Why we should care about . . . the US Vice-Presidential debates

To those of us living outside its borders, the United States of America (USA) is a very strange place at times.

One of the most consistently strange aspects, to me, has been the way it winds up with a President (POTUS, for President of the United States).

In the rest of the world, where monarchy and similar systems of inheritance of political power have been replaced (see here for a useful list), choosing a leader is basically along the lines of some sort of variation of direct vote.

Not so the USA.

Their “founding fathers”, as they term them (and yes, they were all male), argued about this - as with just about every other aspect of developing their Constitution, and came up with a system where voters would choose electors, who would all then trot off and do the choosing on behalf of everyone else.

This system was fairly quickly stymied by the entirely foreseeable development of political parties, and changes to the Electoral College process started, with some significant changes over the next century or so, including the Electoral College voting for a specific Vice-President, state-wide voting for electors (with a trend towards the “winner-takes-all system from around 1804), leading eventually, through a series of twists and turns, to what the USA currently has.

(On twists and turns, until the second half of the 19^th Century, Presidential candidates did not do any campaigning.)

At some stage, the concept of a “faithless elector” started to evolve - someone who was sent to vote for the person who that elector’s state had chosen, but voted instead for someone else.

So, think of a past US President you didn’t like.

Got one? There’s a list here (or here, if you prefer) for you, if you wish.

I’ll look up their national anthem so I can hum a few bars while you decide . . .

OK, here’s the thing: if we ignore unwritten conventions (which for half a century I’ve been saying, to paraphrase the warning about verbal contracts, aren’t worth the paper they’re written on - something the USA’s 45^th president has demonstrated), public outcry, and political pressures, that past President could conceivably not have been elected if all the electors decided to choose someone else.

Annoying, huh?

OK, so here’s the thing: now think of a past US President you liked, and reflect on the fact that the same could have happened there - if there had been an unthinkable (for a definition of unthinkable, consider #45’s election) mass rebellion by the electors, that President may not have been elected.

Terrifying, huh?

The way to an electoral college at the USA’s constitutional convention was:

• firstly, to rule out, out of fear that Congress, if it chose the President, could be too “chummy” (aka corrupt), selection by Congress, and
• secondly, out of fear that voters would not be adequately informed about candidates, rule out direct election,

leaving everyone flailing around like an octopus trying to ice skate, looking for a third option . . . and the electoral college was born.

(On that second step, I wonder if any of it was fear of black people and people of colour gaining a future right to vote? Gerald  Horne, writing  in “The Counter-Revolution of 1776”, argues quite eloquently for the view that the United Kingdom’s increasingly likely abolition of slavery was seen as an economic threat by the colonies, and thus slavery was a key, unwritten perhaps, driver in the movement for independence from the UK. Given their limited world view, that probably didn’t enter any part of their white supremacist minds.)

At least the issue of faithless electors may have been ruled out - for this election, at any rate.

Current concerns inside the USA are discussed here (that link is worth a look - it’s not only about robbing the people of their agency, although the argument in support of the Electoral College on the basis that it protects minorities has been shown to be utter nonsense by long standing discrimination, culminating in the BLM movement and current protests).

Attempts for further reform or abolition continue. I personally consider that it is high time that the now VERY backward and utterly unexceptional system of indirect voting was replaced by direct voting. (Even tinpot despots running fake elections don’t try to pretend to have such an absurd system.)

And while you’re at it, get rid of the voting on a workday rubbish - it doesn’t demonstrate commitment to voting, it just makes poorer people (particularly those with a long commute) less likely to be able to vote.

On top of all that, as some people warned back in 1789 (the convention to write a Constitution for the USA really was a very contentious event [see Charles Mee’s “Genius of the People” for an interesting and informative account], and there were arguments for and against in the media afterwards - for instance, in Anti-Federalist Papers No. 70 and 74), the USA could be said to have wound up with a system of basically electing a monarch.

(I find the continued use of “President” after leaving office disturbing, although I am less concerned about the pension after Truman wound up in such dire straits after he left the Presidency - that was a major vulnerability. Looking at the extent of weirdness around all this, I have to wonder: are there some sort of fumes from Yellowstone that affect most people in the USA who are in or have political power - or write laws/Amendments?)

The notion of term limits is, in my opinion, a good thing, although I am also favourably inclined towards Chile’s system of letting Presidents have an unlimited number of terms, but not two consecutive terms.

That, in my opinion, would reduce the focus on re-election that can potentially limit the effectiveness of the last half year - or longer - of a US President’s term, so that their exercise of their considerable and increased power would be less distracted.

So, ignoring the vagaries of the “electoral college” and the rest of the USA’s election systems for the moment, the USA will shortly elect its “King for a Day . . . and 3 years and 364 More Days”.

Naturally, there’s plenty of discussion in the media lately on the pros and cons of each side - there’s even been some (more) discussion on the USA’s 25^th Amendment to their Constitution, which allows for the Vice-President to take power when the USA’s President is incapacitated - provided the President was able to write and sign a letter before being incapacitated . . . unless someone is prepared to invoke the not-used-to-date Section 4, which means the incumbent does not always have to sign a letter, but invoking that Section requires a major political process.

Section 3 of that Amendment, the Section most people seem to be familiar with (which requires the aforementioned letter), has been invoked in 1985, 2002, and 2007, and has been considered several times.

What is more concerning, given the current election, is the age of one candidate, and the poor health of the other. That means there is a good chance that one of the Vice-Presidents may become President over the next four years.

So far, that has happened nine times - for four assassinations and four natural deaths, and one resignation:

• Tyler’s succession after Harrison consolidated the notion of the Vice-President attaining power after the death of a President;
• Andrew Jackson sabotaged Abraham Lincoln’s legacy (recovered, to some extent, by Grant, but Grant had also to undo the damage Jackson had caused);
• on the other hand, Theodore Roosevelt and Harry Truman probably did reasonably, after they came to power; but . . .
• Lyndon Johnson destroyed his attempt to wipe out poverty and address other problems in the USA when he increased US involvement in Viêt Nám, including introducing combat troops - a step I consider (based on his visit there in 1951) it is likely Kennedy would have avoided; and
• Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon.

Transfer of power to a Vice-President after a President has died or left office has happened, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse, and it could happen again.

In that case, the Vice-President, who seems to be normally treated with disdain by many, becomes one of the world’s most significant and powerful individuals, leader of a nation with an outsized influence in the world, an influence that has been of increasing concern over the last four years.

Given that, it is worth caring a little about who the USA’s Vice-Presidential candidates are, what sort of people they are, how they are likely to behave, and what their thoughts and likely policies are (they won’t necessarily be the same as the President’s).

It is indeed worth caring about US Vice-Presidential debates - always.