Organizers: Stop telling Trump’s faithless electors to vote Hillary

Tell electors to vote for anyone, #JustNotTrump

For those who are truly scared of a Trump Presidency, I have a simple question: What do you want more? Hillary to be President? Or Trump to not be President? They are not one in the same. And if you think they are, please keep reading. Please take a second to understand the difference and why it’s really important to get this messaging right.

With one week left before the Electoral College makes history (in some fashion, with an unprecedented number of electors defecting) we have one last shot to rally enough Trump Electors to become faithless, i.e. vote for someone other than Trump.

Again, let me ask: Is our goal to get Hillary elected or just not Trump? We have one week, and there’s a big difference in speed the message will travel in the conservative circles in the way in which we need it to.

This is where it pays for us as informed citizens to do it’s homework. We must educate each other. WE MUST READ THE CONSTITUTION. We need to know the answers to the questions below, and understand what the most plausible long shot there is for us (the Left & the Reasonable Right) upon which to collectively take action.

We must know all the rules of the game before we charge into the debate (and for some of us into the State Capitols) on December 19th. So do you know the rules of the Electoral College and the endgame if they don’t reach a decision?

If the Electoral College doesn’t reach the 270 threshold for any one candidate, do you know which candidates are able to be considered when the vote for president goes to the House of Representatives? Do you know the unique way the House votes for the President?

The most plausible (dare I say realistic) way forward is the one I outlined in a FB post a week or so ago. It’s spreading a deeper understanding on the mechanics of the Electoral College that needs to happen in the next seven days, and we (the Left & the Reasonable Right) need to all get behind the mitigating of a Trump presidency, not the revival of Clinton’s candidacy.

Why is this being pushed still as an either/or decision? The only somewhat plausible way to get electors to defect: Tell them to vote for a third candidate who would be more appealing for the House of Representatives to vote for in January. While a Kasich, Romney, or Ryan would not be anywhere close to ideal for many of us, it’s surely better than Trump.

Do you think its easier to get 37 Trump electors to defect and vote for Hillary? Or 37 Trump electors to vote for Kasich, Romney, Ryan, or just abstain? The problem is we need to give those electors the reassurance of what the next steps would be, how the voting works, and that a more reasonable Republican would win the endgame in the House of Representatives.

We need to divorce ourselves from the idea that 37 electors for Trump would all betray their party and vote for Clinton. They won’t. It’s a bridge too far. We need to stop passing around petitions that say “ask Trump electors to vote for Hillary” and instead ask Trump supporters to vote for Ryan, Romney or Kasich AND start circulating education on how the electoral college works and what happens if no candidate reaches 270 votes.

For those who wish to see electors go faithless, you must ask yourselves: Are you pleading with them “don’t vote Trump” or are you demanding of them a “Vote for Clinton”?

The messaging matters — and some messaging is counter productive to the widely shared goal of Trump not being President. If we show up at state capitols on Dec 19th and shout “Hillary for President” that will harden the electors to going faithless.

Basically, if 37 Trump electors vote for anyone other than Trump, causing the electoral college to not reach a decision, then the decision goes to the House of Representatives, which has happened 3 times in the nation’s history: Elections of 1800, 1824 & 1876.

I warn you against those who have an agenda other than just Not Trump. Those who are trying to rally support for Hillary to take the Presidency are actually only serving to muddy the already difficult and unlikely (but most remotely plausible) path to preventing Donald Trump from taking office next month as the 45th President of the United States.

I worry these protests at the state capitols will have signs which encourage Trump electors to vote for Clinton. This would be counterproductive, and only harden positions, add confusion, and evoke uncertainty in the minds of the very Trump electors we need to be faithless.

I don’t like the idea of a Ryan, Romney, or Kasich Presidency any more than any other Democrat, but I recognize that we must aim at the eleventh hour for mitigation, not aspiration. So please, for the common good, let go of the pipe dream of Hillary as our next President.

Organizers: Please stop encouraging and promoting events playing on the prospect of a Hillary win. It’s not helping us get the unified messaging out to make a convincing case to 37 Trump electors and party loyalists to have the confidence in the process to not vote for Trump.

If you won’t listen to me, listen Cenk Uygur from The Young Turks.

Let’s help get the word out that it’s not Hillary versus Donald — its us all versus Trump.

There’s one week. Let’s do this.

#JustNotTrump