Law & Liberty published “The Electoral College in Context” by Robert G. Natelson—who provides historical context to help us appreciate the wisdom behind the Electoral College in the US system of electing the executive. The main point of controversy today is that, as compared to a straight national popular vote determination, the Electoral College apportions a bit more sway to less-populous states. Natelson explains one important point about how the Electoral College’s apportionment of sway is for the good. But outside the scope of Natelson’s essay lies another, more important reason for defending the institution: the Electoral College checks some of the nastier hazards of mass politics.

Many state utility regulators, policymakers, utilities, and others construct an orthodox and politically palatable argument that market failure justifies utility energy efficiency (EE) programs and that the vast majority of those programs would pass a cost-benefit test. (Incidentally, the alleged major culprits of market failure are energy consumers incapable of making the correct calculations from a societal perspective, or making decisions contrary to their self-interest. That so-called “EE gap” provides the raison d’etre for both government and utility subsidies to encourage the adoption of efficiency-promoting technologies.)

The United States faces a growing housing shortage, which is driven heavily by the scarcity of available apartments. According to a joint study from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and the National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC), the US needs to add 4.3 million apartment units to the housing supply by 2035 to catch up to demand.

This was not 2016 when Donald Trump lost the popular vote but prevailed in the electoral college with 306 votes to Hilary Clinton’s 232. Last week, Trump garnered 74,677,434 votes to Harris’ 71,147,994 votes and won the Electoral College with 312 electoral votes to Harris’ 226. No previous Republican presidential candidate has ever won this many popular votes. All this in the face of a relentless media campaign painting Trump as a fascist, an insurrectionist, and a danger to American democracy. So, what are we to make of the results?

President-elect Trump has, in the past, been at odds with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on monetary policy. Trump will likely favor lower interest rates and an easier monetary policy than Powell. However, Powell and the Fed act independently of the presidency, at least nominally, and when asked if he would step down if Trump asked him to, Powell said no.

In The Theory of Political Spectrum, I presented three critical factors that influence the polarization of political ideologies: attitudes toward private property rights, the state of consciousness, and the degree of wealth redistribution. The article demonstrates that an assault on private property, the collectivization of consciousness, or widespread and involuntary wealth redistribution—either individually or collectively—are methods of making society more oriented to socialism. The last factor, wealth redistribution, has a close relationship with private property rights but is often ignored by mainstream academics and policy analysts. They have become so accustomed to extensive social programs and progressive taxation as normal conditions of a modern state that they fail to recognize the underlying economic and moral flaws. Neglecting this factor overlooks the central role it played in the gradual adoption of evolutionary socialism in the United States.

A second lesson of 2024 rings the death knell of the National Popular Vote (NPV) Initiative or Compact, intended by its supporters to avoid election “inversions” in which the presidential candidate winning the popular vote loses in the Electoral College. The compact was first introduced in 2006 but reinvigorated by Donald Trump’s 2016 defeat of Hillary Clinton.

There is an old proverb known as the “law of holes.” It goes something like this: “Let me tell you about the law of holes: If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.”

Most political pollsters were wrong about how close the 2024 U.S. presidential election would be, especially in so-called battleground states, which were expected to be toss-ups just days before November 5. Why did the polls underestimate Donald Trump’s popular vote margin wildly and, by extension, his dominance of the Electoral College?

Millions of Cubans remain without power in the wake of Hurricane Oscar, but bad weather is not Cuba’s real problem. Its centrally planned socialist economy is the root cause of the blackout and most of its other problems.