Ah, the Red/Blue political fractures in the United States today.
I certainly can relate as during my lifetime I have bounced from voting for Republicans to Democrats. My family actively supported and voted for both Eisenhower in the 1950s and Nixon in 1960, and later for Obama and Clinton. At no point did we venture to the far right or far left positions of either party.
And at all times it was obvious what issues most members of each party agreed with and championed.
That said, I find it disturbing in 2025 that two illogical issues seem overwhelmingly supported by my Republican colleagues, especially shared by far-right GOP voters
The first issue is the Electoral College, a concept rewarding U.S. residents living in small states and penalizing citizens of large states. Really, are residents of New York and California any less American than folks from Iowa and Montana? And why should it matter where a person chooses to live? Isn’t the only truly ethical way to pick a president based on one-person, one-vote?
Was it in any way fair for Grover Cleveland to have won the presidency in the 19th century the first and third times he ran, but to have lost his second run for the White House because of losing the Electoral College vote that time, even though he won the popular vote in all three contests? And historians agree he lost the second Electoral College vote largely because of his having made the unpardonable sin at the end of his first term of having a surplus budget. Go figure.
Now the Electoral College is the first of two illogical issues of the GOP. The second is the Second Amendment. While a “well regulated Militia” may indeed have been necessary at one time for “the security of a free state,” that time, when Britain posed a dire threat to America, passed more than 200 years ago.
Today, we live in a period where hundreds, if not thousands, of children are regularly killed each year in this country by legal gun-owners, a “militia” protected by the Second Amendment. But our population in no way constitutes a “militia.” Instead, the National Guard, sheriffs, state police, local police and authorized security guards comprise the “militia,” all of whom clearly need to be well armed.
So what am I missing as I live in a small Electoral College state and have had a family that has owned five guns? And I remember well the last time I was on a shooting range earning a perfect score. So yes, I’m well acquainted with guns. But all that said, my presidential vote should not count more than that of my California friends, and for our collective safety and that of our children, I’m happy for my family and my countrymen to surrender our guns.
I’m also hoping my GOP colleagues might agree that all of our presidential votes should count equally and that we should do everything possible to make our nation guns free.
Dr. William A. Babcock has taught journalism at U.S., British and Chinese universities, and was senior international news editor for the Christian Science Monitor. He lives in Durango.
