. There were some news stories that announced that numerous Electors were taking advantage of legal advice offered for free from a certain law firm concerning the legal consequences of breaking a pledge to vote for the winner of their state's popular vote. Surely these were all indications of a potential Electoral College revolt.
The problem was that the press failed to report that these potential faithless Electors were all Democrats pledged to vote for Hillary Clinton.
In the end, there were a total of seven faithless Electors; the most of any presidential election. They voted for candidates like Collin Powell, John Kasich, Ron Paul, Bernie Sanders and even Faith Spotted Eagle, an American Indian tribal leader opposed to the Dakota Pipeline. But only two of these Electors were Republicans pledged to vote for Trump. Five were Democrats pledged to vote for Clinton. This means that the so-called "Hamilton Electors" of which the press trumpeted were very likely Democrats pledged to vote for Clinton all along. There never was any pending revolt of Republican Electors ready to "dump Trump."
Concerning the demand for an intelligence briefing over the alleged Russian hacking, media reporting was misleading in several respects. First, the press did its best to bury the fact that the push came from Democratic Electors, not Republicans. It would take a savvy reader some effort to discover that the originator of this demand was Christine Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi's daughter. Indeed, of the fifty five Electors demanding the briefing, only one was a Republican. Hiding the affiliation of the Electors demanding the briefing gave the impression that Electors were ready to bolt from voting Trump. In reality, there was never really any danger in that happening.
Second, the press willingly reported the so-called Russian hacking scandal in such a way as to exaggerate what the factual allegations were. The press used descriptions such as "hacking," a "foreign power" attempting to "influence the election," and the "integrity" of the "electoral system."
In fact, there has never been any allegation that the Russians ever attempted to hack into any of the state electoral boards and alter any vote count. But, by using such vague but inflammatory descriptors, the press was more than willing to have the general public conclude that the alleged hacking put the vote count in jeopardy.
What has been alleged is that the Russians hacked into the email systems of both the Democratic and Republican National Committees to steal emails. It is alleged that the Russians leaked embarrassing emails about Clinton and her staff through Wikileaks.
Thus the so-called influence was nothing more than an attempt to have an effect on the opinion of voters. Given the myriad of factors involved in the presidential campaign, it is highly doubtful that the release of embarrassing email communications had much of an effect on changing voters' minds. Quite frankly, the news emanating from the Wikileaks releases during the campaign was that there was nothing really ground-breaking from the emails. In the end, the email leaks were more hype than substance.
Surely the news of the hacking should result in an effort to bring those responsible to justice for violating criminal laws. But, it is hardly a reason to overturn a presidential election.
In fact, the news of how easily the Russians hacked into both the DNC and RNC email systems should emphasize why it was such a scandal that a sitting Secretary of State used an unsecured private server to communicate classified information. It placed such information at a high risk of being intercepted by foreign governments.
So what was the purpose of these stories which dominated the news prior to the Electoral College vote? First, there was a hope that more than thirty Republican Electors would be influenced to switch their votes and deny Trump an Electoral College victory. But that hope was misplaced. The parties choose the slate of Electors. They are chosen because of their strong loyalty to the political party. They are not chosen because they tend to be independent thinkers.
Even if the campaign to influence the Electors succeeded, the race would simply be thrown to the House of Representatives, voting by state delegations, to decide. With Republicans in control of the House, the end result would likely have still been a Trump victory.
The more important reason for the campaign to influence the Electoral College was to create a sense of illegitimacy of a Trump presidency. Trump didn't win the popular vote. He only won because of the disproportionate power given to small states by the Electoral College. Now the Electoral College failed to receive intelligence briefings of Russian interference and influence. And a record number of Electors were faithless Electors. Therefore, the stage is set to rationalize aggressive residence by the Democrats of the Trump agenda.
What is comes down to is the fact that the public was played. They were played by the Democrats eager to paint the Trump presidency as illegitimate. They were played by a press, already biased against Trump, and willing to carry the torch for the Democratic Party.
By: William J. Kovatch, Jr.
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