And so it begins. Nine months still to go before the next US presidential election and already the Republican party favourite and former President Donald Trump is sending eyes rolling skywards with his seemingly outlandish statements.
And yet they will delight many of his supporters.
Suggesting at a rally in South Carolina that he would “encourage” aggressors (for example Russia) “to do whatever the hell they want” with Nato countries that fail to pay their dues has prompted an immediate slap down from the White House. A spokesman called the comment “appalling and unhinged”, saying it was “encouraging invasions of our closest allies by murderous regimes”.
Nato Secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg has also responded forcefully, saying: “Any suggestion that allies will not defend each other undermines all of our security, including that of the US, and puts American and European soldiers at increased risk.”
Of the ones that are ‘done’, they were already consistently democrat and haven’t had to vote against their usual leaning.
Of the ones that are marked as ‘pending’, it is very optimistic to presume that is on its way to anything. It merely requires that some state legislature person proposed it. Maine is “Pending” but has already failed 7 prior attempts over the past 15 years. Many of those “pending” have been “in committee” for about a year. No way it takes a year to seriously bake such a simplistic proposal, it’s dead in committee, just waiting for an election cycle for it to be official.
The reason this is doomed to fail is you’d need states to join that explicitly enjoy political advantage from the current system. A die-hard “red” state will not sign on to a system that basically hands the presidential election to whoever the northeast and west coast vote for. A swing state that may be more ok with a democrat winning consistently would still not want to cede the political influence afforded to them by virtue of being a “swing” state.
All of that can be true and this is still easier than a constitutional amendment.
That is all that I was saying from the start. It remains the case. You don’t need a constitutional convention to make this change, there is an easier way to do it.