An old man thinking about his political future in San Jacinto

 

Ian Kershaw (who wrote a highly acclaimed biography of Hitler) is quoted in Wikipedia as saying that defining Fascism is like nailing jelly to the wall, and yet modern critics of modern Republican politicians apply that term with aplomb.  It has in effect become a modern curse-word, plucked out of history, without serious modern meaning.  The safest definition involves leaving it in its historical setting and applying it to the political practices of Hitler and Mussolini, and time has rolled them both up and placed them in the historical waste basket.   Hitler with his remarkable intelligence and political power had nevertheless received little formal education.  His desire to conquer Europe would have been understandable by many of the powerful monarch of the middle-ages, but no practical modern politician would seek such a goal.  We see the weakness of something similar in Putin's desire to restore the Russian empire.  The leaders of various of the former national entities that had broken away from the USSR after its collapse have for the most part no desire to abandon their own political interests and allow Putin to incorporate them back into a moribund Russia.

The invention of the printing press altered or undercut all the old ways.   Wars had historically been fought over matters of religion.  One had to adhere to the religion of one's monarch or potentially be declared a heretic and executed.  But once copies of the Bible were printed by Gutenberg, any intellectual who was interested could read the language and have an opinion that might well be counter to the official teachings of Rome, and as time went on, Protestant intellectuals countered the teachings of both Calvin and Luther as well.  So fragmented has Christian doctrine become that the declaring of a single teaching has become so impracticable that it has been determined to be against the law in the West.  A Western state can no longer establish an official religion. 

Politics is sort of moving in the same direction as religion.  But whereas it is possible for an individual to declare that he or she is an atheist, it is not possible for an individual to declare that he does not believe in politics -- or is it?  Well, it sort of seems so.  At various times small groups opt out of society in some form as (sort of) happened during the Vietnam War when people were urged to make love and not war.  The actual political forces that made actual decisions (both Democrat and Republican) made war anyway.  But again, Gutenberg's press (in its modern iteration in the Internet and rapid world communication) is making war less convenient, and in the midst of turmoil that in earlier times (as happened in fairly recent times when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor) there was the opera Nixon in China.  Forget about the precise motivations which shifted and still shift about regarding that opera.  Its words, and in this case also its music altered (or was a symbol of the alteration) of the relationship between the U.S. and China, and even today when it seems the two nations are at serious odds with each other (and China no longer officially appreciates that opera) war between the two, given their economic involvement with each other, seems almost untenable.   Will China invade Taiwan?  Perhaps it wants to, but it is almost certainly trying to figure out a way to do it without going to war against America, and most likely America's current allies, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Australia and perhaps a few more in Southeast Asia.

Francis Fukuyama perhaps over-enthusiastically after the collapse of the Soviet Union, saw Liberal Democracy as having a clear path to becoming the dominate economy practiced by the rest of the world.  Fukuyama has been written off as being wrong since wars continue, but he didn't say wars would stop.  The opponents of Liberal Democracy are autocrats that are examples of Fukuyama's Last Man, leaders Thomas Carlyle would have recognized with more approval than most in the West now do -- people whose ambitions override the practicality of becoming a Liberal Democracy.  Putin, for example, isn't willing to abandon the glory that the Russian Empire once achieved.  Will a resurgent Russian Empire gather up many of the elements lost after the 1989 collapse of Communism?  We will see.  Russia may well impoverish itself in its war with Ukraine, and even if it wins some part of Ukraine at the end, it may be a Pyrrhic victory.  Other parts of the former USSR are gearing up to resist Putin, and NATO a previously paper tiger, is taking Russia's ambitions seriously and even if Russia takes back most of the Russian speaking part of the Ukraine as Samuel P. Huntington assumed in his Clash of Civilizations, they probably won't get most of those who speak Ukrainian. 

Back in China, the war with Chiang Kai-Shek is still sharp in the memory of many Chinese still alive today.  When Chiang moved his army to Formosa, Mao's forces weren't able to do anything to dislodge him.  Can Mao's political descendants now accomplish the task?  Not without something like suicidal results, results something like Putin is risking in his Quixotic quest to restore a Russia Empire. 

Meanwhile here in the U.S., can we afford to oppose all the autocrats that defy Fukuyama's prediction that Liberal Democracy is sure to win out over all the other superseded forms of government in the world?   Samuel Huntington, if he were alive today might be surprised at many of our modern choices.  I don't think he would have approved of our siding with Ukraine militarily.  He thought the Russian speaking part of Ukraine might logically become part of Russia, but the Ukrainian-speaking part would probably ally itself to the West.  Whatever happened, Huntington didn't, in my opinion, envision our going to war in opposition to Russia over Ukraine.  He saw Russia as being the Core nation in the Slavic world, and believed we should not interfere with Russia's choices, just as Russia shouldn't interfere with the core nation in the West, namely the U.S. in matters within the Western enclave of nations.   And, he would have said the same thing about our commitment to Taiwan, because China is the core nation in the Asian enclave of nations.

I am still fond of Samuel P. Huntington.  He wrote about the ongoing clashes of civilization, and now, living in the later results of such clashes, I wonder if we can afford to clash as much as some politicians would like.  Oh, I'm sure we can do it by printing more money to pay for our military expenditures (if China continues to like such an investment).   However, back here in San Jacinto, I recently turned 90 and my doctors seem to think I'm going to live several years longer, so I'm wondering if my retirement package, which seemed more than adequate in 1999 when after 39 years in aerospace I retired, will last as long as I do.  Should I look forward to making it to 100 as my doctors are encouraging me to anticipate, or should I take stock of our commitment as world policeman and decide I can't afford it?

States Rights and the Electoral College

       
If we were forming a new government today, would include the EC?  I believe so.  We are a nation composed of states.  States have always been important.  In the beginning there were only states; then there was an advantage to having a limited centralized government to deal with foreign governments, fight off pirates, Indians, Britain, France, Spain, etc.  But the rights of states were never to be infringed.  [see our Tenth Amendment:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution ]

The nature of our union at the beginning was a collection of states and that hasn't changed.  Implied in your argument is the idea that states are as anachronistic as the EC.  For if you invite us to form a new government to see if we would choose to have an Electoral college or not, you are putting us back to being individual, independent states, and if we went back to that we would very likely have several states saying that they don't trust the centralized government enough to form a union.  The big reason the states were willing to give up some of their powers in the formation of the United States is because of the threat of the invasion by England.  Some modern states might calculate and decide they can defend themselves against any foreseeable threat and prefer to remain independent.

It may not seem important to non-Americans, but States still have their separate identities and will not go willingly into oblivion.  Part of the deal was that despite not having as many people as the big states like Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia, they would get a minimum number of electoral votes, just as they would get two senators, and an additional number based upon a formula derived from population.   The small states became part of the Union with the understanding that their rights would not be infringed and they were especially interested in their role in the national government. 

In the beginning electors voted for two people and the one with the most votes became president.  The one with the second most votes became vice president.  As it happened however the vice president always got as many votes as the president so a Constitutional Change was required.  The 12th amendment was created to deal with this matter.  https://www.google.com/search?q=12th+amendment&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

The smaller states exude some sour grapes over this amendment because it lessened their power.  It was a big deal when they got to gather around with the big states' electors and decide who was going to be president and who vice president.   In fact that is how Jefferson became president and Burr vice president.  It was a close call.  There could have been a President Burr instead of a President Jefferson.  But after the 12th amendment that couldn't happen.  The various parties would decide that in advance.  This lessened the power of the electors and gave those wanting to ban them a bit of ammunition:  "since they aren't as important as they used to be let's get rid of them altogether."

The states are still jealous of their individual powers, whittled away though they have been by the Supreme Court and various central government administrations.   But thanks to the Founding Fathers the powers and individual rights of the states cannot all be swept away.  A state cannot seize to exist any more than it can leave the union without significant difficulties.  And, it should be known that the small states still resent the larger states telling them what to do.  And as our nation has developed so many cities with such huge concentrations of people, the small rural-type town as well as states especially resent being told what to do by people who live in big cities and big states.

What you are proposing is in effect telling small states that since they don't have as many people as larger states their previous guarantee of a certain number of electors is hereby revoked.  Popular vote henceforth will trump the guarantees given states under the constitution.  They will not have as big a voice in the selection of the chief executive as hitherto.

Here is what it would take to get rid of the electoral college:  (1) it requires a constitutional amendment.  (2) Any constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate and (3) the ratification of three-fourths (38) of the 50 states.  In some future (Democratic administration; since they (traditionally) own the big cities)  one can imagine the house and senate voting to end the EC, but what could induce the small states to vote away this power?   Can you imagine them saying, "Come on big cities and big states, you take all the power and rule over us.  We are an anachronism and shouldn't have as much power in the central government as we used to."

Our Founding Fathers, when they created the Constitution and Bill of Rights, strove to balance the powers of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government such that not only could no branch rule over the other branches but that the states and individual citizens should not have their rights infringed.  They did not build into the constitution the ability of the centralized government to infringe the rights of the individual states.  See our tenth amendment:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

Our constitution did not specifically deny the right of a state to secede.  During our Civil War 16th states seceded.  The Supreme Court declared that each state by joining the union made their part in the Union unalterable except by a change in the constitution.  The various secessionist movements in the U.S. seem to concede that:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secession_in_the_United_States  

California's Independence movement

1860 was not the first time states wanted so secede from the union.  The first such movement, while not successful, was what Henry Adams called a "conspiracy" in 1804.  Back then everyone, both Republicans and Federalists interpreted the constitution literally and many of the major thinkers and leaders in both parties believed that the Louisiana Purchase violated the constitution in that the constitution made no provision for the acquisition of new territory.  Pickering of the Federalist party attempted to get New England Federalist behind a move to leave the union (not for that reason but because the Virginian-led Republicans won the national election and had control of congress).  He argued that while secession was difficult under the constitution, the acquisition of Louisiana made that constitution null and void; therefore the New England states led by Massachusetts and New York should secede from the Union.   Jefferson and his Republicans (led by Virginia) had defeated the Federalists at every turn; so it was time to break away and form an independent nation.


Pickering and others involved in the secessionist "conspiracy" chose Aaron Burr as their champion.  Hamilton was also for secession but in the sense that Fukuyama has been for the success throughout the world of Liberal Democracy.  That is, Fukuyama believes it is going to happen but he refused to join an activist group (the Neocons) who tried to hasten that process.  Hamilton, perhaps as disgruntled as Fukuyama was while the activists were making hay, said and wrote some things Aaron Burr took offense at, a duel resulted, Hamilton was killed, Burr was discredited, and the Conspiracy of the New England secessionists was ended. 


The California secessionist movement seems from the little I know about it equally Quixotic.  This is from one of the Wikipedia article discussing how California might secede from the Union:  http://heavy.com/news/2016/11/calexit-how-states-california-could-secede-from-the-union-after-donald-trump-victory-can-leave-us-hillary-clinton-results/


The first step to California (or any state for that matter) seceding from the Union is likely a ballot measure for voters. There is already a group called Yes California pushing for a referendum on Californian independence, noting that the state would be the sixth-largest economy in the world if it were its own country. 

Getting the referendum on the ballot and winning in an election might be the easiest part of this procedure. As Yes California notes, there are two possible next steps. First, a member of California’s congressional delegation could propose an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to allow California to leave. The Amendment needs to pass two-thirds of the House and senate and then be approved by at least 38 of 50 states. 

A second possible path after a referendum would be California calling for a states convention, where two-thirds of the delegates from 50 states approve it. If it passes, it would still need to be ratified by 38 of the 50 state legislatures. 


However, if I understand matters correctly, this movement originated because Hillary Clinton won the popular vote despite loosing the electoral college vote.  In looking at the vote count at http://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president  we see that Hillary Clinton's popular vote tally is 62,523,126, of which 5,589,936 came from California.  Donald Trump on the other hand had a popular vote tally of 61,201,031 of which 3,021,095 came from California.   If California had successfully seceded before this election took place Donald Trump would have won the popular vote as well as the electoral college vote.  If we subtract California's votes, Hillary Clinton would have 56,933,190 popular votes to Trump's 58,179,936 (assuming my math is sound).   Thus, it would seem to me, the Democratic states would have more reason for opposing California's secession than the Republican states. 

On Trump's lack of experience

All of our founding fathers were inexperienced.   It is being tossed about that Trump will be the first president who hasn't either served in government or been a general.  But let us look at George Washington, our first president.  He was indeed a general.  He had charge of the continental army, but when whoever it was that created the above choice created it, I suspect he had Eisenhower in mind when they thought "general."  Eisenhower managed the Western Forces during the final defeat of Hitler.  He had a huge challenging job.  Washington on the other hand managed a small ill-equipped sometimes starving collection of farmers.  He was more like a guerilla leader than a general.  He was indeed challenged, but to keep his men alive during a cold winter, not to something like managing an invasion into France.  Trump building up a billion dollar empire probably has more useful experience than Washington had before he became president.  Of course there wasn't that much for Washington to do, relatively.  Still . . .

Our second president, John Adams had about as much experience as anyone back then, but he wasn't a big personality like Washington or Jefferson and became our first one-term president.   If we make allowances for the times, Adams could be said to have a lot more experience than Trump but because Trump has a Jefferson-type personality, if he pulls off the few things he promised to do, e.g., slow-down the influx of illegal aliens, slow-down the outsourcing of jobs to foreign countries, fix or improve Obamacare, get a conservative judge appointed to the supreme court, the voters will probably appreciate his efforts and vote him in for a second term.  Adams was of the Federalist party and became the last Federalist president.  He was competent, some would argue more competent than Jefferson.  For example he wanted to build up an army and a navy and did get several warships built.  Jefferson when he became president didn't want an army and tried to get the warships put into a dry-dock.  Adams was right.  War at that time couldn't be avoided.  A well trained U.S. army would have been a big help in the War of 1812.  Jefferson was president from 1801 to 1809 and was directly responsible for the army and navy we had (or mostly didn't have) to face the British three years after Jefferson left office.

Jefferson wasn't a general but he was governor of Virginia for two years, America's first Secretary of State under Washington, and Adam's vice president.  However, we did not have a strong centralized government back then.  The individual states took care of their own problems.  The U.S. government took care of the big stuff like wars and international relations.  On paper it might look like Jefferson had a lot of experience but everything back then was new and in constant change.  He figured things out as he went along and he wasn't always right.

Jefferson along with Madison and a few others wrote political articles building up to the declaring of independence.   But theorist though he was, many of his ideas were naive.  He thought the union needed neither an army nor a navy.  He thought a few thousand soldiers to keep the Indians at bay was all we needed, certainly nothing on the order of a European army.  He thought by threatening to withhold goods needed by European nations he could keep them from threatening or invading the U.S.

As to Bush invading Iraq without knowing the difference between Sunni and Shia sects (although he had advisors who could have told him the difference), Jefferson did something similar.   Back in his day pirates made a good living by capturing ships, holding them and their passengers for ransom and only allowing a nation's shipping to proceed if it paid a price  At first Jefferson accepted that arrangement and paid, but the pirates increased their demands and being the frugal fellow he was (with the government's money, not his own), he sent one of the ships he inherited from Adam's administration out to do battle.  The ship's captain and its fighting force (Marines) exceeded expectations and defeated the Barbary pirates, a victory that redounded to Jefferson's credit.  Yes Jefferson's efforts were successful while Bush's were less so, but Jefferson had very little to do with this success.  A small fledgling naval force equipped with some fledgling Marines defeated some Barbary pirates.  Hurrah for Jefferson!  Bush wanted to retaliate for the bombing of the twin towers and went after everyone his intelligence people told him were "probably" involved.  Boo on Bush. 

Well, someone once said something like "success favors the prepared mind," and Jefferson's mind was more prepared than Bush's -- although "prepared" isn't probably an appropriate word.  Jefferson was highly educated for his time and place.  He was truly a deep thinker.  An example is the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon.  Napoleon had denied the American's the use of the harbor at New Orleans.  A lot of American shipping needed to use that harbor and a lot of Americans wanted to go to war to restore access.  Maybe if Bush had been president we would have gone to war.  But Jefferson delayed, put people off, kept delaying and finally told Livingston (ambassador to France I think) to offer to buy New Orleans.  He then sent James Monroe (another Virginian) to France to help Livingston.  Neither Jefferson nor any one else involved from the U.S. thought Napoleon would sell New Orleans.  This was just one more delaying tactic, but Napoleon had been having some problems.  The center for his colonial operations in the Americas was at St. Domingo.  The blacks living there were freed during the French revolution.  Napoleon ordered that they be re-enslaved and they revolted.  The French force trying to enslave them was mostly wiped out from disease.  When Napoleon finally faced the fact that St. Domingo was lost to him, he reasoned that if he couldn't use St. Domingo to manage Louisiana then he didn't need that territory.  Thus, when Livingston approached Napoleon's minister and asked to buy New Orleans, the minister said, "only if you buy all of the Louisiana territory as well."  If I remember right Livingston was authorized to pay about $8,000,000 for New Orleans.  The final payment for the Louisiana territory was $15,000,000.  At first Livingston argued, "can't we just buy New Orleans?"

Henry Adams thought that Livingston didn't get enough credit for the Louisiana Purchase.  If you look at the territory involved it is huge -- not as much territory as the states perhaps but nearly so:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Purchase#/media/File:Louisiana_Purchase.png  American politicians were not initially pleased.  Livingston's career suffered, but eventually Jefferson,  Monroe but mostly Jefferson were credited with a brilliant coup.   We know they didn't really cause it, but Jefferson, perhaps because of who he was, put himself and his people in a position for this to happen.  They needed to be there when the mercurial Napoleon decided he wanted to sell the Louisiana territory. 

As a side note, the Louisiana territory wasn't really Napoleon's to sell.  He received it from Spain with the stipulation that he would not sell it.  The Spanish gave Talleyrand a bit of a bad time, but Spain was a long way from having the power to come to blows with Napoleon, so this illegal sale was allowed to stand.

I don't know if Trump will do good things or not.  I only started reading about him after the election.  I'm especially interested in what his intentions are with Russia.  I'm reminded of Samuel P. Huntington's thesis that each "civilization" (civilization as it is defined by some scientists he invokes) has a "core" leader.  The "core" leader of the Western Civilization is the U.S.  The "core" leader of the "Orthodox" [at least I think that was what he called it -- meaning the nations who adhere more or less to Orthodox Christianity] is Russia.  If indeed Trump as the leader of the West met with Putin as the leader the Orthodox, and if they did it in agreement with Huntington's theories, we might indeed have an interesting future.  I can imagine it taking a ruthless turn in Syria and perhaps some of Russia's border states.  Perhaps Putin won't feel a need to move his nuclear weapons closer to Europe. 

Trump and Executive power

I'm 254/300 through Jefferson's first term in Henry Adams history.  Adams has quite a lot to say about the executive position.  Jefferson like Trump believed in a small, not very powerful central government.  He favored the preservation of State's rights.  Ironically, Adams writes, there was no one in either the Senate or the House with as much competence, force, ability etc as Jefferson.  And so Jefferson assumed the power that he argued against in order to do what he believed was necessary.  And the House & Senate, peopled by lesser folk, supported him.  In his day the opposing party was the Federalists and Jefferson's resounding victory over them ended them as a party.  It is hard to believe something like that happening today.  Democrats or Republicans might lose but they are too well established to end.  John Adams, the Federalist (one-term) president who preceded Jefferson did one finally thing before he left the presidency, something that preserved Federalism.  He appointed John Marshall head of the supreme court.  Marshall was another powerful personality like Jefferson.  Marshall was a Federalist who didn't mind legislating from the Supreme Court.

And so the idea that the Democratic Party had some power over Hillary Clinton, power to approve or deny her the ability to run for President doesn't ring true in the Jefferson/Marshall sense.  She was too big a personality to be controlled.  Was Trump also too big?  I frankly haven't been following politics for a long time so I don't know.  He is either the truest Republican who has come along in a long time or he has made some very clever decisions about what to do during his first term, especially, reduce immigration, negotiate with businesses by means of tax incentives to do their business here in the U.S. and thus keep more jobs here (something some important swing states will especially appreciate), and reduce taxes.  He also intends to appoint conservative judges to the supreme court, judges who will do less legislating of the sort that Marshall did, judges who favor decentralizing power (something Marshall did not favor), that is restoring more power to the States.  An early test case may be Row vs Wade.  The right of abortion may be left to the individual states rather than dictated as it is now by Central Government, i.e., the supreme court.  

As to giving Trump guidance, that may be difficult.  If he is the huge personality that he seems to be (something on the order of a Jefferson or a Marshall), he may just hire the "reason' and "guidance" his non-political background has denied him.

Abolition of all internal taxes

The British tax people have discovered of a new tax source.  The smiling face of the head tax man Phillip Hammond appearing prominently in this article:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/19/revealed-treasury-to-announce-tax-raid-on-work-perks-enjoyed-by/?WT.mc_id=e_DM225451&WT.tsrc=email&etype=Edi_FAM_New_AEM_Recipient&utm_source=email&utm_medium=Edi_FAM_New_AEM_Recipient_2016_11_20&utm_campaign=DM225451

I thought of the Beatles song while reading it.  By coincidental contrast I've been reading Henry Adams First Administration of Jefferson.  Jefferson was a Republican who didn't believe in a strong executive, the examples of strong monarch's in European nations were too powerful a threat for him to think otherwise, and yet there he was, President of the United States, and someone needed to be in charge.  He wasn't being hypocritical in exercising more power than he believed the U.S. president ought to have, but in doing what he believed was right he was indeed exercising the power available to him as president.  In 1801 he did something that would be anathema to Phillip Hammond.  He abolished all internal taxes.

Actually what Jefferson did would be anathema to most American politicians as well.  Maybe modern day Republicans would lean a bit more in his direction, but they wouldn't abolish all internal taxes.  Trump as Bush (the younger) and Reagan before him intends to lower taxes, but no one today suggests that government can do without something from each one of us.  And the Federalists of Jefferson's day, a minority in congress but possessing the best orators, were very uncomfortable with Jefferson's decision.  However, as Adams writes on page 184 of the Library of America edition, "Resistance to the abolition of taxes was impossible after the promise which the President's Message held out.  The Federalists themselves had made peace with France, and hostilities between France and England had ceased.  For the first time in ten years no danger of foreign war was apparent, and if the Administration offered to effect economies in the public service, Congress could hardly deny that economies were possible."

I need to read ahead to discover whether all taxes were indeed abolished.  If so where did Jefferson get the money later on to purchase the Louisiana territory from Napoleon, and wouldn't Jefferson have been better off beefing up the U.S. military in accordance with Federalist wishes?  Had they done so the War of 1812 wouldn't have been such an iffy thing.  Indeed the U.S. might well have accomplished the goals of some politicians at the time (not Jefferson) and conquered Canada; which would mean that instead of hoping to move to Northern Idaho I might today be considering a move to British Colombia -- or maybe not.  I suspect everyone up there would have voted for Hillary and our own Tax Man would be scouring records of our incomes to find new things to tax.


In the meantime my favorite hiking area, the usually dry riverbed of the San Jacinto River has been inundated by "street people."  I've been referring to them as trolls since there is no "street" down there, and the first ones that interfered with my hiking activities lived under a bridge.  The last time I was down there, hiking through some brush not hitherto inhabited by trolls, my dogs veered off to some bushes.  I stopped and looked back and there was a little man with some binoculars staring off toward the south levee.    Without looking at me he said, "ah ha.  You walked right by me without seeing me.  Your dogs saw me, but you never did." 


I found that a curious thing for him to say but only asked, "are you staying here."  He answered, "Yep, I'm one of them"; which made it sound as though he and the others were getting criticism from somewhere.  I asked, "are you from Riverside"?  I had heard that the street people in Riverside had been chased out of the parks they had been camping in.  He said, "nope.  I was destined for this life six months ago."  I didn't ask him where he was getting money to live on.  Living off of the land clearly wasn't possible at the river.  Was he getting enough government support (from internal taxes) to go down from the river to Stater Bros and buy groceries? 


Jessica, my energetic seven-month old Irish Terrier was jumping up on him for attention.  He didn't put his hands on her, needing both of them to hold his field glasses, but he turned sideways.  Having been jumped on by her myself I knew it wasn't a pleasant experience; so I called her and we went on. 

Pertaining to the electoral college

Here is a site  (and written by by William C. Kimberling, Deputy Director FEC National Clearinghouse on Election Administration) providing background about the electoral college:  http://uselectionatlas.org/INFORMATION/INFORMATION/electcollege_history.php  specifically,

One idea was to have the Congress choose the president. This idea was rejected, however, because some felt that making such a choice would be too divisive an issue and leave too many hard feelings in the Congress. Others felt that such a procedure would invite unseemly political bargaining, corruption, and perhaps even interference from foreign powers. Still others felt that such an arrangement would upset the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches of the federal government.

A second idea was to have the State legislatures select the president. This idea, too, was rejected out of fears that a president so beholden to the State legislatures might permit them to erode federal authority and thus undermine the whole idea of a federation.

A third idea was to have the president elected by a direct popular vote. Direct election was rejected not because the Framers of the Constitution doubted public intelligence but rather because they feared that without sufficient information about candidates from outside their State, people would naturally vote for a "favorite son" from their own State or region. At worst, no president would emerge with a popular majority sufficient to govern the whole country. At best, the choice of president would always be decided by the largest, most populous States with little regard for the smaller ones.

Finally, a so-called "Committee of Eleven" in the Constitutional Convention proposed an indirect election of the president through a College of Electors.

The function of the College of Electors in choosing the president can be likened to that in the Roman Catholic Church of the College of Cardinals selecting the Pope. The original idea was for the most knowledgeable and informed individuals from each State to select the president based solely on merit and without regard to State of origin or political party.

The structure of the Electoral College can be traced to the Centurial Assembly system of the Roman Republic. Under that system, the adult male citizens of Rome were divided, according to their wealth, into groups of 100 (called Centuries). Each group of 100 was entitled to cast only one vote either in favor or against proposals submitted to them by the Roman Senate. In the Electoral College system, the States serve as the Centurial groups (though they are not, of course, based on wealth), and the number of votes per State is determined by the size of each State's Congressional delegation. Still, the two systems are similar in design and share many of the same advantages and disadvantages.

The similarities between the Electoral College and classical institutions are not accidental. Many of the Founding Fathers were well schooled in ancient history and its lessons.

Here is a U.S. government provided PDF file on the electoral college:  https://www.eac.gov/assets/1/Documents/The%20Electoral%20College%20(Jan.%202011).pdf    Note especially the conclusion:

The Electoral College has worked well for 56 elections with the exception of a few historical

anomalies. Even in close elections, it gives one candidate a majority of electoral votes with

which to claim a mandate to govern. While it is not a direct election of the president, the public

has significant influence in the outcome and much more than in parliamentary systems in which

  the executive is chosen by the ruling political party.

Aside from modest statutory changes, the Electoral College has not been structurally changed

by Constitutional amendment since 1804. There have been attempts to change or abolish the

Electoral College through the years. Still, while the Electoral College may be a system that

  some people today and the founding fathers at the Constitutional Convention regarded as
  imperfect, it remains likely the way Americans will continue to elect their president.

Note also this Washington Post in a November 9th article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/09/getting-rid-of-the-electoral-college-dream-on-democrats/  specifically,

. . . If Trump wins every state left -- Alaska, Arizona, Minnesota, Michigan and New Hampshire -- he could even win by more than 100 electoral votes, 320-218. Take Minnesota away, and it's still 310-228 -- a very big margin.

So you can bet that there are a whole bunch of Democrats right now that would like to put an end to this whole electoral college thing.

The bad news: They have virtually no power to make that happen -- and even if they did have any power, it'd be immensely difficult.

The electoral college, after all, is enshrined in our Constitution, which means getting rid of it requires a constitutional amendment. That's a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate and the ratification of three-fourths (38) of the 50 states.

Democrats not only lost the presidency on Tuesday; they failed to win a majority in the Senate and didn't gain as much ground in the House as they had hoped. The idea that this would even be brought up in a GOP-controlled Congress -- much less approved with a two-thirds majority in both chambers -- just isn't in the cards. And even if it passed that congressional threshold, 38 states aren't going to ratify it. Red states won't like the idea because it's been a perceived boon to Republicans, and swing states won't like it because it means they lose their prized status in the presidential campaign.

Such efforts have also been tried -- unsuccessfully, of course -- several times before.
 

COMMENTS:
1)  Of the elections wherein the candidate winning the electoral college majority did not win the popular vote, the election of 1828 may not be pertinent to modern times because both Adams and Jackson were at the time in the same party.  The Hayes-Tilden 1876 election may also not be pertinent since it involved the deal that gave the presidency to Republican Hayes in return for the end of reconstruction in the south.  The election of 1888 in which Harrison got 233 electoral votes to Cleveland's 145 may also not be pertinent to the modern discussions because Harrison was a Democrat.  If you follow my reasoning here we are left with just two elections which disturb some modern voters, the 2000 election in which Gore got about 500,000 more popular votes than Bush but lost the electoral college vote by 266 to Bush's 271.   And the current election in which Clinton got 232 electoral votes to Trump's 290; although I can't tell if Michigan's votes are being counted in the 290.  They seem to be still counting up there.  The current Michigan count is 2,279,221 for Trump vs 2,267,298 for Clinton with 100% reporting; so I don't know why the election map at http://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president doesn't show Michigan as having allocated its 16 electoral college votes for Trump.

2)   It seems more than coincidence that those arguing most stridently for the elimination of the electoral college at the president time are Democrats, the losers of the current election.  These Democrats preponderantly inhabit the big cities which of necessity require greater bureaucracies to run than the smaller outlying cities and towns.  These smaller cities and towns might understandably view such attempts to get rid of the electoral college with alarm.  It might seem and in fact be the case that the larger cities wish to tell the smaller cities and towns how to behave, and this was one of the concerns at the very beginning.  Note Thomas Jefferson's comments on July 30, 31 Aug 1st in regard to the Articles of Confederations ) page 28 in Library of America's Thomas Jefferson, Writings:  This isn't quite the same thing, but inasmuch as it pertains to article 17 (i.e., how to amend the constitution) of the constitution it touches not only on the thinking at the time but something of what would need to be involved to eliminate the electoral college:

"Present 41 members.  Mr Chase observed that this article was the most likely to divide us of any one proposed in the draught [sic] then under consideration.  That the larger colonies had threatened they would not confederate at all if their weight in congress should not be equal to the numbers of people they added to the confederacy; while the smaller ones declared against a union if they did not retain an equal vote for the protection of their rights.  That it was of the utmost consequence to bring the parties together, as should we sever from each other, either no foreign power will ally with us at all, or the different states will form different alliances, and thus increase the horrors of those scenes of civil war and bloodshed which in such a state of separation & independence would render us a miserable people.  That our importance, our interests, our peace required that we should confederate, and that mutual sacrifices should be made to effect a compromise of this difficult question.  He was of opinion that smaller colonies would lose their rights, if they were not in some instances allowed and equal vote; and therefore that a discrimination should take place among the questions which would come before Congress.  That the smaller states should be secured in all questions concerning life or liberty & the greater ones in all respecting property.  He therefore proposed that in votes relating to money, the voice of each colony should be proportioned to the number of its inhabitants."


3)   Here is a site that shows how the nations of the world elect their leaders:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_by_country    While it was said  someplace that I shouldn't consider Germany in this regard, I have to consider them this one last time inasmuch as this site lists Germany's means for selecting its leader as an "Electoral College." 

I did a further check to see how European nations voted in their leaders.  Not as many use direct vote as one might think.   I used this site:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_by_country

4) I have heard the argument that the US electoral college system is old and obsolete and should therefore be abolished and replaced with the Direct system of selecting our leader, but look at our European models.  One might reasonably argue that a "Monarchy" is an even older and more obsolete system then the one we use in the U.S.  Are there movements in each of these monarchies to abolished them and replace them with a modern system?  Possibly.  I know there are such movements in Japan, but the emperor as also the Queen of England, remains.  May our electoral college not like them remain as well?
Lawrence

A German view of our electoral college

Someone wrote, "Among the points it would make is that it is inadequate to use the notion of "Republic" as trumping "Democracy" - or many tacit versions of this notion: whether based on the history, evolution and theoretical underpinnings of the US political system and its constitution. We need to look at the underlying merits (rather than presenting certain kinds of fact as if they, without further ado, constitute adequate justification)." 

I don't think "trumping 'democracy'" is a valid concept.  Our form of government is a Republic and we use democratic means for electing our electors.  Behind the elector concept, something I didn't mention in my previous note, is the idea that the people au naturale are subject to demigods.  The 18th century "founding fathers" didn't trust the gullibility of the ordinary citizen who got to vote.   So perhaps if you want to enter into the United States experience and argue that the electoral college ought to be done away with by an amendment of the constitution, and this is true even though no one believes that you could get something like 2/3 or 3/4 of the states to vote for such an amendment, you would want to show that the American people today aren't as gullible and easily influenced as their 18th century predecessors.  I would be very interested in such an argument for I myself could not make one.  Our ordinary citizens seem to me at least as gullible and perhaps even more so than their 18th century predecessors.  Perhaps the electors don't debate the choices before them, but they could, and at least once did in the case of Hayes vs Tilden for the good of the country, or at least the good of the South by making the end of Reconstruction as part of the deal.   There are three million signatures thus far on the petition intended by die-hard Hillery followers to be presented to the electors in hope they will over-turn the Trump victory.  Hillary herself (from all reports I've seen) on the other hand has conceded defeat and is moving on.  But not even the Democrats aren't saying that the pure popular vote "trumps" the electoral college mediation.

Further down you write, "Without going further in the merits and demerits of the current US system, I do not think Lawrence's comments about the "Republic" and its relation to "Democracy" amount to anything like an adequate defence of that current US 'electoral college' system on the merits. That such comments may suit Republicans for the purpose of defending the recent outcome is, frankly, neither here nor there as far as the true underlying merits are concerned. (Fwiw, we may bet what Trump would be saying if he had won the popular vote but lost the 'electoral college'; and what he might be saying to protestors against Clinton.)" 

You should probably rephrase this to some extent because I don't think our form of government needs a "defense."   We developed the first modern democracy and all those in the west and elsewhere followed our model to some extent.  Francis Fukuyama decided upon the term "Liberal democracy" to encompass the Western nations and those others such as Japan and South Korea who have been influenced by our systems.  Fukuyama, an American, doesn't find it necessary (at least in the books by him that I've read) to rehash the details of our voting system.  He bases his devinition upon the particular freedoms that we enjoy.  Our Bill of Rights was something else adopted to a greater or lesser extent.  Nations where citizens have these rights and freedoms are considered "Liberal Democracies."    Notice that while the United States considers itself a "Republic", Britain with most of the same rights and freedoms and considered a "Liberal Democracy" by Fukuyama calls itself a "Constitutional Monarchy."   Are there some in Britain who want to get rid of Monarchy in a similar fashion to those in the U.S. who want to get rid of the Electoral College system?  As it happens there are. 

The British and German people don't get to vote directly for their Prime Ministers.  Have they need a defense of their systems?

I scrolled down several times to see who was responsible for the following site but my computer kept locking up.  In any case the distinctions it present between Republics and Democracies seem . . . valid:  http://www.diffen.com/difference/Democracy_vs_Republic

On the U.S. Electoral College

Wikipedia explains things as follows:
The Constitutional Convention in 1787 used the Virginia Plan as the basis for discussions, as the Virginia delegation had proposed it first. The Virginia Plan called for the Congress to elect the president.^[14] Delegates from a majority of states agreed to this mode of election.^[15] However, a committee formed to work out various details including the mode of election of the president, recommended instead the election be by a group of people apportioned among the states in the same numbers as their representatives in Congress (the formula for which had been resolved in lengthy debates resulting in the Connecticut Compromise and Three-Fifths Compromise), but chosen by each state "in such manner as its Legislature may direct." Committee member Gouverneur Morris explained the reasons for the change; among others, there were fears of "intrigue" if the president were chosen by a small group of men who met together regularly, as well as concerns for the independence of the president if he was elected by the Congress.^[16] Some delegates, including James Wilson and James Madison, preferred popular election of the executive. Madison acknowledged that while a popular vote would be ideal, it would be difficult to get consensus on the proposal given the prevalence of slavery in the South:

There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to the fewest objections.^[17]

The Convention approved the Committee's Electoral College proposal, with minor modifications, on September 6, 1787.^[18] Delegates from the small states generally favored the Electoral College out of concern large states would otherwise control presidential elections.^[19]
In The Federalist Papers, James Madison explained his views on the selection of the president and the Constitution. In Federalist No. 39, Madison argued the Constitution was designed to be a mixture of state-based and population-based government. Congress would have two houses: the state-based Senate and the population-based House of Representatives. Meanwhile, the president would be elected by a mixture of the two modes.^[20] Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 68 laid out the key advantages to the Electoral College. The electors come directly from the people and them alone for that purpose only, and for that time only. This avoided a party-run legislature, or a permanent body that could be influenced by foreign interests before each election.^[21]
Alexander Hamilton explained the election was to take place among all the states, so no corruption in any state could taint "the great body of the people" in their selection. The choice was to be made by a majority of the Electoral College, as majority rule is critical to the principles of republican government. Hamilton argued, electors meeting in the state capitals were able to have information unavailable to the general public. No one who is an elector can be a U.S. officeholder, so none of the electors would be immediately beholden to a given presidential candidate.^[21]
Another consideration was the decision would be made without "tumult and disorder", as it would be a broad-based one made simultaneously in various locales where the decision-makers could deliberate reasonably, not in one place, where decision-makers could be threatened or intimidated. If the Electoral College did not achieve a decisive majority, then the House of Representatives were to choose the president, and the Senate the vice president, selecting among the top five candidates, ensuring selection of a presiding officer administering the laws would have both ability and good character.^[21]
Additionally, in the Federalist No. 10, James Madison argued against "an interested and overbearing majority" and the "mischiefs of faction" in an electoral system. He defined a faction as "a number of citizens whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community." What was then called republican government (i.e., federalism, as opposed to direct democracy), with its varied distribution of voter rights and powers, would countervail against factions. Madison further postulated in the Federalist No. 10 that the greater the population and expanse of the Republic, the more difficulty factions would face in organizing due to such issues as sectionalism.^[22]
Although the United States Constitution refers to "Electors" and "electors," neither the phrase "Electoral College" nor any other name is used to describe the electors collectively. It was not until the early 19th century the name "Electoral College" came into general usage as the collective designation for the electors selected to cast votes for president and vice president. The phrase was first written into federal law in 1845 and today the term appears in 3 U.S.C. § 4, in the section heading and in the text as "college of electors."^[23]

Perhaps Germans don't like our electoral college and think they have a better hold of how best to vote (although they have an electoral college of their own).  In any case we have a system that has worked for us for a long time.   Would it be appropriate for the leader of one of the competing parties to declare, "I reject the Electoral College system and will declare myself president if I win the popular vote"?  Well, Tilden seems to have done that in a sense (see below), but Hillary never said anything like that.  She and her team strove to get at least 270 electoral college votes because she knew as everyone who has striven to be the American president has known that the popular vote by itself isn't going to get one elected president.  Usually the one who wins the electoral college vote also wins the popular vote but not always. 

There was a time when many of the original States behaved, some of the time, as though they were independent nations.  But the solution we decided upon  provided a system that would allow these independent states to "unite."    Although no provision was made to prevent any state from succeding until after the Northern States defeated the Southern in a Civil War.

This is the fifth time in American History that the winner of the electoral college vote did not win the popular vote.  Read about the other times here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_where_winner_lost_popular_vote

The election of 1876 contended by Hayes and Tilden was the most acrimonious -- even worse than the Bush/Gore controversy. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-ugliest-most-contentious-presidential-election-ever-28429530/?no-ist   It is possible for the electors to declare Hillary the winner and over-rule the "popular" votes in the states that selected Trump as the winner.  A decision was made in 1876 to the effect that if the electoral college would declare Hayes the winner, the North would end reconstruction and pull its troops out of the South.  Tilden had plenty of support in objecting to this agreement:  "

While Hayes and the Republicans presumptively claimed rights to victory, Tilden proved to be a timid fighter and discouraged his party from challenging the commission’s decision. Instead, he spent more than a month preparing a report on the history of electoral counts—which, in the end, had no effect on the outcome.
“I can retire to public life with the consciousness that I shall receive from posterity the credit of having been elected to the highest position in the gift of the people,” Tilden said after his defeat, “without any of the cares and responsibilities of the office.”
His health did indeed fail him shortly after the election. He died in 1886 a wealthy man, leaving $3 million to the New York Public Library."