Let’s begin October with a little bit of meta!
I made a timelapse drawing video for this cartoon.
In 2019, Donald Trump tweeted about the idea of abolishing the electoral college:
….just the large States – the Cities would end up running the Country. Smaller States & the entire Midwest would end up losing all power – & we can’t let that happen. I used to like the idea of the Popular Vote, but now realize the Electoral College is far better for the U.S.A.
Although most people would say it with more coherent syntax, this is a vera popular argument in defense of the Electoral College: Without it, small states would lose all power.
Except the Electoral College really, really obviously doesn’t give small states power. It gives swing states power; the seven or so states that could go either way get an enormous amount of attention from Presidential candidates. But most small states aren’t swing states. Jamelle Bouie wrote:
Totaling the 2016 numbers, Sam Wang, a molecular biologist at Princeton who also runs a widely read election website, found that out of almost 400 campaign stops made after the conventions, neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump made appearances in Arkansas, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, the Dakotas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia or Vermont. It doesn’t matter that Trump won millions of votes in New Jersey or that Hillary Clinton won millions in Texas. If your state is reliably red or blue, you are ignored.
The actual reason Republicans support the Electoral College is obvious: Democrats have won the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections. That is the only real reason – and it’s one they’re loathe to say aloud.
A lot of political cartoon humor comes from exactly this – people saying things aloud that they’d never say in real life.
The drawing in this cartoon is nothing special – two people walking through a park while arguing is something I’ve drawn a lot. But I really had fun drawing it. Sometimes I draw and it feels like I’ve forgotten how to draw. Not this time; I just had fun drawing every element of this, and I barely had to redraw anything. And the final results look good to me.
Panel three is the simplest panel, but also the one I’m happiest with. That face just looks good to me.
TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON
This cartoon has four panels, plus an additional tiny “kicker” panel under the bottom of the cartoon. All four panels feature two characters who are walking through a park and talking.
The first character is a woman with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, wearing a red tank top and jeans. Let’s call her TANKTOP. The second character is a businessman-looking man, wearing round glasses and a blue suit. Let’s call him SUIT.
PANEL 1
Tanktop and Suit are walking though a hilly park. Tanktop looks a little angry and is lecturing Suit, who seems calmer. Suit is walking in front of Tanktop, so he’s facing away from her.
TANKTOP: Conservatives say we need the Electoral College so small states won’t be ignored – but since the ten smallest states aren’t swing states, the Electoral
College guarantees they get ignored!
SUIT: I’m so sick of this argument.
PANEL 2
A close up of Suit, who is looking very annoyed.
SUIT: IT’s true our arguments for the Electoral College make zero sense! And they’re anti-Democracy! Who cares? It doesn’t matter if we make sense!
PANEL 3
An even closer close-up of Suit, who finally turns back to look at Tanktop as he speaks. His expression is angry and intense.
SUIT: With the Electoral College, we can lose the vote and still win the presidency! We will never let voters decide, because then we’d have less power, and power is all we care about! How do you not know that?
PANEL 4
Suit has turned away from Tanktop again and the two continue walking. Both of them have returned to speaking in ordinary tones, although Tanktop still looks annoyed.
TANKTOP: I did know, but I’m shocked you’re saying it aloud.
SUIT: Well, don’t forget this is a cartoon.
TINY KICKER PANEL UNDER THE BOTTOM OF THE CARTOON
Suit is talking to Barry the Cartoonist.
SUIT: I will never, ever, ever turn against the Electoral College! Unless Texas turns blue.
CHICKEN FAT WATCH
“Chicken fat” is an outdated cartoonists’ term for little details in a comic that don’t mean anything but are hopefully fun.
PANEL 1: Beaker from the Muppets is peeking out of a hole in a tree.
A sign in the background says “KEEP OFF THE GRASS (ink may smear).”
PANEL 2: A bird flying in the background has a cat head. (In the sense of its own head being feline, not in the sense that it’s carrying a decapitated cat’s head).
PANEL 4: An evil bunny smoking a cigarette is sticking its head out of a hole in the ground. In the foreground, a friendly looking pig wearing a fedora is glancing out towards the readers. On the path, a bored looking snail is on top of a tiny skateboard, and an ant is riding on top of the snail.
In panel one, Tanktop’s tattoo was a coffee mug with a smiley face on it. In this panel, the coffee mug has fallen on its side, spilling coffee, and the face on the mug is distressed.
The place where small states really exercise outsize power is not the electoral college, but the Senate – it´s quite possible for a coalition of states representing 13% of the population to exercise an effective veto via filibuster. And given that those states are almost all republican aligned, it isn´t just possible, it happens quite a bit.
But as weak as the move to reform the electoral college is, I´ve never heard any discussion of reforming the senate beyond the most pointy-headed academic exercises, so, I don´t even know why I am bringing this up, really.
Here´s something that is a bit more relevant – does the Republican party as it currently exist, exist largely because it´s exactly the sort of party that can effectively game the electoral college? Given that the electoral college (and more generally, the American political system) gives an inbuilt bias to a certain set of actors, is it that surprising that those actors eventually coalesce around their shared opportunity to exploit the hack that was provided to them? In a sense the two main American parties may be regarded as the party that succeeds because of the biases of the electoral system, and the party that succeeds (sometimes) by overcoming those biases through popular mobilisation.