(Editor's Note: The following opinion column does not constitute an endorsement of any political party, or candidate, on the part of Newsmax.)
One day before Election Day Republicans and Team Trump are building coalitions and making their final arguments, while Democrats and Team Harris complain about the electoral process, and make plans to disqualify Trump.
From the left, Trump has added former Democrat presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard, former Democrat tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, and Democrat family heir Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Gabbard and Musk are now both Republicans.
And within the last couple of days Trump added former Texas Rep. Ron Paul, a libertarian, to his team.
The Trump team also received endorsements within the last week from clean-cut Apollo astronaut legend Buzz Aldrin, 94, and tattoo-festooned boxer Jake Paul, 27.
Legacy media outlets USA Today, Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post, who routinely endorse the Democratic presidential nominee, refused to endorse any candidate for the first time in decades.
Former Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, a lifelong Democrat, left the party two months ago without endorsing Harris, and far-left Democrat Rep. and "squad" member Rashida Tlaib of Michigan also refused to endorse Harris.
Meantime some media figures are already calling the election for Trump and complaining about it.
Elie Mystal, the justice correspondent at The Nation, claimed Friday that Trump may be planning to "steal the election" even if he loses the popular vote, with the Electoral College — just as he claims he did in 2016.
"We are not the greatest democracy on Earth," he groused.
"We are not even a true democracy because of the Electoral College."
True enough.
We are a democratic republic.
And the Founders argued at the Constitutional Convention for months about how to choose presidents.
Some pushed for a straight popular vote — which is what Mystal promotes. Others wanted Congress to select their president — like parliament chooses a prime minister.
To break the deadlock they compromised with the Electoral College, in which each state gets a number of electors equal to the number of representatives and senators they send to Congress.
Later on the District of Columbia was given three, for a total of 538 (435 House members, 100 Senate members, plus three to D.C.).
Since 1789, five presidents won their election while losing the popular vote:
- John Quincy Adams (1824)
- Rutherford B. Hayes (1876)
- Benjamin Harrison (1888)
- George W. Bush (2000)
- Donald Trump (2016)
2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is still complaining about that last one, but she (and Mystal) should understand that the Electoral College is the rule we play by.
The losing team at a football game doesn’t complain that they would have won if only the rules were "this" instead of "that."
Clinton all but ignored the rust belt in 2016; Trump didn’t, and picked up Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes, Michigan’s 16, and Pennsylvania’s 20 to win the election.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., promised last week that whatever the results are tomorrow, he’ll support the peaceful transfer of power in January — but only "if it’s a free and fair election."
Raskin made the statement on HBO’s "Real Time with Bill Maher" Friday.
"When I say we will support a free and fair election, no we're not going to allow them to steal it in the states, steal it with the Department of Justice or steal it with any other election official in the country," he said.
"If it's a free and fair election, we will do what we've always done: Honor it."
Notwithstanding that claim, Democrats have challenged every presidential election they've lost in this century, and Raskin himself challenged Trump’s 2016 victory over Clinton.
He broadly hinted what his challenge might be this time in February.
"So it’s going to be up to us on January 6th, 2025 to tell the rampaging Trump mobs that he’s disqualified," Raskin said.
"And then we need bodyguards for everybody and civil war conditions, all because the nine justices, not all of them, but these justices who have not many cases to look at every year, not that much work to do, a huge staff, great protection, simply do not want to do their job and interpret what the great 14th Amendment means."
Section 3 of Amendment 14 was inserted to prohibit a former federal official who had sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution, then later took part in an insurrection, from holding a federal office again.
That’s a horribly weak argument. Jan. 6, 2021, was a riot — not an "insurrection" — and Trump neither took part in it, sanctioned it, nor instigated it.
But even in the highly unlikely event he wins that argument, we’re good with JD Vance.
The goal tomorrow is to overwhelm Democrats — make it "too big to rig" and win both the Electoral College and the popular vote.
No matter what, we’ll have to accept the fact that Democrats will still complain about it.
Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and has been a frequent contributor to Newsmax. He is also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and a Second Amendment supporter. Read Michael Dorstewitz's Reports — More Here.
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