What if Trump Won by 10,000,000 Votes and Lost the Electoral College?

People claiming the electoral college should be abandoned have no earthly clue what they’re saying.  They see that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by a scant 500,000 or so (as of my writing this) and think that should mean she wins the presidency.  However, when you look at  the numbers more closely, what you find is that she won California and New York by a combined 4,000,000 votes (it will probably be 5,000,000 when California finally finishes counting).  Note this means across the other 48 states Trump won by over 3,500,000 votes.  Those who want to abolish the electoral college are essentially saying they want California and New York to determine the presidency every four years.  In addition, Mrs. Clinton won only 20 states and the District of Columbia.  Does it not strike any of these folks that it’s a bit odd to imagine a candidate who can’t win more than 40% of the states becoming President?   Moreover, do they not understand that all Mrs. Clinton needed in 2016 was to win Florida and Wisconsin in addition to the states she did win and she’d be President (with a razor thin 271 electoral votes)?

This is the genius of the electoral college and the reason it makes sense.  It gives each state a proportional share in deciding the presidency, rather than making it a simple popularity contest.  Every candidate knows this, which is why it matters who wins Ohio and Florida as well as Iowa and West Virginia and Montana.

What’s even more ironic about the whining is that Mrs. Clinton started the day with 185 electoral votes in her back pocket because the Northeastern states (excluding New Hampshire), Washington D.C., Illinois, the West Coast states and Hawaii are inevitably Democratic strongholds. (I don't count Pennsylvania as a Northeastern state).  She won every one of these states by a 10% margin or more.  She only needed to capture 85 more electoral votes – Florida and Wisconsin representing 39, are over half of what she needed.  Toss in Pennsylvania and Ohio and she would have had another 38, leaving her 8 short.  Given Virginia’s recent turn toward the Democrats there’s 13 putting her well over the top by just winning 19 states and D.C.!  In other words, she only needed five states beyond the 14 she had in the bag before the day started.  But she couldn’t do it. 

The electoral college insures that a president gathers votes not just where it’s easy, but also where it takes some convincing.  Shouldn’t we want the person who is president to convince people across the country that he or she is the best person for the job?  Does the vote of a farmer in Kansas or waitress in Alabama matter less than the vote of some sophisticate in New York City or some movie actor in Los Angeles?  If we get rid of the electoral college, that’s what we’re saying. 

The United States has always been a representative democracy and never a direct democracy.  Why?  Because the founders knew that direct democracy can result in what Alan Dershowitz calls the “tyranny of the majority.”  That’s exactly what the silly protesters demanding the end of the electoral college are seeking – mob rule.  Fortunately, the founders of our country put the electoral college in place to quell that impulse and provide broader and more even handed representation of all.

As I have noted on this blog many times, people who behave this way don’t think it through.  Do they not understand that if we really did get rid of the electoral college, the result might be even worse next time?  The law of unintended consequences will kick in and who knows what kind of person might become president.  Trump is bad enough, but without the electoral college, the chances some out of control demagogue could win are significantly higher.  Hitler rose to power through DEMOCRATIC  means.  Moreover, what happens when the popular vote doesn’t go your way?  What kind of stupid mantras will you come up with then?  You would have no one but yourself to blame.

Most of this protesting will quiet down within a few days because it’s not going to matter and those who are protesting will run out of energy and steam.  Much like the so-called Occupy movement from several years ago.  The petulant foot stompers who are saying “not my president” are, simply put, wrong. 

The final nail in the coffin, though, as always, is the simplest one.  Would the protesters be complaining if Trump crushed Hillary by 10,000,000 votes nationwide, and won 31 states, but she won those 19 states (and DC) and won the electoral college and, thus, the presidency?  Hmmm.  We all know the answer.

Time Lost is Time Lost - But, ah, the Time Ahead

On my desk at home are various pictures of my family in different stages of our life. 

The interesting thing is the pictures are somewhat random moments in my family’s life  - one “selfie” of my wife and me before we knew to call it a selfie (we had been married about 4 ½ months).  Others show my sons at different ages and one shows me and my four sisters on my 40^th birthday.

Why these particular pictures?  No idea.   But they got me thinking that, wow, life moves awfully quickly.  They also got me thinking about how often I waste time on the unimportant, the trivial, the silly, the downright nonsensical.  For instance, I’ve played 2239 games of Solitaire since I bought my current laptop about three years ago.  Granted, each game takes only about a minute and a half – still that adds up to 3358.50 minutes – over 56 hours – two days and 8 hours for what?  Moments of pleasure?  Sheer escapism?  Pathetic.

Imagine if I had spent 56 hours in prayer – what might have happened?  Might my prayers have been the reason someone other than The Donald and Hillary are the nominees for president?  Maybe not, but who knows?  Jesus made some pretty extravagant promises about what God would do in response to our prayers . . .  Closer to home, might those prayers have helped draw my sons closer to Christ?  How about my wife?  Me?

On the other side of the coin, I’ve been preaching through the book of Mark at a local assisted living center and have accumulated 5166 minutes on my sermon outlines  That’s 510 minutes on each chapter, or about 8 ½ hours per chapter.  That doesn’t include outside reading, prayer, and contemplation – that’s just editing time for sermon outlines.  So, I suppose, one might say it balances out.

But that’s not true, is it?  I don’t get to say to God – look bud, I’ve got almost 2000 more minutes in my review of Mark than I have in Solitaire, so don’t judge me, man!  The time is gone, whatever I’ve done with it.  Yet, don’t we tend toward that view in our Christian life?  Maybe you don’t – but I do.  I put things on scales of my own making, then try to justify my less than admirable (or downright sinful and awful) conduct with my good works.  However, God simply doesn’t work that way.  He didn’t have to give the Israelites the promised land, but he did.  He didn’t have to give them a human king, but he did.  He didn’t have to bring them back to the promised land after their extended stay in Babylon, but he did.  He didn’t have to send his Son as the promised Messiah, who would come to take the punishment for the sins of all he came to save, but he did.  He doesn’t have to return to take the faithful to heaven, but he will.

God doesn’t owe us a thing.  He isn’t obligated to balance things on the scales of justice.  We are his creation.  This blog post doesn’t get to ask me for justice.  I created it; I get to post it or not; I get to edit it or not; I get to delete it or not.  I owe it nothing.  The analogy isn’t perfect, but the point remains.  We are God’s to do with as he chooses – he is sovereign, so we don’t have any right to any justice except that which he provides to us. 

Yet, yet, yet, and this is the glorious part of it, God often graces us with mercy rather than justice.  Like with the Israelites – they didn’t deserve any of the good things they got.  The scales, if properly balanced, would have worked out against them.  Nonetheless, God put his thumb on those scales and, instead of finding the Israelites wanting, granted them grace they didn't merit. 

So, even though I’ve wasted too much time on solitaire (and other nonsense) it doesn’t mean I have to keep doing so.  Moreover, I don’t have to constantly bash myself for my stupidity.

Paul put it rightly: “but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Jesus Christ.”  Philippians 3:13 – 14.

The time lost is time lost.

But, ah, the time ahead – the prize of the upward call of God in Jesus Christ – that’s a time to anticipate and savor.  And since God has put his thumb on the scale for me by sending Jesus, I’m going to take advantage of his good grace and “press on toward the goal.”

I don’t know exactly what this means going forward, but it has to mean that I spend my time more wisely.  I can pray more; I can read my Bible more; I can witness more; I can be kinder more; I can spend more time with my family.  This doesn’t tip the scale any more than God already has, but I’ll never have to look back again and count up hours wasted.

Twenty years from now (if I have that much time), maybe I’ll see a picture on my desk and they’ll show a grizzled 53 year old at his keyboard, and I’ll say, thank God for those 3358.50 minutes in prayer.

Trump Got Trumpier (and lost an endorsement)

I recently made the case for Donald Trump because the thought of a Hillary Clinton presidency disgusts me.  Her avarice, mendacity and secular humanism drive her to grotesque positions about life, faith, and about the use (abuse) of power.  However, while the latest revelation that Trump made crude comments about women is not truly revealing or startling, Mr. Trump’s failure to make a humble and heartfelt plea that he’s changed (or trying to change) is.  I repent of my previous acceptance of Trump. 

Understand, my change of heart isn't due to the revelation that 11 years ago Trump said and/or did something crude.  Nothing in Trump's past would surprise me.  Then again, nothing from anyone’s past ought to surprise me.  My own past is not pristine.  But part of the Christian mindset has to be a willingness to forgive those who truly repent.  Whatever one might argue about George W. Bush, his bouts with alcoholism and drug use and his repentance for those failures say much of his character.  I guess I have continued to hope (obviously hopelessly) that Trump might follow a similar path, acknowledge his past sins, and ask forgiveness not only from those he specifically hurt, but of the American public in general.  Our shared American heritage derives from Christianity, whether some wish to admit this or not, and we love it when someone sincerely begs our pardon.  My Dad always told me that if Richard Nixon had immediately come forward upon learning of the Watergate break in and had apologized and demanded those who acted be brought to justice, he would have remained President.  It was the cover up, not the break in, that killed his presidency.  The truth is we Americans are a generally forgiving group and we respect sincere apologies.

Trump’s past moral failures are not, in themselves, the measure of the man – nor are anyone’s past failures the measure of them.  Thank God this is true.  Paul said that he was “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.” Philippians 3:13.  So crude remarks made years ago are, alone, an insufficient basis for rejecting his candidacy, particularly when so much is on the line.  However, Trump’s attitude is a basis for rejecting him.  My previous arguments in favor of voting for Trump did not suggest Trump’s character made him palatable; quite the opposite, I was careful to note his character was lacking.  Yet, I continued to believe that despite his character flaws, a Clinton presidency meant things that were intolerable, especially to evangelical Christians.  At least, I thought, a Trump presidency offered some glimmer of hope that some of that “basket of intolerables” Clinton clearly offered could be avoided.

Like so many others, I now find myself unable to continue defending the notion of voting for Trump.  The rift with the Republicans points to an inarguable difficulty governing.  His unwillingness to even attempt to humor us with some fake contrition suggests a lack of conscience on par with Mrs. Clinton’s.  She has blithely lied to the FBI, then lied about what the FBI was saying about her, she shrugged her shoulders about Benghazi, covered up her husband’s many indiscretions with women, made clear her contempt and disdain for those she deems beneath her, and has no regard for the value of human life, especially if that life happens to reside with a woman’s uterus.  Trump’s moral failures fall elsewhere, but they are no less egregious.

What is pathetically absurd is this was a golden opportunity for Trump to seal the deal.  If he is so impervious to the obvious, then it is clear he cannot run the country with the kind of alacrity required of the leader of the free world.  The obvious is that if he had hung his head a bit, admitted what a rotten scoundrel he had been in the past, claimed to have changed (or at least offered that he was working hard on becoming a better man), all would have been forgiven except by those who wouldn’t vote for him anyway.  Plus, it would make Clinton’s shenanigans look even more despicable because she’ll never take that step.  This was a GIFT, not a disaster.

Unfortunately, Trump just got Trumpier.  He tweets more.  He blames more.  He disparages more.  He overblows more.  He scowls more.  And he just lost at least one more vote.

I suggest we add this word to the language: trumpier: adjective – Describing the quality of making a situation worse by doing the opposite of what would ordinarily be helpful.  (Joe lost his cool when the officer told him to stop talking.  Instead of shutting up, he got trumpier and got himself arrested over a simple speeding ticket).

Reconsidering Never Trump - More Reconsideration

I am updating this in light of Erick Erickson's screed of 9/21/16.

Mr. Erickson is not a very good theologian and ought to be careful how he cites Scripture.  He cites 1 Corinthians 5:11-13, and 2 Thessalonians 3:6, which both consider the relationship among Christians, not Christian duties to the state, as having some impact on our association with Trump.  This simply doesn't follow.  It's bad exegesis of the text.  Then, oddly he argues too many Christians are engaging in a form of syncretism, blending their patriotism and Christianity when just moments earlier one of his arguments against Trump was that his campaign is un-American.  Huh?  He suggests there are "sparks of apostasy" among those who argue because God chose bad men to do His work, we can choose bad men to represent us in the government.  While I agree with Erickson this isn't very good argumentation (it's apples and oranges), the truth is God DID use bad men to do his will.  How is that Mr. Erickson has such a bead on God's mind that he KNOWS Trump could not possibly fit this category?  Forgetting this, how does Mr. Erickson have such prescience that he feels utterly comfortable concluding Trump will be such a disaster?  Maybe, maybe not.

Finally, my main problem with Mr. Erickson is his holier than thou attitude.  He wags his finger at any Christian who might consider voting for Trump as if it's right out of Scripture that to vote for Trump is sin.  His website posted Glenn Beck's agreement with him (odd, since Beck's a Mormon - see my arguments below about Mitt Romney).  He suggests the following: Christians are choosing to ignore it [his bad quotes to the above Scripture] because they have convinced themselves they are not electing a priest, but a President."  Yet, as noted below via link to statements by Russell Moore and Al Mohler, that is precisely true.  Moreover, his screed wholly ignores how our system of government works and the reality that our government is, after all, a secular endeavor, not a religious one.  Many of my Southern Baptist brethren, notably, Denny Burk and Russell Moore, have, likewise, made absolutely clear their utter disdain for Donald Trump.  I get it.  Trump has numerous character flaws which make him a miserable candidate.  I respect both men for their stands, even when I disagree.  Neither, however, has made the kind of bad arguments Mr. Erickson has made and neither is acting out of any sort of self-promotion.

That said, some of the arguments many NeverTrump folks are making simply don’t work.  I’ll try to engage several here.

One of the most glaringly bad arguments is the between two evils, choose neither argument (the phrase being often attributed to Charles Spurgeon – which may well be true).  Why is this such a weak argument?  It elevates principle to a place from which it offers no method to work in any realistic kind of application.  It’s a proverb, not a biblical mandate, and should be taken as such.

Let me give an example.  If I tell my 17 year old son he should abstain from sex except when married because the Bible says so, I have given him an appropriate principle which he should follow.  But to leave it there gives him no sense of why that principle matters.  Divorcing the principle from the practical fails every time.  I have to explain to him that sex before marriage could produce a child he and his girlfriend aren’t ready to have; that sex before marriage involves an emotional commitment that neither he nor she is truly cognizant exists and that will cause either or both of them to reduce sex to a purely physical involvement which it was never meant to be; that it could result in one or the other of them deciding the other didn’t meet their standard, requiring further and deeper exploration which will never satisfy.  The practical implications are that we are always choosing between two evils.  Many who say they will never vote for Trump were perfectly fine voting for Mitt Romney (read here: Mohler and Moore Seem Okay with Mitt Romney in 2012).  Yet, let’s be clear here: Mitt Romney is a devout Mormon, who holds to a theology that is absolutely antithetical to Christianity.  His theology drives people away from salvation through Christ, not toward it.  As such, Mitt Romney is therefore evil.  YES, evil.  Yet Drs. Mohler and Moore both were perfectly fine arguing things like the president isn’t supposed to be a theologian.  I agree and voted for Romney, despite the evil that is Mormonism.  I chose between the evil of Romney’s Mormonism and the evil of Obama’s utter secular faith because I wasn’t voting for someone to guide me in my faith – I was voting for someone to run the secular government.

Secondly, the NeverTrump argument misconstrues the nature of our system of government.  Our government was designed to be secular.  It was never intended to be and is not a theocracy and, moreover, doesn’t require Christian candidates. While I don’t agree with nonsensical organizations like the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which mischaracterize the First Amendment as requiring a complete divorce of religious belief from public life, there is no question that the men who wrote the Constitution intended religious belief to be adjunct to and not a direct part of governance.  Because our government is secular in its operation, Christians ought to assume the worst and expect the best of political candidates.  In other words, most of the time political candidates will not come close to passing any sort of Christian “litmus” test because they’re secular sinners.  We have absurd expectations and should stop wondering why these political candidates almost never measure up to biblical standards.  I am not arguing that we have no standards, but the system that is in place offers up who it offers up.  Each of us can and should do what we can do, but there comes a point where all we have left is our vote for President – at that point, there is an inevitability that our true choice will be limited to the Democratic and Republican candidates (no third party candidate has won the presidency since 1860 and that was the first and only time).

Third, there’s an old song by the rock band Rush called Freewill.  One of the lyrics goes like this: if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.  This presents another problem for those in the NeverTrump camp.  If you decide you will not vote for Trump there are three options: vote for Hillary Clinton, vote for some third party candidate, or don’t vote.  The result of doing any one of the three if too many do so is Hillary Clinton is the next president.  Hillary Clinton is an utterly unacceptable presidential candidate for Christians for at least one simple reason: abortion.  She used to be heard saying abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.”  When’s the last time you heard her say that?  2008 would be my guess.  She’s now become an unapologetic advocate for abortion at any time, for any reason, under any circumstance, for anyone, at any place.  Additionally, she lied to either Congress or the FBI (or both) about her emails, has lied about her health, and has proved she is equally and perhaps even more mendacious than her husband.  Moreover her “what difference does it make” statement to Congress in reference to the Benghazi massacre proves an arrogance and condescension of barbaric enormity. She trumps Trump for lack of character by leaps and bounds.

The NeverTrump folks will say, so what?  Hillary Clinton’s shortcomings are not a principled reason to vote for Trump.  Yet, this is precisely where our system of governance lands us – we are constantly called upon to examine both candidates and make a reasoned determination between them.  Something has to guide our effort, even if that something is a sort of bottom line pragmatism that sifts through the worst of each one and sees how much bad is left after the sifting.  If that makes you feel nauseated, I understand and agree.  However, you are placing more on our system than is reasonable or possible when you expect candidates will line up with our Christian views.  That’s not what the system was designed to do.

Fourth, the nature of our federal system inevitably created binary choices for president rather than many choices.  The original debate was how much power the national government should have: the Federalists (those who wanted more power for the national government) won out with Jefferson’s election.  Madison, who followed, was a primary architect of this view.  Ever since that time, the main argument between political candidates, particularly presidential candidates, has been about how much power the national government ought to exercise over the states or, more basically, how much power the national government should exercise, period.  Generally speaking, Democrats say more, Republicans say less.  So your only real choices are between the two major party candidates.  Recall Ross Perot’s ill-fated runs in 1992 and 1996.  He won sizable portions of the popular vote but won exactly ZERO electoral votes.  Third party candidates don’t win – your choice is Hillary or Trump.

Finally, just because you “vote your conscience” or “voted on principle” doesn’t mean you get a pass when the consequences roll in.  If you do something that helps Hillary Clinton become president, you don’t get to sit by and wash your hands of it and act like you are not complicit.  Two or three more of “The Notorious RBG” (Ruth Bader Ginsburg) on the Supreme Court will result in devastating losses of free speech and freedom of religion.  That alone may be sufficient reason to consider Trump.  Moreover, there is a principle behind this – keeping freedom to “exercise” religion as a First Amendment right (not the ridiculous and unconstitutional “freedom to worship” often touted by President Obama).  Recent events in Iowa and Massachusetts presage a time when preaching the whole counsel of the Bible anywhere but at a pulpit of a church whose doors are open only to members will be illegal.  That time will come sooner rather than later under a Hillary Clinton presidency.

Vote your conscience (or don’t vote to appease your conscience) but please stop acting as if those who will vote for Trump are somehow missing something.  Maybe it’s you who needs to re-evaluate?