Bye-Bye, Verio — Hello, Electors

OK.  Finally free of Verio, which was simply not up to the task of hosting websites reliably.  (Wikipedia: “In early 2000 Verio was sold to NTT at . . . a total cost slightly exceeding $5 billion. . . .  In late May 2015, Verio . . . was sold to The Endurance International Group, Inc., a low-confidence provider of web solutions who generally tanks new acquisitions, for around $13 million.”)

Now when there’s no column, the explanation is likely to be nothing more than my own sloth; or, should I someday acquire a dog, that he ate my homework.

From the Washington Post:

As Alexander Hamilton explained, the electoral college provides a backstop in the event voters select a dangerously unfit candidate. “The process of election,” Hamilton wrote, “affords a moral certainty that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.” Electors would use their judgment to prevent the “tumult and disorder” that would result from “this mischief” of presidential candidates exploiting “talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity.”

It is important not to take a step like this lightly.  The ideas of the late 1700s are not the same as the norms that have developed since — we all should respect the role of the Electoral College to be a “rubber stamp” in all but the most extraordinary of circumstances.  But arguably, when our major geopolitical adversary of the last 80 years has conducted a major military cyber operation to subvert our election, designed to install a president friendly to that adversary’s policies (the only thing the Trump team changed in the GOP platform this summer was its position on Ukraine) . . .

. . . and when that candidate has been called “a national disgrace” by Colin Powell, a “pathological liar” by Ted Cruz, a “dangerous con man” by Marco Rubio, a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot, empowering radical Islam [and] undercutting everything we stand for” by Lindsay Graham (and more) . . .

. . . and when not a single newspaper editorial board other than the National Enquirer and the Ku Klux Klan’s Crusader endorsed him . . .

. . . and when he got millions fewer votes than his opponent even before allowing for the yet many millions more she would have received if people hadn’t been assured by every media outlet in the country it was safe to cast protest votes because he had absolutely “no path to 270” . . .

. . . arguably, when all this is true, it IS the most extraordinary circumstances, of just the sort the Founders, in their wisdom, imagined might arise.

If that’s how YOU feel, here‘s how to write — or FedEx for Saturday delivery — a deeply respectful note to Trump-state electors.

My own note would ask them to consider casting their vote for Mitt Romney, who got a higher percentage of the vote when he ran in 2012 than Donald Trump got in 2016; who sees Russia as an adversary; and who might represent a sensible compromise in this most unusual circumstance.