Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
This podcast uses government documents to illuminate the workings of the American government, and offer context around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life.
Welcome to Civil Discourse. This podcast will use government documents to illuminate the workings of the American Government and offer contexts around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life. Now your hosts, Nia Rodgers, Public Affairs Librarian and Dr. John Aughenbaugh, Political Science Professor.
Nia Rodgers: Hey, Aki.
John Aughenbaugh: Good afternoon, Nia. How are you?
Nia Rodgers: I'm excellent. How are you?
John Aughenbaugh: Well, I'm thinking about joining a different college.
Nia Rodgers: Okay. You mean you're going to leave VCU because I have to tell you I have separation anxiety, and I won't be able to handle that.
John Aughenbaugh: No. The other college I was thinking about joining is the Electoral College.
Nia Rodgers: Don't do that. Oh, my gosh, the electoral college. The Electoral College is the bane of everyone's existence. There are only two belief systems about the electoral college, that it is awesome or that it is evil. There's no in between. Nobody has a middle ground. Nobody has a middle ground on the Electoral College.
John Aughenbaugh: Listeners, today's episode, we're going to be continuing our series on the Federalist papers, and.
Nia Rodgers: We're trying to wrap them up. We are, by the way, not doing all of them.
John Aughenbaugh: No.
Nia Rodgers: We're just doing the five biggies.
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah. Nia and I decided that we were going to pick some representative federalist papers and highlight them. The fourth, out of the five that we chose, is Federalist number 68, which was written by Alexander Hamilton and the subject of Federalist 68 was a defense of selecting the president via the Electoral College. Now, as Nia just pointed out.
Nia Rodgers: The Electoral College is one of the most divisive things about the federalist government.
John Aughenbaugh: Okay. About the US Constitution.
Nia Rodgers: Everybody hates something about it.
John Aughenbaugh: If you think Americans today, listeners are of two minds about the Electoral College, that's not brand new because when the proposed Constitution was sent out to the states for ratification, numerous commentaries were written that went ahead and criticized a selection method for the president that was, if you will, mitigated by this electoral college. First, understand that at the Constitutional Convention, there were various proposals to select the executive branch leadership, if you will. One method was direct democracy. Those who hate the electoral college today, they would fall into that camp.
Nia Rodgers: That's what they advocate for. Generally speaking, let's all of us vote, all 330 million, except that's not how many people actually vote, but you know what I mean. All 30 million people who vote, let's go vote, and whoever you pick is the president of the United States.
John Aughenbaugh: That's right.
Nia Rodgers: End of the discussion. The popular vote wins.
John Aughenbaugh: Another proposal which was debated at length at the Constitutional Convention was state legislatures would cast a vote. Each state would have one vote.
Nia Rodgers: Super hyper indirect democracy, but yes.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes. Basically, it would be the elites, the people's elected representatives at the state level. Yes, very indirect. Another proposal was that Congress would get to choose and there it was not a single proposal. There were multiple proposals. Some thought that the executive branch should be led by a committee chosen by Congress. Others felt that Congress should choose one of their own, much like the parliamentary system, where the majority party picks one of their own to be the prime minister.
Nia Rodgers: CR episode with Burdett. When he talked about the British Parliament and he talked about the elections within the British Parliament.
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah, with our colleague Chris Burdett. But the proposal that ended up winning out was first, they ultimately decided that there should be a single executive instead of a committee. But then they debated as to how long should the term of president be? Should they be restricted to a set number of terms? Hamilton, for instance was in favor of an executive for life.
Nia Rodgers: That's a terrible idea. Oh, Alexander Hamilton. Didn't he get shot?
John Aughenbaugh: Yes, by you.
Nia Rodgers: He shot Aaron Burr or did he get shot by Aaron Burr?
John Aughenbaugh: He got shot by Aaron Burr. Yes.
Nia Rodgers: If your life's going to be short, then I guess, but can you imagine? Also he had no idea what modern diseases, dementia and Alzheimer's and other things would become apparent as people lived longer.
John Aughenbaugh: It was my shorter, right?
Nia Rodgers: Let's just stop and think about that for a horrifying moment and then move on.
John Aughenbaugh: Okay.
Nia Rodgers: Also how does that separate you from a king?
John Aughenbaugh: Well, and that was part of the pushback at the convention.
Nia Rodgers: That feels very king like.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes. But then, what was agreed upon was the controversial electoral college.
Nia Rodgers: All of these ideas, let's pick the weirdest one we can pick.
John Aughenbaugh: I found it very interesting because there was no language in the original Constitution to limit the number of terms that a president could serve. George Washington set the precedent. Our first president decided to step down after serving two terms. That held true until FDR. FDR was elected for four terms. He died in office during his fourth term. That actually led to an amendment to limit the number of terms that a president could serve. But I found that fascinating that they ultimately left that open. They couldn't come to agreement about the number of terms. What they could agree upon was there would be a single executive, so no committee, and they decided to go with an indirect method of selecting the president of the entire country. Now, Hamilton in number 68, Federal 68 lays out the defense of the Electoral College. Basically, the defense is this. I'm going to read you a quote. He claimed that the members of the Electoral College would be, ''men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station."
Nia Rodgers: Aw, he thought that they would understand what it meant to be president and they would carefully evaluate each individual and try to decide which person could best serve. That's a rather idealistic view from Hamilton, isn't it?
John Aughenbaugh: Yes, it would be these elites would be able to, if you will, mitigate the passions, the emotions that may underscore the selection process of the masses.
Nia Rodgers: Right. Because the masses are deciding who they want to have a beer with. Theoretically, the electoral college is deciding who should have negotiating powers with foreign governments.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes. Now, here's another element to the electoral college, Nia. Hamilton presupposed that the members of the electoral college would be outside of politics. They would be detached. Therefore, they would be elites in society who would know what the country needed best and would not be picking a person to be president that would necessarily serve their purposes, Because, hey, if you're a member of Congress, you're going to probably want a president, you know who you can work with or who you think you can control or who will pass policies that you like. No, the members of the Electoral College Hamilton assumed would be elites who could exercise sound judgment.
Nia Rodgers: Oh, Hamilton, if you could only meet the electoral college now. If the electoral college in most states were any more political, I think it would explode. Like, it is a wildly political process now.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: It's chosen by parties. It's chosen by the party elite of people they want to go and it's a whole thing. It's just a whole thing. We have an episode on it. It is nice that he thought that would be the case, but I don't think that's how that turned out.
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah. You get the sense, reading Federal 68 Nia, that the purpose of the electoral college was to act as a check on whom? Not the president, but the people.
Nia Rodgers: Oh, well, that's true. They could pick anybody. We need a group of people who will keep them from just picking some rando dude walking down the street.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: Actually, what they were trying to do was, he was trying to keep them from choosing a populist president.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: One that could get people excited. He wanted a group of people who were like, Yeah, excited is good, but what I really want is somebody who understands how to run the federal budget and how to run, like I said, treaties and how to create things like that.
John Aughenbaugh: That foreign policy takes time. You can't act rationally. You can't always give the public what the public wants, etc. There's also an element of the North versus South debate behind the electoral college. Listeners, some of you may know that James Madison took notes. They weren't very thorough notes at the Constitutional Convention, but he did take notes. One of the things that his notes did highlight is that the Electoral College was part of a compromise between the less populous Southern states because the Southern states were concerned that they would lose out in a popular vote count because Southern states had already argued who would not count as full citizens?
Nia Rodgers: Right. Slaves.
John Aughenbaugh: Waves. If you do it, if you have this indirect method, once again, Southern states, which are less populated would have a chance to still have some sway in the selection of the president. You even still see that a little bit today, Nia. On one hand, you have large states like California, Texas, Florida, New York, that if we didn't have the Electoral College, a presidential candidate could basically just spend all their time in those four or five states, clean up in those states, and then basically 30-35 smaller states wouldn't have really any input on who's chosen as president. The electoral college gives smaller or medium sized states. For instance, our home state of Virginia, or your home state of North Carolina. They still play a prominent role in the selecting of president. If you think about, for instance, the last four or five presidential elections, as your mother could attest and some of your other family members, presidential candidates visit North Carolina on the regular. They run all kinds of ads there. Even my home state of Pennsylvania, which for years was considered a battleground state, but really it was a state controlled by Democrats. Well, of recent vintage, it is a highly contested state. Now, it still has 20 plus electoral college votes, nothing to sneeze at, but nothing close to New York or Florida or Texas or California. But that was part of the logic. How do you keep the lesser populated states invested in the presidential election because if you only rely on the popular vote, again, candidates would spend almost all their time in the voter rich, larger states.
Nia Rodgers: Nobody would ever go to Wyom. They just wouldn't because there'd be no reason to spend that capital, that effort,t material on going to a place where there's not enough influence. I do think it's interesting. The anti federalist 72 is the one that would be the closest crabbiness about this. Basically, it's crabbiness is, their argument was you're taking away the power of the broad people to make a broad decision, and you're putting it in the hands of a much smaller group of people that is may or may not be remote from the vote of the will of the people. It's the same argument that modern people make today. Anti federalist 72 and Cato IV make the same argument, although Cato IV has been more about the vice president, but they make the same argument that you're taking away the popular vote. Like, why have a popular vote if you're going to have the Electoral College? Why even hold a vote if you're going to have the Electoral College?
John Aughenbaugh: Yes. That's interesting because today, the Electoral College has very little to do with the original purpose envisioned by Alexander Hamilton. Again, we discussed this in a previous podcast episode. Today, the Electoral College is all about shaping campaign strategy. That's all it's about. You basically know, we knew this, Nia. We discussed this on the podcast. Before last year's presidential election, basically Joe Biden knew that he already had California, New York, Illinois, Oregon, Washington.
Nia Rodgers: Massachusetts.
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah, most of the New England states, etc.
Nia Rodgers: Trump knew.
John Aughenbaugh: He had Texas, he had Florida, he had most of the Deep South and in the upper Midwest. In the Western states. That basically left six or seven battle ground states. Now, if you're running for president and you basically know that you can reduce the huge size of the United States to six or seven states.
Nia Rodgers: And you just camp out there in those six or seven states for the six months ahead of the election. That's what decides the election. It's not the big states that we're pretty sure are going to go X way or Y way.
John Aughenbaugh: That's why neither political party gets all that interested.
Nia Rodgers: In changing the Electoral College. Because in the long run, it saves them money frankly.
John Aughenbaugh: It saves them money. It allows them to go ahead and basically just focus on a rather discrete path to victory and they know if they achieve victory in typically six or seven, sometimes eight states, they're going to win.
Nia Rodgers: They're good.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: People who want their direct vote to elect the president hate that.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: They hate that because they believe that it should be the popular vote. In fact, the popular vote has gone in several elections one way, and the electoral vote has gone in a different way. That is highly aggravating to many Americans who are like, "What's the ever loving freaking point of democracy if I go vote and it doesn't count, it doesn't matter." But one could argue that on the other side, that the electoral college keeps an insane populist, like Mussolini, like Hitler, like Stalin from winning an election in the United States by wooing the popular vote.
John Aughenbaugh: Because it can't just be the popular vote in a small group of states. The electoral college actually forces you to win or, if you will, have control over multiple regions of the United States.
Nia Rodgers: Imagine a president who was popular enough to get Texas and New York.
John Aughenbaugh: Or Texas and California? Good lord.
Nia Rodgers: Or Texas and California. I don't know that you could oppose that individual.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes. Think about all those voters in the roughly 46, 47 other states whose votes basically would not matter. If you're talking about direct democracy.
Nia Rodgers: Be careful.
John Aughenbaugh: One of the counter arguments to reform in the electoral college is what's the likelihood that it's going to make your vote count any more than it does with the electoral college. Because a really popular candidate in three or four large states can basically ignore the rest of the country.
Nia Rodgers: I think there were parts of the nation that Reagan didn't need to visit.
John Aughenbaugh: No.
Nia Rodgers: He was wildly popular.
John Aughenbaugh: Particularly in the '84 election against Walter Mondale when he went 48.
Nia Rodgers: That was such a landslide. It was humiliating for.
John Aughenbaugh: Walter Mondale.
Nia Rodgers: If I was Mondale, I would have moved to Canada. I'd have been like, "Okay."
John Aughenbaugh: He lived close enough because he was from Minnesota, bada bing, anyway. But again, part of the reason why we wanted to do this series about the Federalist Papers is to remind listeners that some of the things that we debate today were core debates at the Founding. We're still discussing this.
Nia Rodgers: They weren't actually happy with this solution, it was just the compromise solution they could get between the North and South, between the more populated states and the less populated states. We do that stuff in the modern era all the time. We're like, "You know what? I don't like that thing, but I'll go along with that thing if you'll go along with this thing so that we can survive another day."
John Aughenbaugh: Nia, think about the number of our friends who were like, "If the electoral college was supposed to reduce the chances of the United States electing, a populist crackpot, it didn't do a very good job. Maybe we need to come up with a better solution in regards to who the country selected in 2024." Of course, my response was, "You like the general philosophy underlying the electoral college, you just would like to see it work better." I'm like, "Hmm. How Democrat?"
Nia Rodgers: My response to people who say, I want the popular vote to count, is, so you want Beyonce to be president, or you want Taylor Swift to be president. You want whoever the latest hottest in the November where we're holding the election, whoever manages to own all the airwaves gets all the votes. Because that's how humans do things. You'll never get an actual politician as president at that point. You will only get populist figures. Stop and think about that, do you want that? I'm not slamming Beyonce or Taylor Swift, they'd probably both make good presidents, I'm not saying they wouldn't. They both run empires already. It's not that I'm suggesting that, but what I am saying is, see our last Federalist Paper 58, checks and balances, there's a reason that we have that.
John Aughenbaugh: Federalist 51.
Nia Rodgers: Fifty one, sorry, thank you.
John Aughenbaugh: It's funny you mentioned Taylor Swift because we are recording this the day after Taylor Swift showed up on her boyfriend's podcast.
Nia Rodgers: Sorry, for future listeners, Kelce, what's his name? Kelce?
John Aughenbaugh: There's Jason and Travis. The name of the podcast is The Heights. We're recording it the day after she appeared in person on the Kelce Brothers' podcast entitled The Heights. There was one point, Nia, during their podcast, in real time, they had 1.5 million people listening.
Nia Rodgers: They crashed YouTube.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: They crashed YouTube. It was so many Swifties. She came on to talk about her album and their relationship.
John Aughenbaugh: Releasing a new album. Again, to me, it's fascinating because there I am, as I want to do, it's a Wednesday night, I'm watching a baseball game, I'm doing a little bit of work, and all of a sudden my phone blows up. All my friends who are sports fans are like, what the heck is going on? There are all these people who are listening to The Heights podcast. It's the Kelce Brothers. I've listened to the podcast. I enjoy the podcast. But they were like, what is going on? Then all of a sudden said, she ought to run for president. Think about, her just showing up. The number of times I've watched the Kansas City Chiefs football game because her boyfriend plays tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs.
Nia Rodgers: Which brother is he? Is that Travis?
John Aughenbaugh: That is Travis. Jason used to play center for the Philadelphia Eagles. Travis plays tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs. If the network that is covering the Chiefs game know that Taylor Swift is going to be there.
Nia Rodgers: They put her picture up a bunch of times. She actually made fun of it on the podcast last night, because she said, "I'm sure that's what football fans really want to see is me sitting in the stands." She has a good natured humor about the fact that she's like, "Quit showing me. I am not what football fans are here to see. They couldn't care less that I'm sitting in the stands. They want to see the game." I thought good for her that she's got a good sense of humor about it.
John Aughenbaugh: Likewise, Travis was like, "All the times that I showed up on social media because I attended Taylor's concert. All the people who paid really good money, the thousands of people, the millions around the world who showed up for her concerts, didn't do it because they wanted to see me, but there for the last." Think about how that would translate to politics.
Nia Rodgers: She's got an enormous machine. She's got enormous reach. When she drops a comment, it goes everywhere. Everybody knows it. I'm sorry. I know we try very hard not to be too political on this podcast in the sense of slamming particular politicians or anything like that, but I do have to say that it does delight me that there seems to be some aggression on the part of the president about Taylor Swift. Because I'm like, "You're about to meet with Vladimir Putin to discuss the Ukraine war, Taylor Swift should not be on your radar." Taylor Swift doesn't matter right now. I'm not saying Taylor Swift is not a bane in his existence for whatever reason he's decided he doesn't like her, and that's fine. He's allowed not to like her. I'm not a huge fan of metallica. It's okay not to like certain, I know your face just made of face. I'm a Cretan, apparently. But it's okay not to like someone, but I'm like, "Baby, you have more things that you need to be worried about right now than what's happening with Taylor Swift, she shouldn't be on your radar."
John Aughenbaugh: Listeners, last month off recording, Nia and I were having a conversation, and Nia asked me what I thought about the current president, Trump, making some disparaging remarks about Bruce Springsteen. Now, Nia knows I've seen Springsteen close to a dozen times.
Nia Rodgers: The summer after The Rising Tour, I followed him the whole time, and went to eight concerts. Love Springsteen.
John Aughenbaugh: My reaction, and Nia agreed with me, was I'm thinking that the president has more important stuff than to worry about whether or not some musical artist made a crack against him in Europe.
Nia Rodgers: It's like, "Sweetie, be less delicate. Come on now."
John Aughenbaugh: Come on now.
Nia Rodgers: We didn't do it in the news, but we saw that the president has chosen for the Kennedy Center Honors several fabulous artists. Kiss is going to be honored. Gloria Gaynor is going to be honored. I think there are several others that are going to be honored. George Strait is going to be honored.
John Aughenbaugh: Michael Crawford.
Nia Rodgers: Michael Crawford, the original Phantom of the Opera. He appreciates the arts, it's just that some he appreciates more than others. But it comes back to that question of what would happen if Taylor Swift ran for president? If you let the popular vote be the deciding vote, is that how you want to choose the president of the United States? One of the things that Hamilton was trying to do was make sure that there were people in the room who could say, Taylor Swift is awesome, but we're not sure she should be president. Let's talk about what her qualities are for being president. Does she have these qualities? If she does, put her forward, but if she doesn't, let's not do that. That was the point in the Electoral College.
John Aughenbaugh: We've gotten far away from that point, but I like how you brought that back Nia.
Nia Rodgers: They would have loved her personally. Alexander Hamilton would have loved Taylor Swift.
John Aughenbaugh: Oh my goodness.
Nia Rodgers: He would have been a huge fan. He would have been a Swifty, I think. But I'm not sure that he would have chosen her for the presidency. He would certainly have wanted her to be vetted. That's what the Electoral College is supposed to be doing. They're supposed to be vetting the candidates to make sure that we don't end up with somebody who's super popular but completely incompetent. You want somebody to have knowledge and understanding of running things and the administrative state and business, and all of those things. At least that's what he hoped. Don't forget he was the nation's first banker. He had a very practical sense of what he wanted a president to be able to do.
John Aughenbaugh: Listeners, don't forget that one of the criticisms that the anti-federalist made about the federalist was that the federalists in many ways reminded the anti-federalist of all of the career, if you will, bureaucrats that existed in the British crown. Part of the federalists argument about the Articles of Confederation was the Articles of Confederation made it really difficult to create a national economy, provide a national defense, have, if you will, sound foreign policy. One of the criticisms of the anti-federalist was, but if you think about all these mechanisms, whether it be the Electoral College or the Senates, that is anti-democratic because every state has the same number of senators, or as we will discuss in our next podcast episode, the federal judiciary being unelected. How is that any better than what we experienced under the British crown? This sounds a lot like government by elites. Hamilton says in Federalist 68, we imagine the Electoral College to be populated by detached observers. That's the primary justification you have for having, if you will, government experts. They're detached. They don't care which political party runs the presidency or Congress.
Nia Rodgers: They're just reporting the numbers. They're just reporting the facts, and the facts don't care about who the president is.
John Aughenbaugh: That's right. Just like whether or not the president has 250 million supporters, say Taylor Swift. I can't believe it, Nia.
Nia Rodgers: I just wanted to note, by the way, they did this 2025, and Travis Kelce is the boyfriend whose podcast she appears on, in case they don't stay together. Just as a side note, because we love our Taylor, but Tay Tay has a little trouble with keeping a boyfriend. Although he's lasted a good while now. I have hope that he might be the one.
John Aughenbaugh: What I was going to point out is, listeners, Nia and I frequently get asked at professional conferences and by professional colleagues, how scripted is our podcast?
Nia Rodgers: Don't you wish we were?
John Aughenbaugh: If you want a really good example.
Nia Rodgers: We're very unscripted.
John Aughenbaugh: Of how unscripted we are.
Nia Rodgers: This was it.
John Aughenbaugh: I can assure you that my research notes for Federalist 68 had absolutely no reference to Beyonce, the Queen, or Tay Tay.
Nia Rodgers: That's right, Queen Bey or Tay Tay did not appear in either in any of these notes. Oh my goodness. But they're here because they are queens.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes, they are.
Nia Rodgers: There we go.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes. Nia and I are unabashed popular media fans. Anyways, good episode, good chat about the Electoral College. I can't wait to go ahead and share this episode with my students when we discuss the Electoral College. Some of them are going to be like, "Did you guys reference?"
Nia Rodgers: Remember that we did an episode on explaining how the Electoral College works. If you want to go and listen to that one as well, that one is an actual this is how electors are chosen, how they report out their results, all of that stuff, and what the Congress does with them at that point, that's all covered in the Electoral College episode.
John Aughenbaugh: Thanks, Nia.
Nia Rodgers: Thank you, Aughie.
John Aughenbaugh: This was a great episode. Thank you.
You've been listening to Civil Discourse brought to you by VCU Libraries. Opinions expressed are solely the speaker's own and do not reflect the views or opinions of VCU or VCU Libraries. Special thanks to the Workshop for technical assistance. Music by Isaak Hopson. Find more information at guides.library.vcu.edu/discourse. As always, no documents were harmed in the making of this podcast.