Transcript

[drumbeat]

I'm Keith Olberman and this is The Resistance.

The most deadly adversaries of Republican government

might naturally have been expected to make

their approaches from more than one quarter,

but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers

to gain an improper ascendant in our councils.

How could they better gratify this

than by raising a creature of their own

to the Chief Magistracy of the Union.

Not my words, they are those of Alexander Hamilton,

writing in the newspaper The New-York Packet

in it's issue of Friday, March 14th 1788.

The Federalist Papers number 68.

The one explaining how the President of the United States

would be elected.

Alexander Hamilton, 83,549 days ago,

predicting the Russian attempt to decide

our 2016 election for us and install

their own stooge, Donald Trump,

to the Chief Magistracy of the Union.

How could they better gratify this

than by raising a creature of their own,

a creature of their own indeed.

As if Hamilton was peering through time

and seeing Trump's preening face and evil soul.

A creature of their own.

In The Federalist number 68,

Hamilton was explaining how, in the new constitution,

the much debated concept of the electoral college

would preclude another country from putting

its man in our Presidency.

How it would make bribing the electors nearly impossible.

How it would also serve as protection against scoundrels

and traitors.

Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts

of popularity may alone suffice to elevate a man

to the first honors in a single State,

but it will require other talents

and a different kind of merit

to establish him in the esteem and confidence

of the whole Union, or if so considerable portion

of it as it would be necessary to make him

a successful candidate for the distinguished office

of President of the United States.

Talents for low intrigue.

The little arts of popularity.

Alexander Hamilton saw everything phony

about Donald Trump except his hair.

Hamilton, of course, describes a different electoral college

than that which meets next Monday.

The one Hamilton wrote about in 1788 existed before

there was any popular voting.

There were no political parties,

no pledge to delegates, no rubber stamp.

It is a different electoral college

from the one that is our last defense against

the end of America.

Different except in spirit.

For if the electoral college is not still

what Hamilton described, it is still what Hamilton intended.

It is there to weed out the unqualified,

the unprincipled, the merely famous,

and especially to weed out a creature of foreign powers

or in Donald Trump's case, all of the above.

But still, rubber stamp, a quaint vestige

of the fact that you have to win states,

not just votes to become President.

Oh, if it's a rubber stamp, why does it convene?

If the electoral college is merely a formality

in which the electors vote as the vote totals

in their state tell them to,

why are the electors there?

Certainly the certified results from each state

are sufficient to declare Trump 306, Clinton 232?

If the electoral college is merely a vestige

of state demographics in which the electors vote

as the vote totals in their state tell them to,

why is it legal in nearly half the states,

21, for the members to vote for whoever they want?

The answer would seem obvious,

albeit kind of hard to believe.

Never in our history have any of our leaders

fought to amend the electoral college.

We have changed the Constitution to permit women to vote,

and slavery to be ended, and for alcohol to be banned,

and then changed it back for alcohol to be unbanned.

We have changed the Constitution to include

something the Founding Fathers quickly discovered

they had left out, the entire Bill of Rights.

But never in our history have we altered

the fact of the vote by the electoral college.

Thus there is only one conclusion.

It is there because the Founding Fathers were right.

Someday we would need it.

Some day, perhaps centuries later,

we would need to follow Alexander Hamilton's version

of in case of emergency break glass.

Someday, perhaps centuries later,

talents for low intrigue and the little arts of popularity

would combine with the desire in foreign powers

to elect their own President and only

the quaint irrelevant rubber stamp

of the electoral college, the appendix of the body politic

would stand between us and Armageddon.

Turned out someday was Monday December 19, 2016.

It is correct that 38 Trump electors voting

instead for Hilary Clinton would make her President.

It is also correct that is likelier

that the electoral college will be hit

by an asteroid during it's convention next Monday

than that 38 Republican electors

would vote instead for a Democrat.

The country has long since become the land of me first.

And to find 38 political men and women

of true self sacrificing patriotism

and conscience in the Republican party

would at least quadruple the number of them

I could name right now.

Russians, could have literally instead

of merely remotely, swung the election for Trump.

They could be standing in Cossack uniforms

along Pennsylvania Avenue and Republican politicians

would still think, But what's in it for me?

before they switch from Trump to somebody else.

But there is another way.

There are compromises.

This nation exists, probably to die on January 20th

when a foreign backed usurper seizes power,

but for now this nation exists

because of the second Civil War we did not have.

The one that threatened to explode

in the winter of 1876, 77, over the disputed election

between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden.

The election was to be decided by Oregon,

Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida.

Those states sent two entirely separate sets

of returns to the electoral college.

One favoring the Republican, one favoring the Democrat.

And the lame duck President increased

the presence of troops in Washington

because it was assumed that whoever lost

was gonna start shooting.

But he didn't, we compromised.

It was an awful compromise.

The impact of which was still felt 90 years later.

The Republicans got the White House,

the Democrats got the end of Reconstruction in the south

and tacit permission to disenfranchise Blacks

and there descended upon us 90 years and more

of segregation and Jim Crow.

Yet the threat of Civil War vanished

and has stayed vanished until now at least.

Compromise, a resident scholar from the Cato Institute

named Michael F. Cannon wrote in

The Washington Post on the fifth of this month

suggesting that instead of holding out hope

of 38 Trump electors miraculously risking their status

in their party just for the sake of, you know,

democracy, the hero this time should be Hilary Clinton.

Her electors, not Trump's, should vote differently.

She should instruct those pledged to her

to vote instead for a moderate Republican

while patriots in that party find 38

or more Trump supporters to switch

to that same moderate Republican.

Cannon suggested Mitt Romney.

One could make a list, a small list.

Romney, and John McCain, and Evan McMullin,

and for that matter if he were a little bit healthier

President George H.W. Bush.

Romney, McCain, McMullin, whoever,

presumably with a moderate Democrat as vice President,

would it be right, would it be fair?

Before you answer, answer this.

Would it be a victory over the Russians

who committed an act of war against us

by interfering with our elections?

Would it be defense against Trump

and this banana Republican government of his,

which will turn the rest of the world over

to Vladimir Putin, oh, by the way, end our democracy?

And before you answer even that, answer this.

You can't have Clinton, Alexander Hamilton is dead,

the alternative is an unelected dictator.

Would you right now trade Donald Trump

for a President Mitt Romney, or a President John McCain,

or a President Evan McMullin?

Me, in a heartbeat, and I would then drop

to my knees in thanks for the electoral college.

Resist, peace.