I’ve just sent the following letter to all 10 of Missouri’s presidential Electors. Missouri is so deep, deep red that I doubt that I’ll convince anyone. But in my letter, I’m trying to appeal to the elector in any way I can. To stop Donald Trump from wrecking everything he and his cronies can, we need 37 electors—nationally—to switch their votes. So even one from Missouri could help. It may be a fool’s errand, a wild-goose chase, a hail Mary, or any other phrase you can use to describe a steep uphill climb like this one. But I would feel terrible if I hadn’t at least tried.
Here’s my letter. Feel free to excerpt, plagiarize or write something totally different. Just do it. Before Dec. 19.
I’m writing to you in hopes of convincing you that your vote in the Electoral College on Dec. 19 could play a role in protecting our democracy. As an engaged, knowledgeable citizen, you have probably already observed Donald Trump’s erratic behavior in the transition period before Inauguration Day. You may even be among the large percentage of American voters who–before the election– deemed Donald Trump to be temperamentally unfit to be President.
You already know that, in Missouri, you are not bound to vote for the candidate who won the state. And, although Donald Trump won Missouri’s popular vote, he did not gain the majority of popular votes nationwide. Many states have already passed a bill that would allocate their Electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote–if enough other states pass a similar bill. And while National Popular Vote has not yet been passed by enough states, there is clearly a movement in that direction. With that in mind, I would urge you to consider casting your Electoral vote for someone other than Mr. Trump.
Also, it seems to me–based on the appointments he has already made to his Cabinet–that despite his campaign promises to help lower-income people–Mr. Trump’s policies have the strong potential to hurt precisely those people whom he promised to help. In other words, he will be hurting Republicans as well as Democrats, and will end up alienating the very voters who expanded the reach of the Republican party during the 2016 election. Among those policies are the privatization of Medicare and the repeal of the Affordable Care Act–a move that would take away health insurance from 20 million people who previously lived with the precarious, dangerous status of not being insured.
You have in your power the ability to keep our country great by preventing an unqualified, temperamentally unfit man from taking the reins of power and leading us in an unpredictable direction.
I urge you to consider your Electoral vote very carefully, and put our country ahead of party loyalty. Your vote can make the difference. .