This post originally appeared at https://www.badgerinstitute.org/if-we-lose-the-electoral-college-we-lose-the-country/

Prominent defender to speak in Mequon about a bulwark against tyranny of the majority 

As progressives begin to launch election-season attacks on the Electoral College, Michael Maibach is coming to Mequon to remind Wisconsinites why it’s worth fighting for.

The Badger Institute and Concordia University have invited the distinguished fellow for Save Our States to speak  next Tuesday, Sept. 10, at the campus.

Maibach, in a conversation with Badger Institute Policy Director Patrick McIlheran, gave us a small preview of his presentation. Portions of the conversation are  edited for length and clarity.  

Q. Save Our States’ materials say the Electoral College spares us from “the risks of corruption, regionalism and backroom politics.” Tell me a little bit about those risks.

A. Nine of our states have 50% of our population. If we had a national popular vote and Mark Zuckerberg used his billions to run a campaign and fly around the country, he could just visit about eight or nine states and win the metro-area region, I guess you’d call it, and that would be it.

Q. What’s wrong with more influence for densely populated areas? Critics say, “Acres don’t vote; people do.” 

A. Acres don’t vote, people do, but people need the people who do grow food and do create natural resources.

The great thing about our country is that we have an interdependency. If [influence] was just by population, we would have the tyranny of the cities, and Americans won’t have that.

Q. What of those who complain this makes some reliably partisan states, like California, irrelevant? 

A. California used to be a swing state. Illinois, where I grew up, had lots of Republicans. Now all they have is Democrats. States go back and forth. There are always voters that don’t get their way. Every election has that. But the alternative would be to have the cities rule everything, and the Founders never would have signed such a constitution. That’s why we have two senators per state. We have a republic; we don’t have a democracy.

It’s really an ingenious system, but of course the left doesn’t like it because the left comes from the two coasts, where all the news media is headquartered in New York and Los Angeles, and they want their two regions to rule the country. Do we want those people to always rule this country?

Q. What is the source of support for the idea you’re fighting, for getting small states to agree to assign their electors not according to their own result but according to a national result?

A. On this issue, the energy comes from the natural desire of human beings to have the majority rule. Human beings are tyrannical by nature. The Founders were very clear about human nature and how broken it was and how tyrannical it could become.

The first slide [in my presentation] is going to be a painting of Socrates taking the hemlock. What goes on here? The elected assembly of Athens, by a majority vote, voted to kill the old man because he was asking questions of the young people. What do you think about free speech and what do you think about tyranny of the majority?

You see, unfortunately, too many young people have been educated to think we’re a democracy. Of course, the Founders feared democracy. The word “democracy” is not in the Constitution. Democratic tyranny — that’s what they feared because they knew that men were broken.

The only reason you’re free is because of checks and balances. Period. And one of the central checks is the Electoral College. An Electoral College is all about giving voices to small states so that the majority doesn’t tyrannize everybody.

If you get rid of the Electoral College, we will have a revolution. We’ll have lots of states who feed the rest of the country saying, “To hell with this. We’re not going to have nine or 10 big cities ruling this country,” and then when the federal government won’t let them go away, they’ll be serfs. 

This is a bet-the-country issue. That’s why in my retirement I’m doing this — because if we lose this battle, you lose the country. 

To hear more from Michael Maibach on the importance of the Electoral College, RSVP here to attend his presentation at Concordia University on Sept. 10.

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