The 2024 election is over, and in some states, big majorities voted for the winner Donald Trump. In Wyoming, Trump won 72 percent of the vote. In fact, more than 60 percent of the voting population went for Trump in 13 states.
Fortunately for the majorities in those states, they’ll get the president they voted for.
However, the outcome would have been different if fewer than a million people—in a nation of 330 million—had changed their votes in Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Michigan. Then, Kamala Harris would now be the president-elect.
She would have won even though the voters of more than a dozen states had lopsided majorities in favor of Trump.
Moreover, Kamala could have won even though there was far less enthusiasm on her side. That is, only a single state, Massachusetts, had a voting majority of more than 60 percent for Kamala Harris.
Even If You Win, You Lose
We could come up with many similar examples in the past 24 years. In 2012, for example, Mitt Romney won 60 percent or more of the vote in nine states. 72 percent of the voters went for Romney in Utah. But, in the end, those supermajorities meant nothing, and the people of Utah, Oklahoma, Alabama, and several others—who had voted nearly 2 to 1 for Romney—got Barack Obama as president. In 2020, by the way, more than 60 percent of the voters in ten states voted against Joe Biden.
These facts should be remembered the next time that some pundit or politician tries to tell us that democracy is “the voice of the people” or “the will of the majority.” The question that has to be asked is “which majority?” and “which people?”
Indeed, for the people of Utah in 2012 or Massachusetts in 2024, the president that rules over those states was chosen by people who don’t live in those states. Even if 100 percent of the voters in a state vote against a certain candidate, they could still end up with that candidate as president based on the votes of people living somewhere else. Moreover, given that many states don’t have voter ID, it stands to reason that even if a large majority of your state votes for a certain candidate, foreign nationals in some other state may ultimately make the decision for you.
It’s difficult to see how such a method expresses “the will of the majority” when a tiny majority or plurality nationwide so often nullifies overwhelming majorities in a multitude of US states.
On a legalistic level, of course, the courts tell us this is all how it is supposed to be. In presidential elections, it simply doesn’t matter what your local majority says. The only majority that matters is the national majority. This is true even if we take into account the electoral college, which is nothing more than a formula for weighting the national majority vote.
It bears noticing, however, that these national majorities are often not even majorities. In 1992 and 1996, for example, Bill Clinton won the race with 43 percent and 49 percent, respectively. And, when a candidate does manage to win a majority, it is usually very slim. Not since 1988 has any presidential candidate managed to get even 53 percent of the popular vote. The closest anyone got was Obama in 2008. Most presidential races since 1948 have been decided by a majority of 51 percent or less.
The Rules Are Broken in the Age of the Modern Unlimited Presidency
In spite of all this, those who can’t think beyond the status quo—both leftists and conservatives—will simply say “rules are rules.” They’ll go on to insist that we must blindly follow the rules no matter what.
In truth, however, these “rules” were not ratified by any living person, and they were created in an age when the US president exercised very few domestic powers. In the early nineteenth century, presidents could do virtually nothing domestically without Congressional approval, and even those powers were few. Nowadays, however, presidents exercise vast power within the borders of every single US state.
Yet, the current system is based on the idea that even if whole regions of the country vote overwhelmingly against a president, they are still forced to submit to four years of that president’s rule-by-decree, which is what every presidency now is in our post-legislative age of Rule by Executive Order.
Yes, this system is based on “the rules,” but in the world of politics, rules only work until they don’t. Ask the British in 1776 or the Soviets in 1989.
You’re Never Allowed to Leave
The absurdity and injustice of this system is further illustrated by the fact that no matter how much your state’s majority might object to the federal president or his policies, no state or part of a state is allowed to exit the system. Ever.
If a two-thirds majority in your state votes against the federal administration again and again, well, that’s too bad, you’re never allowed to leave. You’ll just have to sit back and take whatever the executive branch decides to dish out. But, hey, you always have your small handful of members of Congress to make little speeches on the floor of the House of Representatives. None of this will ever do anything to protect your state’s population from federal policies—no matter how contrary these might be to your local economic interests and institutions. But, “rules are rules.”
No private non-state organization would ever function in such a fashion. Imagine telling the owners of a public company that no matter how much the management behaves contrary to various investors’ wishes, those investors are never allowed to sell their shares and leave the organization. Imagine telling members of any dues-paying organization that no matter how much the leaders screw over the members, they are never allowed to stop paying dues.
Yet, this is how the “rules” work in America. No matter how much the central government might ignore, abuse, and generally govern against the majority of the voters in your state, you are never allowed to leave. You are never allowed to stop paying taxes to support the very people who couldn’t care less about what you think.
The only way out requires that we stop caring what the rules say. The answer lies in decentralization, secession, and the dismantling of the political system that allowed Obama and Joe Biden to shove their policies down the throats of supermajorities that voted against these presidents again and again. The re-election of Donald Trump does not fundamentally change any of this. Even if Trump were to turn out to be some kind of anti-establishment dream candidate in his second term, the 2028 election is just a few years away.
On the other hand, to accept the status quo is to continue allowing federal technocrats a thousand miles away to literally dictate federal policies to your community.
Unfortunately, like prisoners suffering from Stockholm syndrome, many will elect to continue supporting the central regime because the “rules-are-rules” propaganda has worked very well.
