American ideals, as expressed in the second paragraph of our Declaration of Independence, are premised on the idea that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Unfortunately, the Constitution, of necessity, primarily created a government of the states, not the people. There is a world of difference between the two. Alexander Hamilton in Federalist Paper No. 22 left no doubt where this nation should stand: “The fabric of the American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED.” He presciently warns that “the impropriety of an equal vote between states of the most unequal dimensions and populousness … will give greater scope to foreign corruption, as well as to domestic faction, than that which permits the sense of the majority to decide.” Hamilton deplores the “sophistry” of the notion that most of the states will represent a majority of the people. The “fundamental maxim of republican government” the essay maintains “requires that the sense of the majority should prevail.”

The “sophistry” Hamilton identified has become so accepted that schools, politicians and media treat “government of the people” as a semantic equivalent of “government by the states.” The widespread acceptance of this sleight of hand has caused many to overlook the growing divergence between the two as they have come into sharper conflict. Hamilton predicted the American people would “revolt” and not indefinitely allow their interests to be thwarted “upon the credit of artificial distinctions and syllogistic subtleties” by smaller states. At that time, the population ratio between the largest and the smallest state was 11 to 1; today the ratio is 68 to 1. Thus, institutions representing states — the Electoral College and the U.S. Senate — are much less likely to represent the American people today than in Hamilton’s time. Erasing the distinction between institutions representing states and the American people is as ruinous for the body politic as an individual erasing the distinction between healthy and contaminated food.

Three developments highlight the ability of state power to sideline the American people toward irrelevance:

• The Electoral College overrode the will of the American people twice in 16 years and installed popular vote losers: Voters are of secondary importance in presidential elections because votes in many locations are utterly worthless.
• Since Sandy Hook (2012), about 80% have desired gun safety measures. Yet, the demands of the majority are thwarted, and deadly ambushes keep increasing.
• Predictably, the Supreme Court is out of step with the American people: It is entirely chosen by the president and the Senate — institutions where people are secondary. As terrible as the Electoral College is at representing people, the Senate is even worse. California’s two senators are canceled by Wyoming’s two even though California has one-third of all the nation’s minorities and 68 times the population. Clarence Thomas was confirmed 52 to 48 but the 48 senators represented many millions more than the 52 senators confirming him. In 2016, the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ignorantly claimed he delayed filling a court vacancy for 10 months “so that the American people could weigh in.” Then the people did weigh in, giving Hillary Clinton almost 3,000,000 more votes than Trump. But the people’s preference was utterly irrelevant to the selection of the next three justices since the Electoral College ignores the voice of the people.

While the House of Representatives is heavily gerrymandered and the Senate scarcely pretends to represent people, the ability of the Electoral College to override the will of the people has an extremely corrosive effect on democracy and will likely be at the center of a future autopsy of U.S. democracy. It birthed the Trump presidency and illustrated that an individual can become president without ever soliciting or receiving the votes from the majority, or even a plurality. In fact, the most investigated and vilified woman of human history — facing a new major investigation — handily beat Trump in the popular vote. The Electoral College not only furnished Trump with the presidency, it created illusions aplenty that inflated his ego, arrogance and incivility and made him feel entitled to flaunt laws. The illusions also enticed his followers to incivility and violence. The reality is, in Trump’s 2016 win he received a smaller percentage of the popular vote than had candidates sometimes considered mediocre — Al Gore, John Kerry, Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton!

Jan. 6 revealed Trump’s plans to countermand the American people. He wanted a situation to employ a constitutional provision (Article 2, Section 1) where each state would have one vote and 26 small states, representing 17% of the population, would choose the president. If that had occurred, then an American government even faintly exemplifying American ideals would have perished from the earth.

The paramount challenge of our age is for the American people to confront the “sophistry” that equates states and people and implement American ideals by rendering states irrelevant in presidential elections before states render the American people irrelevant.

Rick Jones is a retired adjunct teacher of economics from Weber State.

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