2-News
I
n the early days of our
republic, our founders were
faced with a question of
lasting significance; how should
our president be chosen? Two
potential answers arose and came
into conflict with one another.
Some founders supported the
idea of choosing the president
with a simple popular vote by the
American
people.
Conversely,
others thought Congress alone
should select the president.
This debate gave way to a solution
in the middle. The president would
neither be selected exclusively by
a popular vote nor by Congress.
Our chief executive would instead
be chosen by a body of electors, a
system that is widely known today
as the Electoral College.
The Electoral College is one of
the most remarkable inventions of
our framers. It gives a tremendous
amount of power to the people
to directly choose the president,
which is critical in a representative
democracy like ours. But the
Electoral College isn’t based on
the popular vote alone. If that were
the case, presidential candidates
would likely focus solely on the
largest states, like California, New
York and Texas. It gives a higher
degree of representation to small
states like Wyoming and Alaska
that would otherwise be forgotten.
Through this unique system, every
state in our republic matters.
244 years since United States
was founded, the Electoral College
continues
to
determine
the
outcome of presidential elections
every four years. But recent trends
across the country have eroded the
advantages of this system.
A critical component of the
Electoral College is that major
population centers don’t hold
all of the power. That was true
at first, but the framers could
never have anticipated the rapid
population growth of the United
States.
When
this
system
was
enacted, the total population of
our country was less than four
million people according to the
1790 census. Today, the U.S. has
more than 330 million people.
But this dramatic jump doesn’t
tell the whole story. Since more
than 80% of Americans live in
urban areas today, the Electoral
College no longer represents
the true heart of America. It
inadvertently silences the voices
it was intended to amplify.
There
are
a
number
of
proposals that have been floated
to remedy the Electoral College.
Arguably the strongest is the
congressional district method:
reforming the system to allocate
electoral votes on the basis of
congressional districts instead
of entire states. At the moment,
with the exception of Nebraska
and Maine, each state awards
its electors through the winner-
take-all method. The candidate
that receives the highest tally
(technically, even if they win a
state by a single vote) receives all
of that state’s electoral votes. For
instance, in the 2020 presidential
election, Democratic president
Joe Biden took all of Georgia’s 16
electoral votes despite winning
the state by a slim 0.3%.
This becomes more and more
problematic as the U.S. continues
to rapidly urbanize. Because
48 out of 50 states award their
electoral
votes
according
to
the
winner-take-all
method,
urban and suburban areas have
become unusually important. If
a presidential candidate can run
the table in a dense population
center, they can virtually ignore
the rest of the state.
Instead of giving a voice to
every American, the current
system places far too much
emphasis on a small group of
cities. Right here in Michigan,
much of the vote is determined
by Metro Detroit, which contains
more than 40% of all Michigan
residents. The same is true in
Chicago, New York City, Los
Angeles and numerous other
cities.
If the Electoral College awarded
votes on the basis of congressional
districts, we could effectively solve
this problem. Determining the
winner according to congressional
districts would give the entire
country a say in choosing our next
president. While forgotten rural
areas, in particular, would have
the representation they deserve,
our suburbs and urban areas
would still have considerable
power. Every district would be
given a voice, and many more
areas across the nation would be
in play. It would become normal
to see a Republican candidate visit
a state like California, and to see a
Democratic candidate visit Texas.
On the national scale, the
congressional district method
would
closely
mirror
how
Nebraska and Maine already
award their electors. Instead
of the top candidate in a state
securing all electoral votes, each
congressional
district
would
be worth one vote, since every
congressional district is home
to roughly the same number of
people. After the congressional
districts award their votes, the
remaining two electors (one for
each senator) would be allocated
to the state popular vote winner.
This proposal might initially
seem to disproportionately favor
the
Republican
presidential
candidate since large blue states
often have red districts who
would give electoral votes to
Republicans. For instance, in
the 2020 presidential election,
Republican
candidate
Donald
Trump
won
congressional
districts across Michigan and
Pennsylvania even though he lost
both states. Under the current
system, Trump was awarded
no electoral votes from either
of these states; a reformed
Electoral College would allocate
a substantial number of votes
to Trump. The same would be
true in New York and California,
states Biden won handily despite
Trump performing well in rural
areas.
But awarding votes on the basis
of congressional districts benefits
the
Democratic
presidential
candidate too. For example, Biden
won congressional districts in
Texas, Florida and Ohio despite
losing all three of these states.
Under the winner-take-all model,
Biden didn’t earn any electoral
votes from these states. This
new Electoral College would
have awarded Biden a significant
number of electoral votes that he
didn’t receive under the current
system.
If the Electoral College were
reformed, both Republican and
Democratic candidates would pick
up votes in areas that otherwise
would have been glossed over by
the winner-take-all method. It
truly is a system that is fairer to
both sides. It also makes elections
more competitive, giving every
candidate a fair shot. Had the
congressional
district
method
been used in 2016, Democratic
candidate Hillary Clinton would
have lost the electoral college by a
much narrower margin. The same
would be true in 2020, with Biden
prevailing over Trump with fewer
electoral votes.
Finally, this proposed system
takes the emphasis off of states
as a whole and focuses instead
on individual districts, which are
smaller areas that have clearer
needs and priorities. This is
especially important in larger
states. For example, California
has 53 congressional districts, all
of which have unique situations.
The people of California lack a
voice when a state of nearly 40
million people is treated as one
unit.
Choosing the president of
the United States is no simple
matter. But if we want our chief
executive to truly be a reflection
of the will of the people, we
need to take steps to make sure
all corners of our republic have
a say. If our founders had the
opportunity to live in 2021, they
would want nothing more than
that.
KEITH JOHNSTONE | COLUMNIST
10 — Wednesday, February 3, 2021
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
ANYA SINGH | CONTACT CARTOONIST AT ANYAS@UMICH.EDU.
T
he
Republican
reaction
to
Twitter’s
decision
to
permanently
ban
former President Donald Trump is
emblematic of today’s Republican
Party: hypocritical and purposefully
misleading.
Claiming
that
it’s
unconstitutional
for
Twitter,
a
private company, to ban Trump from
their platform grossly misinterprets
what the First Amendment says
plainly: “Congress shall make no law
… abridging the freedom of speech.”
The key word in the First
Amendment
that
often
gets
overlooked is Congress. The First
Amendment is supposed to protect us
— the people — from the government.
It is not meant to protect us from
the social consequences that may
arise because of our speech. It is not
possible for private companies to
violate the First Amendment.
Republicans, while claiming to
be the party of the Constitution,
are lying to the American people —
some of whom now believe that a
private company is liable under the
First Amendment. This goes beyond
Twitter banning Trump.
Simon & Schuster, a publishing
company,
announced
it
was
canceling Sen. Josh Hawley’s, R-Mo.,
book publication for his role in the
attempt to overturn the election
results. Hawley responded by saying
that the situation was “a direct assault
on the First Amendment.”
Hawley
is
a
constitutional
lawyer
who
clerked
for
U.S.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John
Roberts. He knows that a private
company cannot “assault” the First
Amendment. Hawley, Trump and
other Republicans who are well-
versed in the true meaning of the
First Amendment are exploiting the
political polarization of today to give
themselves more political power at
the expense of the United States and
its citizens.
Simon & Schuster and Twitter
— as well as the other social media
companies that deplatformed Trump
— are not government entities, and
thus cannot be held accountable
under the First Amendment. Trump
broke its terms of service, giving
Twitter every right to ban him and
preventing a viable lawsuit from
taking place. Hawley engaged in
behavior that Simon & Schuster
didn’t want associated with their
brand. The Constitution does not
guarantee Americans a right to a
Twitter account or a book deal.
Rather than a disagreement over
policy or values, American political
discourse
has
transcended
to
disagreement over fact perpetuated
by purposeful lies. Republicans
are telling their voters, and all
Americans, things that are simply
not true.
The most prominent lie is that
President Joe Biden is not the rightful
president and that Trump lost due
to rampant voter fraud, which led
to an insurrection at the Capitol in
January and continues to threaten
our democracy. One solution is to
prevent the spread of this dangerous
information
through
sources
that anyone can access, like social
media sites. These platforms play a
central role in our daily lives, which
necessitates their proactivity rather
than retroactivity.
Twitter was right to ban Trump.
He has been tweeting falsehoods
for months, which dramatically
increased
in
number
and
destructiveness since the election
in November — culminating when
he was removed from Twitter after
the events in January. But while
the actions taken by social media
companies to ban Trump and purge
other misinformation from their
sites was the right action to take, it is
possible that beginning to take serious
action against misinformation in 2021
is too little, too late.
The repercussions of waiting to
curtail the spread of misinformation
could have serious consequences all
over the world. German Chancellor
Angela Merkel and Russian opposition
leader Alexey Navalny have both
expressed concern about free speech
in the wake of a private company
banning such a prominent figure
in world politics. Their arguments
have merit and demonstrate how
dangerous it was for tech companies
to allow misinformation on their
platforms for such long periods of time
in the first place.
There are several actions that
the government or the companies
themselves can take to show they
are trying to prevent lies from being
spread on these platforms. People
have called for the tech companies to
be more transparent in their actions,
such as setting up a committee
to make decisions about banning
users and flagging tweets with clear
standards that they adhere to.
Twitter and the First Amendment
LYDIA STORELLA | COLUMNIST
Lydia Storella can be reached at
storella@umich.edu.
EVAN STERN | COLUMNIST
Evan Stern can be reached at
erstern@umich.edu.
Why we should give the congressional
district method a try
I
have many fond childhood
memories at my local GameStop,
a
tiny
store
in
Somerset
Collection Mall nestled between a
candle shop and the public restrooms.
Back in the days before Twitter and
Instagram, when Amazon was just a
bookseller who struggled to compete
with Borders, I spent my time in a
magnificent little nerdy paradise
containing a catalog of video games
dating back to the 1990s and extending
up to the newest releases.
While my sisters and parents
went around the mall running their
errands, I was sure to be in the shop
chatting up the workers or playing the
demo game set up near the entrance.
Then, sadly, the Internet boomed,
brick and mortar stores like this
became increasingly obsolete, and
this chain fell in stature alongside so
many others.
However, this is only half of this
story. The other side begins in quite
possibly the complete opposite of
metro Detroit — Wall Street.
Typically, when we think of Wall
Street, we think of the big institutional
investors like JPMorgan Chase,
Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs
and so on, but these organizations
are just one piece of the financial
world. Instead of these traditionally
beneficial actors, this story focuses
on the shadowy world of hedge funds.
Hedge funds are kind of like shadow
banks for uber-wealthy consumers
who are willing to take on more risks
in exchange for potentially massive
rewards, sometimes increasing their
investments by 40 to 50%. While these
funds began as somewhat isolated
and extremely susceptible to market
fundamentals — like a business’s
quarterly earnings and the overall
economic environment — they have
steadily gained influence over the
market, transforming into some of the
most powerful market actors.
One of their many methods
of exerting this influence is by
shorting (betting against) struggling
companies, spreading misinformation
by manipulating financial media
and other institutions to send these
companies into a downward spiral
while making a tidy profit off their
bankruptcies. This practice — while
not necessarily illegal — is deeply
unethical
market
manipulation
and a symptom of an increasingly
out-of-control
marketplace
fueled
by cynicism, greed and a lack of
government regulation.
However, on Jan. 25, the people
decided to fight back.
On the subreddit r/WallStreetBets,
users organized to conduct a mass
purchase of GameStop (GME) — one
of the most shorted stocks by hedge
funds due to its declining stature,
inflexible business model and poor
pandemic response — to artificially
drive the stock price up and deal a
financial blow to hedge funds.
This plan, however seemingly
unlikely, succeeded beyond just about
anyone’s expectations, skyrocketing
GME’s price over 1,000% over the last
week and forcing many hedge funds
to incur massive losses to the tune of
billions of dollars. These hedge funds,
in panic mode, accused these retail
investors of market manipulation,
which is not entirely unfounded.
With
that
being
said,
their
argument rings hollow as hedge funds
are the original market manipulators.
Regulators have shown them leniency.
Therefore, regulators should show
leniency to the everyday Americans
who are fighting back.
Things were looking good for retail
investors who were finally getting
one over on the monied interests
when, on Thursday morning, what
can be generously described as
the most collusive action against
retail investors in the last decade
was undertaken. Popular trading
platforms
like
Robinhood,
TD
Ameritrade and Webull restricted the
purchasing of GME and other Reddit-
promoted companies.
This, in turn, sent GME into a state of
wild fluctuation rising as high as $483
per share and sinking as low as $112 per
share within the day. It also sparked
major controversy online, motivating
thousands to sign onto a class-action
lawsuit against Robinhood — whose
slogan is “democratizing finance for
all,” despite recently paying $65M
to settle an investigation into their
practice of selling users’ information to
institutional investors.
The issue united Sen. Ted Cruz,
R-Texas, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-
Cortez, D-N.Y., Barstool Founder
Dave Portnoy, Sen. Elizabeth Warren,
D-Mass. and political commentator
Ben Shapiro while bringing investor
Leon Cooperman to the verge of tears
in a truly hilarious video that I cannot
recommend highly enough.
So, where does that leave us?
Well, I hate to rain on Reddit’s
parade, but this is probably not the day
when we #EatTheRich. However, I
do believe that this event has finally
woken the American people — on
both sides of the aisle — up to how
corrupt the market can be.
Between
the
Trump
administration’s
frenzied
and
mostly
half-baked
deregulation
and the real world’s increasing
disconnection
from
the
stock
market, something like this was
bound to happen. Personally, I
thank God that it wasn’t much
worse, but that is not to say that this
story is over. In fact, I think it is just
beginning.
I think we are headed for more
market instability on the immediate
horizon, and it will not stop until
our politicians say that enough is
enough and embolden government
regulators. Until then, this was a good
first shot where a down-on-our-luck
Main Street struck back at a bloated
and overconfident Wall Street.
For the hedge funds, the party
is likely winding down, but for the
people, Mr. Brightside just began
playing and you better be sure that
they can hear the people sing.
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
Keith Johnstone can be reached at
keithja@umich.edu.
Wait ... did you say GameStop?
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