On Monday, the Electoral College convenes to formally choose the next President of the United States. The Electoral College vote is normally little more than a ceremonial event that makes the results of the election official. This year is different.
Embittered Democrats and a few “Never Trump” Republicans are urging some of Donald Trump’s would-be electors to break ranks and vote for someone else. There is no constitutional requirement that the 538 electors must honor the will of the majority in their respective states.
But there are laws in some states that effectively bind their electors to the popular vote results. Only on rare occasions has an elector decided to go rogue and vote against the will of his or her state.
Anti-Trump forces claim that several electors may be willing to join in a coordinated effort to deny Trump the presidency and throw the election to the House of Representatives. A few renegades may well make their voices heard. However, it’s extremely unlikely to be enough to deny Trump the presidency. He has big margin of victory in the electoral count, thanks to wins in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan (he only needed to win one of those states to clinch).
The recount efforts in those states fizzled out, so there’s little hope left for Democrats to get the results overturned. What they can do is try to undermine the incoming president’s perceived legitimacy. If something unexpected does happen with the Electoral College vote on Monday, it could certainly rattle markets.
Some of the same activists who now want to use the Electoral College to stop Trump have, in previous election cycles, blasted it as antiquated and undemocratic.
But the Founders didn’t want to create a direct democracy. They wanted to create a republic with checks and balances.
The Electoral College is part of our constitutional system. The Federal Reserve isn’t – or at least wasn’t ever supposed to be.
Central banks that print fiat money are antiquated and unconstitutional. The Founders warned against the dangers of central banks, and previous presidents have tried to get rid of them. One such president was Andrew Jackson.
As Money Metals analyst Guy Christopher explained in our podcast interview with him last week, “Andrew Jackson, President, 1829-1836, was a foe of central banking. He believed in sound money. A lot of folks don't know that Andrew Jackson actually forced buyers and customers of the federal government to use gold and silver rather than paper money. He did that by executive order, and it caused a lot of concern among bankers because they had to come up with gold instead of paper. He was a foe of central banks for the same reason that people today are against central banks, he saw the dangers of printing money that was not backed by sound money, by gold and silver.”
Stefan Gleason is President of Money Metals Exchange, the company recently named "Best Overall Online Precious Metals Dealer" by Investopedia. A graduate of the University of Florida, Gleason is a seasoned business leader, investor, political strategist, and grassroots activist. Gleason has frequently appeared on national television networks such as CNN, FoxNews, and CNBC and in hundreds of publications such as the Wall Street Journal, TheStreet, and Seeking Alpha.
