We may have that magic wand.
Quick background on me — while I’ve lurked here at DKos for years and did join a long time ago, I’m not an active commenter or diarist. So you don’t know me.
In my day job, I run a company that is constantly negotiating vendor contracts, competing with larger and better equipped competitors, innovating in our niche to differentiate ourselves, operating under a constantly changing regulatory environment, and making decisions that have short and long term consequences for our company. I don’t often make the wrong decision.
I say all that to try to get across the following point — I’ve gamed out what I say below, and I think it can work. What I say below is essentially the text of a comment I made earlier today in another diary. I’ve been advocating for this strategy for days in comments and stories. Parallel to my efforts, this concept has started to get some traction in the wider world — change.org, HuffPost, etc. But the change.org petition, while garnering millions of signatures, advocates giving the election to Hillary Clinton. I think that result is a non-starter for the below process to work. But if the below strategy is to work, it needs to go viral, and quick, to gather the momentum necessary to have a chance.
And for all those who, like in some other comments in earlier diaries I’ve done on this topic, want to exclaim “Impossible!” or “Never work!” or tell me about the civil war this would start, I’d politely offer the following: If you want to throw in the towel, go ahead. I see a constitutionally enshrined route to correcting this historic error produced by our system. And while I think the hyperbole of “civil war” is pretty far out there, I’ll tell you this… I would welcome a bunch of pissed off Trump supporters, and whatever they might do if he wasn’t crowned, over the alternative — which becomes more real every day that goes by. The architects of our constitution were smart enough to provide this fail-safe mechanism, and if we don’t at least TRY to use it. Well, then maybe we deserve what we get.
No one has lost the Electoral College... yet. That vote is in December.
I'd suggest, if we truly want to do something besides complain about what needs to get changed in our electoral process or how we reunite the Democratic party, we get busy trying to use the existing options still available us — the electoral college. Get the sane people of this country rallying around a compromise candidate that enough EC electors could vote for to deny trump 270, then get the election to the house, where each states delegation gets one vote to choose among the top three vote-getters in the EC vote. Trump, Clinton , or compromise candidate #3.
Personally, I'd welcome a non climate denying centrist R right now. I know, the field is small to choose from. I’d take Mitt Romney in a heartbeat.
We lost the horse race, so I'm not expecting Repubs to vote in a Dem. But I'd welcome handing them a do-over for their pick. Crucial point to get popular opinion and pressure on EC for a compromise candidate that enough Democrats would back in the House to have the election decided there.
It’s all spelled out in the constitution, check it out.
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