America’s food producers will be slaves to blue states if Electoral College is abolished

America's food producers will be slaves to blue states if Electoral College is abolished

Trent England, Opinion contributor

USA Today

Rural Americans would be serfs if we abolished the Electoral College

If the National Popular Vote drive kills the Electoral College, rural and small town Americans who supply our food and energy will lose their voice.

Should rural and small-town Americans be reduced to serfdom? The American Founders didn’t think so. This is one reason why they created checks and balances, including the Electoral College. Today that system is threatened by a proposal called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, or NPV.

Rural America produces almost all our country’s food, as well as raw materials like metals, cotton and timber. Energy, fossil fuels but also alternatives like wind and solar come mostly from rural areas. In other words, the material inputs of modern life flow out of rural communities and into cities.

This is fine, so long as the exchange is voluntary — rural people choose to sell their goods and services, receive a fair price, and have their freedom protected under law. But history shows that city dwellers have a nasty habit of taking advantage of their country cousins. Greeks enslaved whole masses of rural people, known as helots. Medieval Europe had feudalism. The Russians had their serfs.

Farmland near Choteau, Minnesota.
Farmland near Choteau, Minnesota. (Photo: Judy Cornell, AP)

Credit the American Founders with setting up a system of limited government with lots of checks and balances. The U.S. Senate makes sure all states are represented equally, even low-population rural states like Wyoming and Vermont. Limits on federal power, along with the Bill of Rights, are supposed to protect Americans from overreaching federal regulations. And the Electoral College makes it impossible for one population-dense region of the country to control the presidency.

Skipping the constitutional amendment process

This is why Hillary Clinton lost in 2016. Instead of winning over small-town Americans, she amassed a popular vote lead based on California and a few big cities. She won those places with huge margins but lost just about everywhere else. And the system worked. The Electoral College requires more than just the most raw votes to win — it requires geographic balance. This helps to protect rural and small-town Americans.

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Comments

  1. If and when anarchy occurs for lack of produce or products the uprising will begin in the city’s. Those from the city’s will start nearby and work their way spreading over all the points of the compass even if having to walk, some say up to 100 miles in concentric circles. Those used to having something for nothing or never learned how to be self sufficient will be the first working their way into the countryside like a horde of locust’s. Those who produce and know how to be self sufficient will gather together in groups to protect each other from ne’er do wells coming out from the inner cities in particular. During WWII or any war those who live in the rural areas who know to be self reliant will have better resources at their disposal. Under anarchy the food items etc in the cities will go first from the grocery stores where some or many think all they have to do is go to the grocery stores. Most likely transportation will fail and the trucks would not be running who provide the commodities and food. It behooves those in the urban areas to learn to be self reliant and learn to raise food products in what ever land nearby. Once raised though keeping it will be the real test.

  2. There is a true meaning to “biting the hand that feeds you”. In the long run, producers will ALWAYS be able to produce their own food and coop with each other. Even after the entitled come and help themselves to our livestock & corn. Producers don’t believe in handouts. We WORK for everything we have and we’ll be glad to help you learn to help yourself. Of course, the Government knows where every grain bin is and how much and where the livestock are. We couldn’t stop them from seizing all of it to hand it out to people too lazy to work for it.

  3. We already are in Colorado, majority rules do not work when the majority is city bound and only uses the outdoors to dispose of their unwanted pets and to leave their enviro friendly trash behind

      1. Unfortunately, same is already true in a long list of states — even in the West: Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. All completely dominated by their urban population centers, and corresponding urban values. One of the biggest conflicts that is shaping up is the one between urban and rural values. But make no mistake about it, urban values and mindsets are starting to over-run rural areas as well.

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